Thanksgiving in Munich....ehhhh.....

So what to do on the traditional turkey day when the family is 6000 miles away and I want my turkey. To start, I looked up places in Munich that were serving thanksgiving meals. Sure enough, I found at least 3 of them. The catch was that most wanted a reservation made, possibly paid beforehand, and the price was anywhere from 31-40 Euro. That's about 50-60 US Dollars if you pay attention to how weak our money is over here.

I soon forgo any other attempts at getting my 'authentic' expensive thanksgiving meal. I do want turkey, and Ethan from work, another American, is down to find some with me. We end up going to Berg Poppenheim, a little German place near my apartment. We ordered puten schnitzel and pommes, translation, pounded and battered turkey, with french fries. Top that off with some salad, 4 beers, and call it a night. It was a hearty meal, and I remember wanting a nap afterwards, so it was just like a normal Thanksgiving.

Looking forward to Mom's home cookin back in Phoenix. Christmas is right around the corner people, and I'm almost home.

parker

One my way to Rally Ireland...Nov 16-18

Ireland...where do I even begin with this one. I am an adventurer (is that even a word), and I can take on anything. Since everyone I am willing to travel with in Munich was busy, I decided to hit Ireland on my own. First night Dublin on Friday, see the rally race on Saturday, head up to Belfast saturday night, then back to Dublin to fly out on Sunday. Simple enough.

I arrive in Dublin at around 930pm. I head to Hertz to pick up my rental car and get a Peugot 207...basically a base model hyundai elantra or something comparable. They talk me into the GPS unit and the extra insurance, thinking I might need it seeing how I'm in Ireland, by myself, driving on the left side of the road, something is bound to go slightly awry. It didn't really dawn on me that driving on the right side of the car, in the left lane, would be so difficult. Pedals are the same, it's a 5 speed manual, and the shift gate is in the same location, 1st gear to reverse. Except I have to use my left hand to shift, right to drive, and and the A pillar is located 1 foot from my right eye, not my left.

Getting on the road was....scary. I still wasn't used to driving like this, now I had to get on the major motorway and get to my hotel, at around 1030pm. I notice a toll road up ahead, so I exit and hit my first roundabout of 100 or so in this weekend alone. The non toll road took me through the downtown city streets of Dublin, full of pubs, restaurants, and shops. Nothing too exciting, plus I was so focused on driving I couldn't think of anything else. The roads were 4 lanes wide, going down to 1 for my side at the drop of a dime, forcing my to merge in front of or behind buses who were not staying within the lines. It's a freeforall...and the traffic lights are not on the opposite side of the street, they are on your corner, forcing you to lean forward to see when the light will turn green. And it goes from red to yellow to green...kind of like the start of a race. i assume this is to give this manual cars time to shift to first, then take off. Then the light goes from green to red, with no yellow warning. Odd.

I arrive at my hostel, I survived the first trip, only to pull into a parking spot on the left side of the road and scrape the hubcaps past the paint down to the plastic because I thought I had to get over more in the lane. My mind still thinks I'm on the left side of the car. I put my things in the Dublin Youth Hostel, where I am staying with 5 other random people. No one else is there, I assume they are out drinking and will have to deal with them at 4 in the morning drunk off their asses. I proceed to walk around Dublins pub streets, an area called Temple. It's full of street carnies, drunken Irish dudes like frat boys, and girls puking in the alleys next to the bars. It's packed, and suddenly I lose all desire to attempt to go into a bar to get 'a' beer.



I spent the next 90 minutes walking around the streets, and then away from the Temple area to some landmarks on my tourist map. It's all near my hostel, so I feel relatively safe. The taxis are driving drunk guys and girls around, some of them hanging out the window, and when one taxi drops off some girls he pulls a U, almost burning out, then speeds off, and the girls just laugh and comment on how cool the taxi driver was. Everyone gets into the spirit. I get a Guinness beer and return to the hostel to plan my driving to Enniskillin for the WRC rally race, Rally Ireland.




Up by 8 to leave the hostel, downstairs for breakfast at 830. Turns out Ireland is one hour back, so it's only 730. yay....this is now officially the earliest I've been up on a saturday. My GPS leads me out of town, and I begin a mix of freeways and two lane roads to the west side of Northern Ireland. The rain has started but it's light, although the forcast calls for heavy rains starting on the west and heading east all day. The weather report in Ireland is downright depressing, and should be abolished. We all know whats coming.

I get to Enniskillin and head to an area where stage 13, where I might be able to catch the tail end of the race. I start walking up the road, and begin to see a stream of people heading the other way. I give up hope and return to my car. There are 3 more stages to go in the day, I thought I'd see all three, but quickly realized with the traffic and rain it was better to find one and wait it out, making sure I saw something, anything. Stage 15, Ballinamallard 2 starts at 250pm....it's only 1130. Sigh..... I drive there, it's only about 5 miles, but takes 30 minutes with traffic. This is also the point when my GPS starts refusing to work. Regardless, I get there, and realize waiting is my best option. People are in there cars waiting, lining a lonely 2 lane country road that is the only entrance to the spectator zone. I see that waiting is normal, and these people probably have done this since 6am and maybe only saw one other stage.


I walk the mile or so to the viewing area. The ground is covered in mud mixed with patches of thick grass, and there is 2 day rain soaked cow manure everywhere. Tennis shoes are not welcome here. I find an area I think will be good, reluctantly, because I always think there is someplace better to be standing, but the roads quickly get blocked off the closer it gets to race time. I'm standing there surrounded by Irish people, listening to their conversations, and realize I can't understand 90% of what they are saying. I'm even trying to read lips and its like a foreign language to me. I understood more German than Irish at this point. Some kids are running and sliding butt first then belly first down a mud covered hill, into puddles of water at the bottom for fun. Then I notice one guy in front of me is missing most of his top row of teeth when he smiles. The 'teeth' are black and short, almost looking like titanium inserts, but I realize this monetary installation of such teeth are probably not a hot commodity in Ireland, and realize his teeth are just so deteriorated they are almost black. Wow. I love paying for health care and dentistry in America, I actually use it.


The rain has stopped and the cars start coming. They release a car every two minutes, but we are near the stage end so they could be 30 seconds apart or 4 minutes. You only get a 6 second warning when the car comes, you hear the sound and then it's there in front of you, ripping around the track doing around 96 mph on the second straight I was told. The road is paved but covered in mud from the rain, we are surrounded by green fields and tractors, if you can imagine the area in which this is taking place. Think Barstow, Buttonwillow, Napa Valley, Flagstaff if you will, maybe even Buckeye. The sounds are amazing, most cars growling hard as they rip around corners on the brink of flying off the road in to a crowd of 500 spectators (i've seen some nasty rally vids in my day, thanks Steve Winters).



There are about 90 cars or so, the first 40 being the faster group. I think I got a picture of Sebastien Loeb, but most pics were blurry from being too close to the action. I leave you with some photos and videos of the race...here....








There was almost one major accident, a car came around the first corner and lost control. As he's sliding left to right, the crowd in front of me screams and most run from the fence for their lives. Just then the driver corrects and keeps on going in his furious pace to the finish, just 1 kilometer ahead.



I left around 4pm or so, thinking I might be able to still hit my extended route to Belfast, which will take me through Tyrone county and Laim, two places where my ancestors came from. My GPS is still on the fritz, it's raining, getting dark, so I decide the straight route to Belfast is safer. I get almost 3/4 of the way there, 2 hours of driving, and my exit to Belfast is blocked by construction. I try to take the detour, but this proves uneventful, make my exit and try to take surface streets to find my way back to the motorway. This is where I get into a 45 minute or so excursion through the Blair Witch part of Belfast. My GPS is broke, it's dark, and the roads are getting shittier and shittier. 2, 3, 4 wrong turns, I'm freaking out. It's pouring rain. I figure I need to backtrack..then the GPS kicks on. It guides me on a new road, I follow, then it goes blank again. F**k. Finally I see a semi truck and follow it for 20 minutes, and I am led to the motorway entrance with signs to Belfast via the roundabout.



The one bar I went to in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Belfast is also under construction. All my roads into the city are a maze of lighted signs and cones, potholes and one lane narrow death traps for a foreigner who likes driving with the steering wheel on the left. People are just not meant to drive on the right of a car, just look at Ireland death rate from crashes. It takes me over 90 minutes again in Belfast to find the hostel. Should have been 5 minutes. I had a detour to the airport and then a gas station for directions. My shitty google map print out with no street names was useless in the mouse trap. When I do arrive they have parking in the back for my car, no on the street thank God, and I meet a nice couple in the room who are travelling Europe and Afrika for 4 1/2 months, nonstop. And I thought I was a traveller. I find one local bar showing the Ireland vs Scotland Football game and watch that, drinking my Harp beer then a KilKenney. I soon realize how alone I am on the desolate island with no one to talk to, and realize the bar is not really welcoming me. I'm not locked arm in arm with my Irish brethren singing Irish drinking songs talking of good ole days in the country, so I return to the hostel to rest up and drive to Dublin in the morning.


The car goes straight, but the wheel is not. Hmmm....and notice the "Drive on Left" warning sticker in the window...



Get in the car still no GPS. I hit about 30 more roundabouts on my way to Dublin. There is a sign that states how many people have died on the M1 in 2007 alone, about 283 people. The Irish are known for thinking they are good drivers, and in reality are very bad, hence the high number on this stretch of road alone. Again, lets all drive on the right people, this is how humans should do this! I figure I haven't seen too many Ireland landmarks, and find a place called Bellingham Castle on my GPS when it kicks in. It's only 4 kilometers off the highway, so I bite. It's a small castle wall that is hiding a hotel resort behind it. This is not Neuschwanstein, Salzberg Fortress, or the Prague Castle, it's like a country club. A-holes. Back to the freeway. I make it to Dublin with 3 hours to spare, hoping to head to town and get some good Irish food, whatever that may be. I find Clancy's on the Magellan GPS, head there, it's inside a hotel near the airport. Next. Back down the main street I went on when I first got here. Everything is closed, just like Germ Town on Sundays. I find a shopping area with a lot of people, and think 'this place has to have food'! After 30 minutes of searching for parking, I gave up and returned to the airport to hand in my car, complain about the GPS, and go eat an airport sandwich specialty.


This trip was not like I imagined it would be, though I did everything I set out to do. I saw the race, that was priority number 1. After that, I saw Dublin and Belfast. You need 1 to 5 other people in your group to really make a go at the city, so maybe next time I can enjoy the bars and drinking like the Irishman I know I really am. She's a beautiful country she is, black teeth and all.

Parker

Ok this is too good...

I had to post this on here, this is too awesome to pass up. Maybe I'm feeling a little upset I didn't dress up for Halloween, maybe this costume is over the top, either way it's the sweetest costume of 2007. Check it...



parker

Walk or Run?

Okay maybe this video wont be funny to you but I thought it was hilarious. They try to see if the worlds fastest speed walker would run or walk if he was chased by sword yielding samurai. Enjoy.


Would He Run? - Watch more free videos

parker

All about baguettes and crêpes...

Start of the trip to Paris....trains are on strike again. This time luckily it didn't stop Reijo and I from getting on our train to the airport. When they called our flight, we waited til everyone else ran to the gate to board...laughing at how Reijo said we should wait til they call our names on the intercom. We got up, and right then they announced our names. We are either jackasses or movie stars, I can't tell.


So the first thing we hit, the Eiffel tower. The start of about 50 photos of it begins on my camera from this point. We had a few hours to kill before Clement gets off work....so this is where we started. There were quite a few tourists around, you can just tell from the look and the clicking of a thousand cameras. The Eiffel tower is much bigger than I imagined...not like I spent a lot of time studying it before I went there though. We crossed over a river where just before is an underpass. It looks just like the one Princess Diana drove under before she was killed, kind of a weird moment being there. Turned out it wasn't the actual one, but in my mind it looked like all the pictures I have seen. As we got under the tower, the view around was amazing. Tons of people getting tickets to go up, eating food from the little stands around the tower, and pigeons swooping by your head at mach 3.




We left the tower and walked for a bit more, wanting some food to snack on. I found a place that sold crêpes...so we dug in. I got Nutella and bananas....if you've never had a crêpes, go for this and you will be satisfied. We got a call from Clement, so we made our way back to the train station and headed for his place.

We spent the next 5 hours or so 'prepartying' at his flat. It's on the fifth floor of a thirteen floor apartment building. From the balcony you can see the Eiffel tower, especially at night. Oh, and the weather, it was grey, cloudy, and cold the entire time. I only saw son once I got back on the plane to return to Munich. We headed downstairs to the market by his place to get drinks. He had asked the security guard to show him where some limes were, and he proceeded to get into some conversation with Clement I can only describe as awkward if you don't know French. Towards the end, he was motioning something on his crotch and laughing. Reijo and I just looked confused...but he was basically telling Clement how he snuck weed in his pants from Amsterdam by putting it near his crotch so the dogs couldn't sniff it. Genius.

We get back to his flat and watched English MTV, YouTube videos of a guy named 'Bling Bling' (a crackhead that raps), and saw about 20 videos of Clements crazy roomate from San Diego when he lived there. His friend Sidi also showed up to join in for the night. We get on the train around 1245 because 'that's when the party starts in Paris' as Clement put it. I remember one stop we came to, about 3 or 4 cops were frantically looking in the trains for somebody. One guy stepped out and they grabbed him and put him against the wall and started searching him like crazy. From what I could tell they didn't say much and grabbed every pocket and opened every pouch in his bag. But soon after we made our exit and headed for the boat party where we could get in and get a bottle of champagne and vodka for 25 Euro a piece. Well, the rest of Paris beat us to it, because when we got there the line was rediculous. We decided to leave and try somewhere else, rather than wait for the next 2 hours to get in.



From this point on, long story short, we waited for a taxi for 90 minutes, then f0und our next bar, then were denied access because we 'didn't have enough girls'. Then we got denied again for the same reason. Then we stopped and at Donor Kebab with fries in it which was fantastic, then we waited for another taxi for 30 minutes...then we walked home. The night was a bust, we were tired, cranky, and had lost our steam.

Woke up at 1pm the next day. The three of us headed to the Notre Dame cathedral. Beautiful to say the least. We walked inside and spent a few minutes there. It was huge inside, I could easily tell this because of all the people inside and out...and it's a huge Paris attraction so it'd have to be pretty big. We skipped the view from the top because they wanted 9 Euro ($15) and the line was a bit long. Refer to google images for reference if you must see it.




Next we hit Clement's school, Creopole. He also studied car design, like myself, and now works at the same company, RTT. This is how I met him in Munich while he was training there. The school was small but had a few really cool works of art. It was also on one of the busiest streets in Paris, so busy you almost get frustrating navigating past the hoards of people.



On to the Louvre. We approach it on the east side, and it appears to go for at least half a mile. We enter from the street and soon we are inside the courtyard and I am staring at the Louvre Pyramid and the Arc de Triomphe from a middle point in between them. We head down into the pyramid to see the gallery that houses the Mona Lisa, Venus statue, and probably a thousand other amazing things I don't have enough time to mention. They close in 30 minutes, and actually Clement and Reijo bought the last tickets before his maching shut down, leaving me with no ticket but free entrance, sweet. We make a B line down the huge long corridor full of artwork for the Mona Lisa. It in a room off to the side about half way down. It's located on it's own wall in the middle of the room, and you can't get any closer than about 10 feet to it. I didn't really get to spend any time looking at it, to see if it could capture me in any way, but generally this is how these trips go. So much to see, so little time. Why is this painting so famous? Who know, but I saw it. Mark that off the list.








This painting was behind it....don't know who painted it but by the looks of the little old lady in front of it, it's huge.

And in honor of the popularity of rollerblading in Europe...I took this video outside the Louvre...



We head back to another Museum called the BeuxBourg(sp?) museum where I was told they might have some cool stuff. Reijo got talked into getting his caricature painted be some guy, so we stopped to watch a crappy drawing get made. Another guy asked me if he could draw me, I declined. But he kept persisting I got a little bothered and told him I just wanted to watch my friend. He then asked me if I was American, and proceeds to say "oh yeah, Americans, they never pay for paintings". I called him a jackass and started mocking his words back to him, so pissed off but we had to stay while Reijo got his portrait done. He soon walked away to go bother someone else, we saw Reijo's caricature, and quickly left. Picture Venice beach in Paris, this was the place. Gypsies, hippies, artists, and street performers. We finish the Paris tour by seeing the Obelisk in Bastille, and head back to Clements to get ready.



We arrive back by the Eiffel tower around 915 or so. We had to find a boat that had our party on it for the night. Well, it took about 45 minutes and 2 miles or so of walking back and forth before we found it, the 'River's King'. On the way I almost got attacked by a dog, and then as I ran past a security guard jumped out of his office and spoke something urgently to me in French. I was running to catch up with Reijo and Clement, so I looked guilty of something. I responded with "Sprechen sie English?". I just asked a French guy if he spoke English in German. He looked more confused than me, so he turned and I started walking.

Boat was awesome, we went down the Seine River past the Eiffel Tower, which is illuminated at night and has two spotlights that circle it at the top. People yelled everytime we went under a bridge and we got to see some beautiful sights in the brisk Paris wind. We docked back just after midnight where they let more people on for the rest of the night. We hung out for awhile, Clement kept saying he needed to rest, and soon fell asleep, where I got this picture....




But sure enough just like he said, by 1245 he was up and dancing, ready to party. We were on the dance floor and some girl came over and tried to put Clements collar down, so we ended up talking to her and her friend for awhile. People know maybe half the English the Germans know in Paris, so conversation was to a minimum with people for Reijo and I. We left around 3 to get coffee with the girls, and then headed home. I played a pretty good wingman than night, just ask Clement.

I hit the airport Sunday morning after maybe 4 hours of sleep on an air mattress. At the gate they had some game stations like you see in Walmart or Target that had two controllers sticking out of it. An older guy of about 65 went up to it and grabbed them both, one in each hand, and stared curiously at the TV for 5 minutes while the game did nothing. He just couldn't unlock the secret of the video game. I found it quite amusing, although I'm sure it pissed him off all the same.

If anybody reads these things, congratulations, you just made it through another adventure of Parker in Europe. Join us next week when we attempt to have a quiet evening in Munich, eat some more meat and potatoes, and inhale second hand smoke in everywhere you can imagine. Tschuss!

parker