Whine & Cheese

Rafa and Me

It was extra special to watch this year's French Open on television this year.  Coming in and out of commercials, the networks usually show the sights of the city -- so it was fun to see a whole lot of things that we experienced in-person just a couple of weeks ago.

This morning it was a mix of excitement and frustration.  Usually the morning after they win a Grand Slam, the champ does a photo shoot with their trophy somewhere around the city.  This morning, I was greeted with pictures of Rafael Nadal on Pont Alexandre III -- a quite scenic (or should I say Seine-ic!?!) bridge that provides a wonderful backdrop (errrr, maybe forefront) with the Eiffel Tower.

I say frustration - because I am pretty darn certain I touched the same spot as Rafa's ass where Rafael Nadal posed for his pictures.  Here's a collage of the pix from today mixed with some of my own...

I should just look at it the opposite way... not missing Rafa's ass... but I guess, in a weird time continuum (where's time travel when you need it!), I was in the same spot as Rafa's ass...  sigh.

Waiting To Inhale

I hinted around it in my last post and certainly teased about it in my "tweets" from Amsterdam, so I guess it is finally time to share my coffeeshop experience in Amsterdam (I'll only implicate myself here!).

As you may know or as I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the things that Amsterdam is most known for is that "soft drugs" are legal.  Actually, it's a bit odd... from what I have heard/read it is legal to sell, carry (in limited amounts), and enjoy pot and hemp (there's a difference, I just am not cool/hip enough to know it)... but it's not "legal" to grow it... so go figure.  But as I said, in the last post... getting and enjoying it is as easy as walking into a Starbucks here in the States.

I will readily admit that one of the attractions of going to Amsterdam was to giving pot another try.  Thanks to a pothead roomie in my freshman year of undergrad, I had had some previous experiences with it... but not much, could count it on one hand.  The first time was as stereotypical as it gets -- the hacking, choking, coughing for about 5 minutes... and ultimately there was only one time I would say I ever experienced the full effect of it.  Funny enough, I smoked pot before I had ever smoked a regular cigarette... so I always wondered if the pot experience would have been better knowing how to smoke.  But I am getting ahead of myself...

... but anyhow, there was no doubt that I was going to give it a try while in Amsterdam.  On our way from the train station to our hotel, we passed many coffeeshops -- they were what you'd expect ... small, dark, dingy... many with that the reggae vibe... so not exactly what I would describe as "my scene"... the same thing ultimately had us not experiencing anything hands-on (so to speak) gay in Amsterdam as many of the bars/clubs (i.e. the previously pictured Cockring) leaned toward the leather scene... so again, not something for this quite "white" and somewhat geeky American.

So it was a good thing, that right across from our hotel was... please hold your laughter...  the Betty Boop Coffeeshop and Juice Bar (pictured above/left).  Not a deep, dark den of iniquity... the place did resemble more of an independent-ish coffee shop in the true "not sell pot" American way... with a nice cozy loft upstairs (note the red window in the picture) with sofa and chairs. 

Going in I just decided it was best to fess up and told the very approachable young woman behind the counter... "First time in Amsterdam, how does this all work?"  As we had heard, she quickly pulled out a menu -- listing items for purchase and their prices.  Many places have extensive menus, but here it was pretty simple... ready-to-go marijuana and hemp joints (either mixed with tobacco or 'straight up' - bulk discount available!), marijuana or hemp in bags to roll on your own or use in whatever device you want, and "space cakes."  I knew enough about the "cakes" (baked good items), since I had read they had delayed and long-lasting effect that were potentially undesirable. 

Again, I was very happy to be dealing with a woman -- the guys/dudes in other places seemed a bit more intimidating -- she went on to give a Smoking Pot 101 Course... how one should smoke a joint (much more slowly than a cigarette), to take breaks to let it kick in, and also to have sugar or other sweets handy... since it is one's blood sugar that drops when one starts to "crash."

Playing it conservatively, I ultimately opted for a ready-to-go mixed tobacco/marijuana joint... all yours for 3.50 Euros (so approximately $US 5)!   And it was none of of this tiny, pinch it between your fingers tightly rolled stuff... a big, fat joint that looked like a regular cigarette on steroids.  She also provided a little vial (I assume it has a name... but again geeky, white American here), that you could put your unused joint in to save for future use.  So I couldn't have asked for a better "intro" it.

Enjoyed the joint in the upstairs loft (though navigating the tight and high-pitched spiral staircase on the way down back down proved a bit of a challenge)... entertained by a... ready for this... a mother-daughter (and I'm guessing sister-aunt) sharing some hemp with their pipe!   Anyhow, got a good buzz off of it, but still wondered if I was "doing it right"... felt alright, but certainly wasn't staring off into space as some of the other customers or as giddy as these ladies.   At that point, I was thinking maybe there was something to Bill Clinton's famous quote about "not inhaling" (or perhaps more appropriately, not inhaling correctly).

To make this already long story somewhat shorter, I ended up stretching that joint over two more sessions and it certainly seemed things got stronger as the joint got smaller... and these other times, I did actually enjoy my "coffee" (wink, wink) with a coffee in the coffeeshop!

My experience didn't quite end there.  If you go into any shop selling the usual tourist stuff... t-shirts, trinkets, and yes, even wooden shoes... there is often a section of cannibas products... stuff like instant coffee or cocoa mixes w/ cannibas and many types of candy too (the cannibas gummie bears made me laugh out loud)!  So while I was off on my own one afternoon, I figured what the heck... along with bottle of soda and (I kid you not) a "sex shop" Christmas ornament... I threw in a cannibas lollipop (costing a Euro or two).  Got a bit of a buzz off of it (not sure how much of that was psychological), but it was a fun little item to try out... and much more easy on the throat too!

Definitely a fun little diversion/activity, ultimately it was an instance of the "anticipation event being greater than the event itself"... which is probably a good thing since it's not like you can experience something like that anywhere else other than in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam PG-13 Pix

All the Europe vacation pix are finally uploaded.  I finished Amsterdam earlier this week with a mere 37 Flickr pix (of about 130 taken).

Currently the Europe pix are about 40% of all my Flickr pix -- a total of 280 uploaded pix across the three cities, but keep in mind that I took 1,100 pix... so I was pretty picky about what made it to Flickr.

However, I faced a Flickr dilemma with some of my Amsterdam pix.  I share my Flickr pix with family and friends and some of the "businesses" I photographed I did not feel comfortable sharing with all audiences. 

Heck, just on our short walk from the train station to our hotel ... initially, I wasn't sure I felt terribly comfortable with Amsterdam.  While its uber-liberal/hippie vibe is the city's trademark, it is one thing to read about it in in guide books, but a whole other thing to see it in-person... the sex shops, coffeeshops (where on can purchase and indulge in marijuana and hemp), and head shops as ubiquitous as McDonalds or Starbucks here in the States.  My general open-minded attitude temporarily morphed into "quite uptight American," but thankfully that vanished once I got a feel for the labyrinthine city and the de-sensitization happened pretty quickly that we were soon embracing the free-spiritness that makes Amsterdam such a unique travel destination.

Good news for you, I feel comfortable sharing these pix with W&C readers!  So here is a collection of my Amsterdam pix that weren't "ready from prime-time" on my Flickr site:

Dubbed the "gay capital of Europe," Amsterdam is not terribly shy about the names of their gay bars or clubs.  While some of the gay bars we passed by were more reminiscent of an English pub, I had to take a pic of the name of bar/club in the top row... and I wasn't alone, that one seemed to be getting a lot of attention.

Also in the top row, is the something I dare say you wouldn't see in any city other the Amsterdam - a gay/lesbian information kiosk and shop on a street corner!   This was right next to the city's Homomonument, the first ever monument to honor gays murdered by the Nazis in WWII.   And this kiosk wasn't hidden away... we kinda just stumbled onto it as it is just around the corner from one of Amsterdam's biggest tourist sites, Anne Frank House (and the kiosk/shop was directly behind Westerkerk Church). 

These odd juxtapositions were everywhere in Amsterdam.  One particularly memorable experience was walking past Oude Kerk, a gothic church dating back to the 13th century, which is smack in the middle of the Red Light District.  You could admire the church and literally just have to turn your head to see folks enjoying some pot in a coffeeshop, a sex shop just down the street, and just around the corner, scantily dressed women dancing and touching themselves in street-level windows hoping to earn some money for the night.

Back to the pics above, just various sex shop signs... the middle-bottom pic is the Condomerie... yes, a store totally devoted to condoms (and some toys as well)!  The lower left was one of the first coffeeshops we encountered -- the pic might be a bit too small (the "Double Reggae" one) -- but we got a kick out of the tag line at the bottom... "Under 18 No Entre / And Don't F&ck Around."   This particular coffeeshop was one of the rare ones that serve alcohol... while you can purchase a coffee (tho for us Americans, it's more of an espresso) in most shops, the vast majority don't mix their pot/hemp with alcohol sales... but heck, if you're smoking who needs an alcoholic drink, right?!

Hope you enjoyed this other look at Amsterdam.  I was going to call it its "underbelly" ... but while it's certainly not a destination for everyone... for me there wasn't a tawdry or "dirty" feel to it... just everyday life in the city!

Paris Pix Uploaded

Apologies for the dearth of "real" blog entries of late.  Work has picked up (thankfully I was able to ease back into post-vacation), but otherwise my free/creative time has been devoted to getting the vacation pix up over on Flickr.

I am happy to report Paris are now done and up on Flickr!    

There are 134 picture in the Paris set ... now if that was a collective groan that I just heard, let me inform you that this is a mere 23% of all the photos I took in Paris (the most by far of any of our three destinations)... and yes, it is a miracle I still have a boyfriend.   

Granted many of them were immediate throw-aways... many, many (many!) night-time pix gone terribly awry... so there were large chunks that I didn't have to deal with... but still it was an awful lot especially coming up with the titles and descriptions on each photo.

I hope to get started on Amsterdam later today.  The good news there is that with no Eiffel or Big Ben-like icon to take a picture of from every conceivable angle there are less than 150 pix in total to go through... though I'm guessing you may never want to see another canal again after I get done with this set!

Once I get done with pix, it should be more of the usual W&C stuff... stay tuned!

Hotel Endorsements

As mentioned, I was very pleased with our Europe hotel choices.  We did a fair amount of research, but it is still pretty difficult to feel like you made a good choice when you are traveling to someplace you've never been before.   

We had a lot of lodging choices to choose from via the website we used to book the trip - European Destinations - which I would also very highly recommend -- not one issue with any of our plane, train, or hotel reservations -- and it was completely self-book, we never talked to a person during the entire process (loved that!).  To narrow our choices, we looked at their internal rankings (i.e. a hotel was ranked 40 of 378) and tried to find a good value price-wise.  We were basically looking for a place to sleep, so we looked for something in mid-price range.  The Trip Advisor website was also very helpful having those same type of rankings as well as people's reviews... keeping in mind that they'll always be a Mr./Ms. Crankypants who will say it was the worst place they ever stayed.

Here's a quick look, from left to right, of our London, Paris, and Amsterdam hotels... 

Holiday Inn Kensington Forum - I was kind of iffy going with a so blatantly American hotel chain for our first leg... but then again, it was nice to be going into some familiar territory for my first dip across the pond.  As you can see, it was a quite large high-rise hotel.  Todd warned me that European hotel rooms tend to be small... but I have to say I was still surprised with the "coziness" of our room.  It was kind of challenging to figure out where to put our suitcases ... and the both of us couldn't walk (or stand) side by side at any point in the room!   It was actually quite humorous... and again, we were looking for a place to sleep, so it wasn't an issue that the bed did take up about 70% of the room.

Of the three cities, this hotel was the furthest away from the action... as the name tells you in the Kensington neighborhood... so you didn't walk out the door get tha big "Ta-da!  I'm in London" moment.  But it was just a very short two-block walk to the Gloucester Road Underground station -- which was hooked up to 3 tube lines.  So getting pretty much anywhere was never an issue... and we were also able to take the Underground directly from Heathrow... so didn't have to fork over hefty cash for a cab or track down some sort of shuttle.  There were also a lot of restaurants in the area and the always handy local grocery.

Hotel Royal Magda - Our Paris hotel by far was the least corporate of the bunch ... a boutique hotel with only 37 rooms... it had this wonderful stone spiral staircase to get up to your rooms... thankfully we were only on the 2nd floor, but after a day of pounding the Paris pavement the short climb still provided an end of the day physical challenge!   They did have a "lift"... and it was quite funny... as pictured above, it fit just the two people... though with luggage we had to go up one at a time!   And wasn't I lucky to catch Roger Federer in the elevator even a week before the French Open!  Haha!

Again, the room was quite small... though slightly more floor space than London... and I could not hold out my arms at length in the bathroom.  But again, how much time do you really spend in your hotel room?!?  The big selling point again here was location, location, location -- two blocks from the Charles de Gaulle Etoile Metro station (connected to 6 lines!) at the Arc de Triomphe... so just a short walk to the famed Champs de Elysees as well.  Took us about a half-hour to walk to Trocadero/Eiffel Tower area... though a Metro ride will get you over to the same spot even quicker.

Golden Tulip - I was very disappointed when it got time to book our trip and our first choice Amsterdam hotel was no longer available.  So we had to do some scrambling to figure out an alternative.   Little did I know at the time what a "happy accident" this was -- the Golden Tulip was in a far, far better location than our first choice -- near lots of food, shopping, and tourist spots.  Granted we weren't on a canal... but it's not like you don't see enough of those after a couple of days... though we were a bit off a street too in a bit of a pedestrian-only plaza... and walkable to our arrival/departure point of Centraal Station.

Here the room size was finally something equivalent to what you would see here in the States... and our only hotel that provided free wireless Internet (we purchased a day's worth of wired in London and "borrowed" some free WiFi in Paris).

The Money Shot

Kind of torn between alienating boring you with more travel stories... and still kinda sorta getting back into the routine of normal life here... so don't have much for you today!

Slowly but surely, I am making progress in uploading the Europe vacation pix.  Still have a good chunk of  Paris pix left (when we up the Eiffel)... though I might be slowed down for the next few days with some semi-rush work that just came in... but still uploading in dribs and drabs.

Before the trip, I read up how to do some night photograph and was determined to get some good shots.  Without a tripod (which I may consider packing the next time around), it is a bit challenging... but fortunately I was able to find some places to rest my camera to prevent the dreaded camera shake that needs to be avoided at all cost due to the longer exposure time.

I just uploaded what I think is the "money shot" from the entire trip. 

I was very pleased with this one.

Random Europe Thoughts

I am having a difficult time organizing my thoughts about the Europe trip, so I just do a sort of stream of consciousness / random observation post for now about our experiences in London, Paris, and Amsterdam...

General Thoughts:  Pretty much needless to say, all three cities were very international... just like America, very much a melting pot.  Paris was the most nationalistic, despite varied ethnicities - everything and everyone seemed quite French ... were there was more a retention of cultures in the other cities. 

Language:  Obviously not an issue in London, but we ran into little or no problems in the other two cities... and Amsterdam was very much English speaking.  Though despite the reputation, we had little communication problems in Paris.  We would attempt what little "greeting" French we knew, only to have English be spoken back to us pretty much 95%+ of the time... and none of that rumored French uppity attitude either.  Very impressed with all the multi-lingual-ism... again particularly in Paris, but also in Amsterdam... while I don't think we we're ever greeted with Dutch, it was clear that most people were fluent in at least two languages.

Money:  As expected, the exchange rate pretty much sucked.  Going in we tried to avoid "doing the math," but it was hard not to think that the prices you were seeing were either 2x (British Pound) or 1.5x (Euro) of the U.S. dollar.  If the exchange ratio was 1-to-1, it wouldn't have really seemed all that bad.  What was hard to get used to was $-oriented coins... the $5 equivalent was the smallest paper bill so when you had a pocketful of coins it was often difficult and confusing to figure out what was what with $ and cent coins all mixed together.  But no problem for the locals.  I had an experience where a helpful cashier in Amsterdam was able to quickly pull coins out of my palm to figure it all out.

Tourist Scams:  We read about some tourist-directed scams prior to our trip, but came across a "new" one... but only experienced it in Paris.  The first one and the one we knew about occurred the moment we exited the train station in Paris.  The correct answer to the question "Do you speak English?" is "No"... though ironically, even in this white lie you are letting on that you understood the question.  What is going on here is if you say "yes," the person will hold up some sob story and try to get some sympathy money.  We also saw this around the Eiffel Tower.  Though we did feel guilty a time or two, when we did run into people who were we believe legitimately looking for English assistance.

The second one is the "gold ring" scam.  While on our way to the Louvre, I was taking pictures (shocker, huh?!) at the Place de la Concorde and saw Todd talking to a woman who "found" a gold ring on the ground.  Before it got too far into the conversation, another woman came up to Todd and this woman and started yelling at her "pickpocket, pickpocket!"... while a bit jarring at first, it was pretty nice of her, so we backed away quickly.  Funny enough (or not!), the same exact woman tried to pull it on me just an hour or so later at a different location on our way from the Louvre to Notre Dame.  We also observed this going on around the Eiffel Tower (both a woman and a younger boy).  We googled it last night... and while it is not a pickpocket/distraction scam per se... it is more an attempt to try to get $$ from you once you accept the ring.  Fortunately, we didn't see anyone falling for it... perhaps like us, people had experienced it multiple times... likewise, we questioned its effectiveness... we understand the distraction to pickpocket vs. just an attempt at begging or extortion.

Train Travel:  We thoroughly enjoyed our inter-Europe travel via high-speed train... what an extremely civilized way to travel vs. airlines!   We did first class upgrades for both our train trips, but unlike planes the extra cost is not an astronomical amount.  Roomy seating, attentive food and beverage service, not feeling like you are being herded like cattle or picked over by security... it was darn relaxing!  Plus nary a child/baby (obnoxious or not) in sight and much more scenic!   

Public Transportation:  While those who use it everyday probably view it as a necessary evil and annoyance (particularly when tourists are involved), we loved and heavily utilized the metro systems in both London and Paris (didn't use any in the very walkable Amsterdam).  While we still did an insane amount of walking each day (no wonder and overweight European city dweller is a rare sight!), but the trains were a very extremely effective way to get to all the major (and minor) points in the city... and relatively inexpensive using a 3-day pass (London) or bulk discount package (10 tickets for $1 Euro a ride in Paris).  While we particularly lucked into it, when making a hotel selection a nearby Metro stop should be a top consideration... and if you can find a multi-line station even better... we were two blocks away from one in both London (connected to 3 lines and got us directly in from Heathrow) and Paris (6 lines!) and it was wonderful!

Looking American:  Before our trip, in his international travel experiences Todd suggested I ditch the white sneakers in that it pretty much a red flag that you were American.   While I still went the sneaker route, I did find that two pairs of Skechers that gave the comfort of a sneaker but didn't look like it.  I was interested to see if he was right... and sure enough he was... while white sneaks were on locals, they were minimal and it was the Americans were predominantly wearing them.  Now, it is not like I was ashamed to be from America and we didn't run into any anti-American sentiment (though there were certainly lots of humorous anti-Bush paraphernalia in gift shops and the such), but it was nice to blend in and not be pegged as a foreigner, or more specifically an American, until I had to open up my mouth. 

Well, that's probably enough rambling for now... hope you enjoyed reading some of my initial thoughts, there will certainly be more tales from Europe coming up...

London Pix Uploaded

It took about 4-5 hours (or more!) and over two days, but all my London pix are uploaded to Flickr!

Well, not all of them... 109 of them... which I know sounds like an awful lot, but considering I whittled that down from 393 photos, I think I did a pretty good job!

Next, it's on to the Paris and Amsterdam pix... but since I am going to have to do some "real work" starting tomorrow, it might take a bit longer to get all those done.  But you can keep checking my progress here...

Here's a direct link to our London set of pictures.

I hope you like them!

Back Home

Howdy everyone!   We made it back home last night (after 23 hours!) and had a great time in Europe.  For my first trip to Europe, it was a great sampler of three of its finest cities - London, Paris, and Amsterdam - and I would certainly love to go back to each of them.

My new camera also got quite a work out!   Ended up just shy of filling up my 4 gig memory card and the final tally ended up being 1,100 photos!   Though there was a good deal of experimenting that included a few dozen photos that didn't quite turn out, so I'll be working on getting those up in Flickr over the next few days or so.

Here are the highlights of what we saw...

London:  Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Tower of London (just the outside), Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tralfagar Square, Picadilly Circus, London Eye, Parliament/Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Churchill Cabinet War Rooms.

Paris: Arc de Triomphe, Trocadero, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Place de le Concorde, Jardin de Tulleries, Louvre (just the outside), Notre Dame, Pantheon, Hotel des Invalides/Napolean's Tomb, Musee Rodin Garden.

Amsterdam: Dam Square, Anne Frankhuis, Hollandsche Schouwburg (Jewish Holocaust memorial), Red Light District.

... and lots more... interesting little streets, monument, statues... so will be touting the pictures as they get posted... stay tuned for a lot more!

Whine & Cheese On Vacation

I am pretty much is scurry around mode today, so I'll just make this the official "CYA!" post. 

Not sure if it's an omen or not, but have not readied anything to post blog-wise while I'm away... nor do I plan on blogging during our trip (tho depending on access, you may see something... but don't bet on it!)... so it will be a vacation for both myself and my readers... we'll see how much truth there is in that whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thingy.

But (you knew that was coming!), and again depending on access, I do plan on twittering / tweeting to let you know where we are or what we're doing.  I've expanded my twitter list from its normal 2 entries to 5, just in case there's some fast turnover.  If you feel like commenting on those, please feel free to do it on this post... always enjoy hearing from you!

Otherwise, W&C will be back to business after the Memorial Day weekend... and we'll have a lot of catching up to do with all the trip news as we'll having a new DWTS champ and American Idol!

Cheerio!  Au Revoir!  Vaarwel!