Wrap-up of Europe trip (and deleted scenes!)
My European odyssey has come to an end. What an amazing trip! Thought I'd catch-up on a few random tidbits from the voyage.
When I was visiting a small town in The Netherlands, they had this thing called a "treintaxi." Basically it let you use a taxi to anywhere in the town for a flat, reasonable price, as long as you were traveling to or from the train station. You buy a ticket from the public transport company and show it to the taxi driver. Pretty neat.
I had a semester of German in college, and I studied a bit before my trip. So it wasn't difficult to get around Germany. By contrast, I don't know any Dutch; I really had no idea what people were saying at all whilst in The Netherlands.
The train system is amazing. The fastest train I rode was traveling at about 299km/h, or about 185mph. (There are even faster trains than that.) I can't wait for the (theoretical) high-speed train system to be built in California.
I thought I'd be staying in hostels while traveling, but I ended-up staying in hotels for most of the trip. Here's the thing about hostels... they're cheap if you share a bedroom with others. If you want your own bedroom, they end-up being like $50 a night, even if you share a bathroom. But with sites like Hotwire and Priceline's "name your own price," I was able to find 3 and 4 star hotels for just a few bucks more.
The exception for this trip was Basel, Switzerland. Hotels were expensive, and Hotwire doesn't serve the city. I found a shared apartment for relatively cheap. It was a good-sized apartment with three private (and lockable) bedrooms; you share the kitchen, bathroom and living room with others. It had a great view of the Rheine River. And gnats. Well maybe they weren't gnats. But they were nasty, and there were lots of them.
The weather was amazingly cooperative for my trip. With the exception of some rain at Neuschwanstein, I had absolutely no complaints!
Speaking of which, I put together a little video of my road trip to Neuschwanstein Castle and the Alpine Coaster. Did you see it? Check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/p86fu3
Apparently there's some kind of legal issue where they can't call it "Gmail" in Germany. They have to call it "Google Mail."
Note to self: it's not possible for me to put my head down on the pillow for "just a few minutes." I just zonk.
There are a lot of destinations that I didn't get to see. There just wasn't enough time, or logistics made it difficult. I'll most certainly be back.
Munich was my favorite city, followed closely by Berlin and Amsterdam.
Summer nights make me happy.
I've uploaded some "deleted scenes." Check 'em out here, if you're interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sluggobear/archives/date-posted/2009/09/11/
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