Got up yesterday and headed back to work after a nice & relaxing 8 week sabbatical. Fortunately, my peers kept the time honored tradition of messing with your cubicle before you get back alive…. Nice work with the 50+ balloons & plastic wrap around everything in my cube guys!!!
We made a good attempt this past weekend to head north to Lake Abiquiu and go boating on our friend Clint’s ski boat, along with Matt, Bri, and their daughter Ella. Unfortunately, Clint was the only one who got to enjoy a boat ride, even though it was only about 5 minutes of one. Soon after launching his boat he noticed a major overheating issue going on so we put it back on the trailer, only to realize that the impeller that’s used to draw water into the engine had disinegrated. Though we should consider ourselves fortunate, as there had been a tragic drowning just before we had gotten to the lake.
At this point, eventhough the temps were in the 90’s and the NM sun was still blazing, we decided to head to a remote camping site about 6 miles off the paved highway, right along the Chama River. Here are a few pictures…
Meant to post this sooner, but our friends Phil and Melissa finally tied the knot this past Sunday. Congratulations you two!! Before the big day, the guys got together on Friday for Phil’s bachelor party for one last wild night of strippers, meth, and a high speed police chase ending in a shoot out. Actually…. that didn’t happen, instead we played some golf and hung out at Matt’s place while the girls went out and had some fun amongst themselves in the big city. All in all, a great weekend.
(if anyone wants a picture taken off the blog or is interested in any other pics I took or a full size one that I posted, just let me know)
About 6 months ago, I bought a bicycle from some guy near UNM. You see I have a bunch of specialized bicycles (full suspension, front suspension, road bikes) that aren’t good bicycles to just ride around on because they have clipless pedals or are set up for specific types of riding. So I found a Raliegh mtb on craiglist.com for $65 and swapped out a few parts (tires, brakes, shifters, handlebars) and made myself a nice single speed townie bike that’s a lot of fun to ride around the neighborhood and over to the grocery store on. I also picked up a basket that mounts to the handlebars around this time, but the odd shaped On One Mary handlebars didn’t like the plastic mount it came with and it cracked. It’s taken me a while, but I finally designed and installed a way to mount the basket, via some hardware at Ace. You might be thinking “what kind of guy rides a bike with a basket?”, but I like it….
I did another ride w/ Seth this morning and even though I haven’t done many rides in the mornings while on sabbatical I will miss this when I’m back at work next week. We’ve been meeting up at 7:30-8am and putting in about 27 miles on the loop down the bosque trail and then back up through UNM. Usually takes about 1.5hr and I’ve been averaging 17-18mph for the rides. Nothing fast, but a good workout and a nice way to start the days before the heat (mid 90’s now) kicks in for the day.
Not sure what’s been wrong with me, but I haven’t felt quite right since we’ve got back from Europe (stomach issues). Well, I decided today to get off my lazy butt and go for a ride. Chose the King of the Mtn trail which is from the Sandia Ski lodge (~8678ft) to the top of Sandia Mtn (~10378ft). It’s about 7 or 8 miles I believe each way since the trail crosses the mtn and has dozens of switchbacks. I had some technical issues with the computer on my bike so I’m not certain exactly how far I rode. Anyhow, it was a super nice up there (about 70 degrees) and the only problems (about 10 of them) where some huge trees that came down in last week’s wind storm in ABQ. Took a PB&J and had lunch at the top and then rode back down. Here’s some pictures:
Kara and I had played w/ the idea of getting a dog for a while, but we weren’t sure if we were responsible enough yet to handle having something depend on us…. well, the first weekend we got back from Europe we were about to go to Whole Foods and get some groceries when we saw a mobile pet adoption van. We went over and there was the guy below in the window…
We named him Bailey. He’s about 11 months old, 40lbs, and a lab (perhaps chow) mix. He’s been pretty good, but has some major seperation anxiety whenever we go anywhere (he was in at least 1 other home which left him outside all the time). And I mean anywhere. He follows us all over the house and won’t eat or go to the bathroom w/o us. Beyond that he definitely needs some basic training, but overall, he’s a great natured dog and did I mention super soft? 🙂
And now on to the reason that finally drove me to create a Blog in the first place…. As many of you probably know by now, Kara and I went to Europe for 2 weeks to start off my sabbatical from work. It’s taken me about the last 4 weeks to sort through the ~1800 pictures we took and narrow them down to something that most of you will find entertaining enough to look though. After renaming all of them and resizing them so I could upload them to Photobucket.com (for the blog), I think I’m ready to share them with you.
You can log on and view ~230 pictures of our best pictures on Kodak’s Easyshare gallery, here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6ug9bek9.678s999t&x=1&y=45ydik.. I recommed this, as it seems a better way to just view the pictures, but I thought the blog would be better to tell the story of the trip. If you see a picture that you like and want a high resolution version, let me know and I’ll get you a copy.
Trip Overview: May 1-14, 2007. Itinerary: Switzerland- Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken, Geneva; Italy- Venice, Maranello, Florence, Rome. Here’s a map of our travels (click on map to view larger image).
Day 1/2:
On May 1, We flew out of Dallas into Zurich, Switzerland where we arrived at 8am on May 2. The ~11hr flight was long, but wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, with this being my first trip out of North America. Upon arrival, we took a train from the airport and began our trip to Interlaken, Switzerland.
We decided to grab a bite to eat so we got off the train and stayed a few hours in Lucerne, Switzerland. Finding something to eat in Lucerne was a little harder than we expected as just about everything was in German, but we definitely didn’t starve. (Kara copped out and ordered a mozzerella and tomaten sandwich. Chris got a schinken sandwich…. Schinken definitely isn’t chicken, but it wasn’t bad.) 🙂
After our brief stay in Lucerne, we jumped back on a train and headed to Interlaken. Here’s a few pics of the countryside.
Interlaken was very nice and scenic. The view below (not of the flowers) was what we had to look at from our hotel balcony.
Hotel Interlaken (Lindner Grand Hotel Beau Rivage): http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g188081-d290090-Reviews-Lindner_Grand_Hotel_Beau_Rivage-Interlaken_Bernese_Oberland_Swiss_Alps.html
Day 3: We took a train up the mountains from Interlaken up the Jungfrau- which is called the “Top of Europe”. It was a beautiful train ride to the top and a spectacular view of a glacier. There’s even an area in the mountain that’s an ice palace which is tunnels of solid ice (walls, ceiling, floor).
On the way back down the mountain, we got off at a small mountain town called Wengen and hiked down to another small town called Lauterbrunnen. This place made me really wish I had more time and my mountain bike. We got to walk through some of the most amazing countryside you could imagine complete with cows with bells and waterfalls off the mountain walls with even larger snow capped mtns in the background.
Day 4: After a little logistical issue (missing our train) we made it to Venice just an hour later than we were planning on after a 6 hr train ride. It was raining most of the train ride and when we first got to Venice, but we still had a great time in this surreal place. We almost dropped Venice from our itinerary, but I’m really glad we made the long trip here. It was amazing, though if global warming is real and the seas do rise, this place won’t be around or the same for much longer. I couldn’t believe how low all the buildings were to the sea level.
Venice Hotel (Antico Fiore): http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187870-d504386-Reviews-Locanda_Antico_Fiore-Venice_Veneto.html
Day 5: Against Kara’s better judgement, I rented a car in Venice. And almost against her will, I convinced her to take a small detour on our way to Florence to go to Maranello, which happens to be the birthplace of Ferrari and where’s there’s the Galleria Ferrari. The Galleria is a museum with about 30+ mint condition Ferraris on display from the early years of Ferrari (1940’s) up to a 2005 $1,000,000 Ferrari Enzo. I had a great time on this detour, though I’m not sure Kara was so enthusiastic, but she’s just lucky I didn’t force her to go anywhere else, as this area of Italy is known as Motor Valley because most of the famous motor companies (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati, Maserati, etc) are located in about a 15 mile radius.
After some difficulties with Italian (especially the Italian pay phones) and some missing street signs in Florence, we found our hotel and spent the next 3 days discovering Florence and the Tuscany region.
Florence Hotel (Casci): http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187895-d195703-Reviews-Hotel_Casci-Florence_Tuscany.html
Day 6, 7, & 8: Florence was packed with sculptures and art, none more famous than Michelangelo’s David which was impressive to say the least. We toured the Galleria dell’ Accademia (where David is) and the Uffizi museums and the Duomo (a very large church) while in Florence, among shopping and just walking around the city. The David below is a replica of the one in the museum, but they wouldn’t let us take pictures in there.
On Day 7, we drove the rental car through Tuscany and had one of the best days on our trip. Tuscany was filled with vineyards, rolling hills, and lots of small medieval towns. We stopped at a random hillside restaurant and had what was one of the best meals of our trip. We stayed here for about 3 hours just enjoying the Tuscany sun which was a nice change from the cold, rainy weather that we had for the previous 2 days.
On day 8, after spending the morning in Florence, we drove to Rome. I was completely humbled by the experience of driving in Florence (where most streets weren’t well marked) and Rome because in both places there’s no lanes marked and everyone races from signal or traffic circle to the next signal or traffic circle which consists of about 30 cars and another 30 mopeds/motorcycles in a space that would be filled by about 15 cars in the US. The guidebook that we had for Rome stated the following “Getting Around: By Car: Don’t drive in the center of Rome. Period.” That was some good advice that I should have listened to, had I read that ahead of time, and before making the reservations to drop the car off at the Rome Termini (central train station) during rush hour. Long story short, it took us 4 hrs and a few years off of my life to turn in the rental car in Rome at 10pm. 🙂 Quote of the day: Kara to Chris: “I told you so.”
Fortunately, day 9 was much better, as Rome was amazing. We spent the first day touring ancient Rome. The history and the details in the construction methods which date back 2000+ yrs were overwhelming. You could almost feel the history in this city. Not to mention that Rome is a huge modern city as well. We definitely wished we had more time here and would definitley like to go back though we packed 3-4 days into the 2 full days we had here.
Rome Hotel (Apollo): http://rome-hotels.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187791-d240831-Reviews-Apollo_Hotel-Rome_Lazio.html
We spent most of day 10 at the Vatican. We went to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel which were both overwhelming, so much so that words really can’t begin to describe these places. The magnitude and vast amount of art contained here was well beyond my expectations. Quote of the day: Chris to Kara: “Do your legs feel like they weigh 1000 lbs?” Random Stranger to Chris: “YES!!!”
On day 11, we flew to Geneva, Switzerland to visit with Kara’s friend / college roommate Jeese who’s been working/living in Geneva for the last year and a half. Two other friends of Kara’s (Alex and Heena) were also there visiting as well. Jesse rented a car so we could check out the Geneva Ouvertes Caves, which is a local wine festival celebrating the opening of the local wine cellars. After this, we spent most of the afternoon, driving into France and up the Saleve (mountain) to enjoy some great views of Geneva.
On day 12, we rode in a panoramic train car across Switzerland to view the Swiss Alps from Geneva to Zurich, where we spent the night before flying back to the states. The views on the train were fantastic though we were so tired by this point, that Kara had to fight not falling asleep. 🙂 We spent the evening walking around Zurich, but not until we experienced our very first Swiss riot. We got off the train in Zurich and there was a group of ~200+ young men chanting something German. We thought they might be celebrating the victory of their soccer team, but shortly thereafter, the riot police showed up with their tear gas guns about 10 feet in front of us and they scattered…. Needless to say, we didn’t get any pictures of that. 🙂
Zurich Hotel (Fly Away): http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g198838-d266699-Reviews-Fly_Away-Kloten.html
Overall, the trip was fantastic and exceeded my expectations. I’d definitely like to do more traveling overseas now. Can’t wait until the next trip!!
Ah, my first Blog post ever. I had a little website back in the good old days of AOL in the late 90’s, but apparently everyone is Blogging now so I’m going to give it a try and see if I can post enough to make things interesting.
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