Europe - July, 1996

7/18 - Thursday

It's been a grand day in Ireland...warm, sunny, topped off with a glorious sunset. Had a nice drive after work on some secondary roads into the countryside. Nice dinner with some excellent local ale.

Things are a bit unsettled about my next stop...was supposed to go to N. Ireland on Monday & planned to spend the weekend driving there from here (I'm in the SE). Not sure my site contacts are going to be there to work with me, so may have a slight variation in the itinerary. But I'll be driving around the island for the weekend anyway. After I send this tomorrow, not sure how soon I will be able to plug in again. Plan on staying at some B&Bs which may not have the right phone connections. Anyway...I'll drop another line when I can.

7/19 - Friday

Another grand day. Finished up at the Ireland plant; the work has gone well. All primary objectives on track so far. Canceled the stop in N Ireland due to scheduling problems with my contacts there. So I guess I will just spend Monday touring in Ireland & will fly out of Dublin instead of Belfast. Just as well with the ruckus up there recently. Besides, being a gypsy in Ireland ain't bad!

Spending the nite at a nice hotel in Kinsale which is a postcard perfect sea town south of Cork on the southern coast. Wandered around the old part of Kinsale tonight first looking for a place to eat, then for a pub with some nice live music. Unfortunately there are a lot of nite club wannabees on the loose. Before I found what I was looking for I heard a really bad Sinatra reprise, then a trio trying to resurrect old Beegees (pre disco), etc, etc. Finally found something close, a guy & gal duo who mixed in some traditional Irish with some pop more to my liking. Had a Murphy's stout (excellent!) & sang along for a while. There were lots of locals present (some even bring their young kids); maybe all the other tourists were off with the rejects. After things warmed up a little, it got real interactive & some of the drunks started leading the band. They would start singing the next piece before the band could decide what they would do next, then the band would pick it up. It was a lot of fun. They were doing songs like Help! & others. They did the one about Alice moving away...remember the refrain "For 24 years I've been living next door to Alice." Then the band would stop and everyone would yell "Alice? Who the $%@$#@&! is Alice?!" Great stuff!

Well on around the southwest tomorrow, maybe as far as Galway. I love Ireland!

7/21 - Weekend

Ended up in Dublin. Took me all day Saturday to drive from Kinsale to Dingle. Fabulous drive, but don't try it if you're in a hurry. Decided not to get too ambitious today, so came on over to Dublin & checked in a hotel. I'll tour the city some tomorrow & then on to the continent. So far Dublin is a marked contrast to everything else: big dirty European capital, although it has some redeeming features.

Picked up several hitch hikers last couple days. Nice to have people to talk to & you learn more about the area too. Several Irish locals, a guy from New Zealand, a couple from Holland now living in Antwerp, couple of quiet Polish guys.

Fun last night at Murphy's pub in Dingle. Traditional Irish band except they were electrified & *extremely* loud. My ears rang all night. They really had the place jumping. Got a real sense of what it is to be Irish. There was a certain fierce pride evident and the whole thing was like a celebration of being Irish. But don't get the wrong idea, they are also peace loving and appalled by what goes on up North. My friend John Murphy says if you go up there, just avoid politics; they are crazy & you never know who you are talking to.

Rained much of today after 7 glorious days of sun.

Do you know there are palm trees in some parts of western Ireland & a lot of the wild roadside hedges are fuscias! Very near the Gulf Stream.

Maybe I'll be able to plug in toomorrow night & send this off. No luck here.

7/24 - Week 2...

Bon jour,

Time to catch up a bit from Paris...actually Boulogne, just outside Paris, on the west...right where the last loop of the Seine heads off to the north, at the Pont du Saint Cloud & just down the street from Rolland Garros (French Open for you non-tennis weenies). Pleasant evening in France... walked down the street & out on the pont to check out the river, then had an omelette at a local brasserie. Will probably go into the city center tomorrow night, but it was a bit late after the taxi ride to the hotel, etc. Noticed a sticker on the cab that the driver belongs to something like the Societe du Artiste du Taxi...fancy name for a cabbie!

Not much to say about Amsterdam...my hotel was right down in the old part of town, 2 blocks from the main plaza, known as the Dam (not to be confused with dike!), & 2 blocks the other way from the red light district. So I kind of enjoyed being able to hang out at the Dam, have a beer & watch people. You should have seen this flaming swish... About 6'2" with 4" heels & he walked like a model prancing down a Paris fashion show runway! Played tennis last night on clay. Kind of different. Was good to get in some exercise. The rain that started in Ireland Sunday arrived in Holland yesterday & threatened France today.

Monday I took a double decker bus tour of Dublin. Interesting...now I know what Georgian architecture is...but the doors are pretty. It started to rain about half way thru the tour, so I put up my umbrella & kind of peered around as we cruised the city. When it started to pour I gave up & went to the lower seats. The other thing I noticed was that every other statue in the city is for another dude that was hung, shot, beheaded, or otherwise done in by the Brits during one or another rebellion. An interesting comment from my friend John Murphy when he saw my map of the British Isles (including Ireland)... "Not exactly politically correct."... as in "Don't call me British!" Can't say I blame them. Study your Irish history & you will appreciate what assholes the Brits were for so long. One of the main reasons for the million deaths during the potato famine was that the British governer said "Let them starve" & cut off all relief!

My project continues to go pretty well...Today was hump day for the whole trip...but the best & worst are yet to come. Definately going to head for Prague Friday night for the weekend (Keep hearing great things...), then next week I have 5 cities to visit in 5 days, 3 countries, 4 hotels... whew! I will be ready for the week off!

7/26 - Post Paris...

Guten tag...

I guess that's how you spell it. Well, I'm not going to Prague after all. Hertz said "Not with my car!" Apparently they have a lot of thefts in the former Eastern Block countries. So I'm in Salzburg & it's really cool. Lots of 16th & 17th century character after you finally find the old city. There were no Centrum or Zentrum signs here like there are in most European countries, that guide you right to the heart of the city. Salzburg reeks of Mozart! Think I'm going to stay 2 nights & have a good look around instead of heading off to Vienna (spelled Wien here). I wouldn't have time to appreciate either one if I did that, & besides, I need to rest up a little.

Have a new friend in Paris...Gregoire (Greg) drove us all around Paris last night in typical Paris driving fashion...a lot like an amusement park ride! We had a nice dinner at a little spot my friend Dan frequents. The proprietor provided non-stop entertainment with his frenetic operation. To make room for us he started playing musical tables with a bunch of people already eating. He would grab their plates & glasses, move them over to the next table, then grab their chair & drag them to the next table too...literally, with the person still in the chair. The whole place busted up laughing. Then Greg drove all around Paris pointing out sights. We ended up at the Ritz Hotel & Dan decided he wanted to go in the Hemmingway Bar & have a drink. I guess Papa actually hung out there, along with some of the other literati. Now it is kind of a place to go & be pretentious. But it was kind of a gas too...very intimate: 5 tables total & 4 stools at the bar. Dan paid for the drinks (I had champagne) & said don't ask before we could ask the price. Must have been about 200 Francs.

Had a local beer with dinner tonight...Pilzner style (like Budweizer, ie, not an ale), kind of cloudy with a definate hint of some kind of spice. I liked it.

I left my phone connector at the hotel in Amsterdam, so can only send mail from one of our offices (via network), so you probably won't get this until next week. But I like writing these notes every day or so, even if they don't always get there right away. Kind of helps me put things in some perspective & I like having a record too. Maybe I'll print them out & put them together when I get back.

One more memory of Paris...did you know that the French have their own keyboard layout for typewriters & computers? I'm sure the Marquis himself must have laid it out. It's just enough different from the standard layout to make you nuts...for example, instead of QWERTY, it is AZERTY. Why???

Auf witerzain (I know that's not spelled right!!)

7/29 - On the move...

Sometimes I feel like this itinerary has a life of its own. Like if I miss a plane, it will just keep rolling along without me! I'm just kind of along for the ride. Kind of how I feel about wandering all over the continent too... like a pilgrim...

Well, I did enjoy the extra day in Salzburg... took a bus tour of the city & learned some stuff I wouldn't have by just poking around. Like, did you know Salz is German for salt? Apparently there were salt mines here way back when salt was a very valuable commodity. So Salzburg is Salt Town, located on the Salzac or Salty River! The Salzac is kind of pale blue green, and kind of translucent (like Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies if you've ever seen pictures of that). It comes from dissolved minerals that it gets in the Alps. I drove all the way up the Salzac yesterday, to where it comes down in the Kimml Wasserfall. Same color all the way up. Lots of very picturesqe Austrian villages all up and down the valley. Very green. Still relatively unspoiled. The valley goes west, parallel to the main spine of the Austrian Alps, with side valleys intersecting at 90 degrees every 10 miles or so with vistas back into the glaciers on the spine. Grand! It started to rain early in the afternoon, real downpour a couple of times, so wasn't quite as nice as it might have been.

Attended an outdoor performance Sat night in the Mirabella gardens in Salzburg... Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nacht Music" & his operetta "Bastien & Bastienne". Enjoyed it, but missed some of the subtleties of the story since it was performed in German. The gardens are nice.

Not much to say about Munich...got in about 5 PM after driving up from Austria. Just plunked down in the hotel & now I'm on the way to Dusseldorf. Munich is just an airport, a hotel, some traffic & another office to me.

Down the home stretch!

7/30 - Bonny Glasgow

Actually, so far Glasgow sucks. I asked for a hotel out of the city & ended up smack in the middle of downtown. The freeway exits are poorly marked, just exit & highway numbers, no street names; so I of course missed my exit & then had to figure out how to back track with all the one way streets, etc. Anyway...had a good dinner, the local bitter (dark ale) is excellent. I called my old friend Stewart Campbell who lives in the area & we are going to get together tomorrow night. He left Seagate a year or so back, but we have been friends for about 6 years, so I decided to stay in touch.

Dusseldorf was a blur...literally... Gerhard drove me from the hotel to the office at over 180 KPH on the autobahn...in his VW... do the math, it's over 100 mph! I always wondered how fast all those guys are going that blast by when you are driving 140. We had a great thunderstorm last night. The Dusseldorf terminal was heavily damaged by fire several months back & now they have departure lounges and baggage claim both in tents... makes it interesting when it cuts loose with hail and major downpours!

Well, I'm driving on the left side of the highway again. Second switch over this trip. Have to tune my ear for yet another accent. The progression has been: English, Irish, Dutch, French, German & now Scottish. Had the most trouble with the French...Gregoire's English isn't so great. The Germans like the French take some keyboard liberties, swapping the Z & Y keys, so it's QWERTZ. They also have at least one extra letter that not even the French have... looks like a Greek uppercase beta & they have to have a key for it. At least they use our keyboard here and in Holland.

I've started working on my next travel plans... we may do the same thing for our Pacific rim offices that we did here, but at least there are only 5. If it works out I will be going to Tokyo, Taipei (Taiwan) & Hong Kong, with the possibility of Seoul & Sydney also! Tentatively set for late Sept. Will also probably visit Singapore, Malaysia & Bangkok in about a month. My friend Dan in Paris may have me back over here for some more work too. If that happens, Martha will probably get her trip to Ireland. Hope we can pull it off before it gets too late in the year.

Ciao for now...

8/3 - Homeward bound...

Even though I will be home before I can send this, it seems appropriate to wrap up this odyssey with one more note. We are just flying over the Greenland coast. I can see the snow covered peaks below and a fjord so full of glacial ice that it has the pale blue of the glaciers, not the deep blue of the sea. I've been pampered with champagne & Heineken, etc, and will have a hard time writing my trip report, but I want to get it done while things are fresh & so I won't have to think about it while I'm at home and backpacking with Tim next week.

This trip seems much longer than just 3 weeks. I can hardly remember arriving in London. So much of it is now a blur. But I feel very fortunate to have had this experience... working with so many people from different backgrounds & developing new relationships. It's kind of interesting how when I go to one of our offices we all end up speaking a common language of computer & technology where communicating seems almost effortless. We're fortunate to have so many talented people supporting the enterprise throughout the world.

I had a moment of disorientation yesterday morning when I was driving to the Amsterdam office. Holland drives on the same side of the road we do, but I had just come from Scotland where I had been on the other side for the second time this trip. I came to an intersection and was momentarily at a loss as to which side of the road I should turn into. There was a median divider, so I had to make a choice. Fortunately there was no traffic so it wasn't like I was endangering myself or anyone else. It probably only lasted a second or 2 & then it clicked & I was able to get in the right lane and get on down the road.

I've never been very good about keeping a journal before, but this medium seems very natural to me. It provides a way for me to feel connected to the people back home that mean so much to me while at the same time giving me a chance to reflect on my experiences while they are fresh, which I think will help me perserve them in my memory. The written record will also be kind of like having another kind of slides or videos that will bring back another aspect of the experience.

Well, you can probably tell I've had a couple, since I don't usually get this reflective. I guess I'll leave it here for now, but I will probably pick this up again next time I hit the road. It has been fun.

For the record: 22 days, 20 nights (no night on the flight to London... left on Sat AM & arrived on Sun AM), 12 hotel stays, 11 different office visits (one office twice), 6 rental cars, 6 currencies, 7 cultures, 12 different airports. Whew!