Reflections on some lessons learned.

I must first start by tipping my hat to an amazing lady. My Grandma’s 95 years old today. Although I’m 8 hours ahead and it’s only 10 past midnight, I’m sending her birthday wishes. Ninety-five years is quite the accomplishment.
I’m sitting in the dark, around the pool at Le Patio 34 with a glass of rosé handed to me by Stéphane, the hotel owner. Could he tell I was frazzled and that I needed a drink? Well, no matter, I’m now officially on vacation and it is desperately needed!
So a couple hours into my adventure and what have I just learned? Well, playing-it-by ear travel is fun. True. Unfortunatley, playing-it-by-ear travel can also be expensive. Sigh. I didn’t book ahead for the rental car and I arrived at the Montpellier airport at 11PM tonight. I got the last car, a medium size and will pay roughly 300 Euros for two days. Ouch. That’s worse than Iceland and I thought THAT was expensive! Still – I am an advocate of going where the wind-blows you and not overplanning. I just want the flight and the first night’s hotel booked. After that – let the wind blow!
Another thing I’ve learned is that my efforts to fight my way through the learning curve of learning to drive a manual transmission car were worth it all those years ago. When I sat down in the rental car tonight and looked at the stick shift, I took a moment to appreciate that it wasn’t a problem for me. By contrast, I know several otherwise competent and capable people who simply cannot drive anything but an automatic. Knowing how to drive a stick certainly makes things easier when renting cars internationally and opens a lot more doors to seeing and doing things off the beaten path.
What else have I learned? Well, turns out I have joined the ranks of those who rely on GPS’s to get around. Part of me feels that they encourage laziness and they dull people’s ability to follow road signs and read maps, but that part of me was in the minority tonight when I showed up to the car rental place with nothing more that the address of the hotel ready to key in to that pretty handy little device that I have such mixed feelings over. However, when you’re on your own and you have no co-pilot, the company of What’s-Her-Name is better than nothing when trying to find the way.
I made it to the hotel in the dark eventually. It was rather tricky to find but I ‘tourner-ed a gauche’ when she said and took my foot off the accelerator when I ‘’depasser-ed la vitesse limite’ a couple of times! I’m here, it’s warm and summery even after midnight. I’m definitely on vacation!

Tout Fini!

All done.  I got my little certificate of completion today.  People still couldn’t believe I was only staying 1 week.  Most people stay 1 month.  Most people don’t have jobs.  Most people are on summer holidays from school.  Sigh – how I remember those – but then again, I had to work then.  How do these people do it?!  It’s always fascinating to learn more about how people just make things happen.  There is no straight path and it’s amazing to hear of all the different trajectories people make possible.  I am honestly kicking myself for not having done this years ago.  That’s where role models come in handy.  I think if I’d known someone who’d done this kind of thing, it would have been so much more possible for me to do.

Both Nicole and I found that we were just getting into our groove with the 5 days of classes and were both wishing for at least another week.  No luck.  And so it was that we parted.  She was off on an excursion to Aigues Mortes and I was hopping a train to Carcassonne.

The train ride was and hour and a half.  I have never seen such a disorganized train in my life.  The train was a bit late although that wasn’t such a big deal.  Once I got on though, I had to walk over and around bags in the aisles, bicycles at the ends of the cars all stacked next to each other blocking the doors.  I managed to find a seat by making some kid move his bag.  I was not going to stand the whole way.

I arrived in Carcassonne around 5PM and thought my hotel was a 10min walk from ‘la gare’. Not so.  Twenty is more like it if you know where to go directly.  It turns out I was so close but wandered around lost for a good 10mins.  Sigh.  The heat doubled the weight of the bags I was carrying, I am sure!

The hotel was very, uh...minimalist.  It’s new and it was charming though.  I couldn’t believe it when I asked the proprietaire about the internet and when the password wasn’t working for me on my iTouch, he just gave me his Mac notebook to take into my room!  Wow.  That made an impression!

I was hoping to catch up with Deanna and Steve that night.  The plan was to meet at the hotel around 6 or so.  No sign of them by 6:30 so I started Happy Hour and two glasses of wine later I assumed we’d have to try again the next morning.  And so – camera in tow, I wandered up the big hill to the Carcassonne Citadel.  J’etais ‘baba’ – as they say in French, or rather I was so mesmerized while walking around and exploring that I actually caught myself saying ‘wow’ out loud on numerous occasions!

Page 228 – Neuschwanstein Castle

I believe it was the book Wonders of the World by Lionel Grigson that was given to me at Christmas when I was 9 or 10 that started it all. Well, that and the scene in Mary Poppins where Bert is out doing street painting and with a little persuasion and magic they all jump into the painting and go on a jolly holiday in the cartoon world. I loved that scene. I would watch it over and over and over. And so it was that when my 10 year old self turned to page 228 of this magical book and gazed upon a fairy tale castle near a lake, in the mountains, on a clear fall day, she wanted to jump right inside the picture and go explore.

Twenty five years later (how is it possible that I can even make a statement like that?!) I did go and explore that castle and it was even more magical and fanciful on the inside than I ever imagined. That’s thanks to kooky Ludwig II, the Mad King of Bavaria.

Marla and her family were visiting her in-laws in Germany at the end of May this year. I couldn’t not go see them – especially since it’s only an hour and fifteen minute flight from Amsterdam to Munich. Done.

I hopped on a flight after work on May 28th, the Friday night. Driving back to the small, nearby town of Ergolding, I noticed, of all things, topography! So unlike Holland which is flat, flat, flat - great for biking but gets variety is good. We had a nice dinner in a nearby restaurant on a lake and I had some schnitzel, white beer, and some sort of German dumpling. We capped the night off later with some Schnapps, promising start to the weekend.

The next day, Marla and I were flying solo. She left the twins with Daddy and she and I hit the road. First stop – the bakery. Coffee and pastries please. The drive south to Schwangau near the Austrian border was beautiful once we got off the concrete jungle of highways 92, 99 and 96. We drove through the foothills of the Alps which were hilly and green and stunning. It only took 2 hours to get there. I was surprised to be able to see the castle from the highway. I suppose that makes sense given how big it is. It can be seen for miles.

Once we dealt with the masses at the bottom of the hill to buy our tickets we started the hike up the hill. Other options were minibus and caleche but we opted for the walk because we had so much time before our tour and it was a beautiful day. It’s always funny when they give hike time estimates at tourist spots. They obviously aim for the average time and pad it a bit. We were up in half the time so we made sure to stop and have a white beer and some lunch.
It can be a danger letting dreams into your reality but this castle did not disappoint…although it nearly did because somehow we missed the start of our tour and were locked out until some nice woman came and let us in. We caught up with the tour and were taken in to the world of a true dreamer. The castle is fanciful and no expense was spared. The bedroom had the most intricate woodwork. The sitting room was decorated with scenes from Wagner’s operas (Ludwig had a thing for Wagner!) and over 200 swans in paintings, carvings, coats of arms and even door handles were made in the shape of swans. And through one of these doors was a faux-cave that he had built to …er…well, it’s hard to say really. There was a beautiful winter garden off of it and rumour of a trap door that he would open to listen to concert halls in the concert hall directly above. Apparently every September the Schwangau region puts on concerts in this concert hall. While most tourists think ‘wow, wouldn’t that be nice’, THIS tourist thought ‘September, eh?!…I’ll look into that’. Not surprisingly, the tickets sold out early on but I am on the waiting list. Otherwise, I try next year.

It’s sad to think that while it took years to build, Neuschwanstein Castle was really only occupied for 6 months before Ludwig was declared unfit to rule and a day later died under suspicious circumstances. Ah those mad 19th century geniuses!

The rest of the weekend involved visiting with Josef, his brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew and parents plus their twins, Kira and Josie. Marla and I had a great visit and we’ve now added another country to our list of places we’ve travelled together. I can’t believe I have to wait 9 more months until I see them again. In the meantime, I see that Iceland is featured on Page 210….

36 And Counting

So I've kept a little list of places I've been to help me remember my travels over the years. It's also a little game. I'm curious to see how many places I've been and watch the numbers grow. I suppose I get the same thrill from watching my savings grow? Of course, travelling and savings seems to be mutually exclusive events!

I spent too much time updating my list with details like dates, travel companions and trip highlights and then it got too long. So...I made a 2nd, more compact version that I'll share here now. The other version may make its way in to this blog at some point. We'll see how it goes. For now, may I present "Christy's Country Count" updated in May, 2010. How many have you been to?

1. Canada!!!!
2. United States
3. England
4. Republic of Ireland
5. Northern Ireland
6. Cuba
7. Scotland
8. France
9. Holland
10. Belgium
11. Switzerland
12. Germany
13. Costa Rica
14. Peru
15. Spain
16. Gibraltar
17. New Caledonia
18. New Zealand
19. Australia
20. Honduras
21. Thailand
22. Malaysia
23. Belize
24. Namibia
25. South Africa
26. Sweden
27. Mexico
28. Singapore
29. Cambodia
30. Brunei
31. Austria
32. Hungary
33. Italy
34. India
35. Denmark
36. Morocco

Why not?

A blog? Who has time to blog?! Who puts their life out there? Who on earth goes and reads them?

I've deliberated about starting a blog for a while now. It's not like I have incredible words of wisdom for the world, but rather I want this to serve as my travel journal and keepsake for years to come. I'm in a very fortunate position and an interesting point in my life and would like to have some of my experiences captured somewhere that I can find years down the road.

I'm living in the Netherlands on an overseas posting as an expat. I have no spouse, I have no kids, I have no pets. So until I get those things I know I want, I am keeping busy. And how! Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to cram a lifetime into my first 40 years! This generally involves hopping on airplanes, trains or my bike and going here, there and everywhere. I am leading as full of a life as I can manage while putting in my hours to get my monthly 'sponsorship' and still trying to get in some downtime to do laundry!

So this is ultimately for me but you are more than welcome to follow along. I want this to serve as a way to say 'Wow...I really did that?'. I want this to provide those memory jogs to relive some of the more crazy adventures when I'm stuck at a point where every day feels like a dreary, grey Groundhog Day. I've written journals before but I can type a heck of a lot faster than I can write and well - why not give this a go? If I look at it as another adventure then that's all the convincing I need.