GERMANY — No Speed Limit and a Backseat Driver!

Posted on June 26, 2012 by

I HATE to drive.  Of all times I needed to take a self-driving tour someplace, it had to be where there is no speed limit.  Not only that, I had about the cheapest rental car and my 14-year-old son along.  Well, the kid had two years of German in middle school.  He could be my co-pilot and my interpreter.  Plus, he was/is an artist and we had paintings by relatives hanging in the Alte Pinakothek.  He was perfect for the trip.

We used Fodor’s Guide to plan the trip.  I also had lots of maps, little books of castles along the Rhine — plenty for both of us to plan the 10-day driving and touring adventure.  Fodor’s used to have these neat little tidbits printed in the margins making pulling out the good stuff easy and fun for both of us.  Along with a good map we took only a few days to read, plan and book the air.  We decided to book some hotels and wing it the rest of the way with my son reading signs for vacancies at some little B&B along the route.

Never would I advise doing what I did to any traveler for any trip I planned.  I am always irked when a packaged trip leaves that first day abroad free to explore (meaning, rest).  I like to hit the ground running.  So, what did I do?  The kid and I flew into Frankfurt.  I had no interest in spending time there so got the rental car and drove to the Rhine, planning to drive up the Rhine so my son could see the castles on the hillsides and identify from a booklet I gave him.  I intended to stop at Koblenz before crossing the Rhine and driving down the opposite side.  My intention was to stay, drink local wines and sleep.  Along the way we saw a charming town across the river and I sat on the stone wall for my son to take a photo of me with Bopard as a backdrop.  Imagine my surprise as we drove through Bopard.  And I was also starting to drive off the narrow road.  Yep, I had crossed the Rhine at Koblenz and was too tired to realize it.  It was time to ask the kid to find a sign that said, “Gausthaus” or some indication of vacancy.  It worked.  We pulled in and got a room in a home.  Two beds and all I wanted was a bath and then food.  The kid said he was hungry and would bathe after he ate.  I came out of the bathroom to find him sound asleep in tennis shoes and jeans.  I removed his shoes and just got ready for bed.  There was no way to budge him.

In the morning, we went downstairs and the owners made us a nice breakfast.  We paid and on our way to Adventures of Germany we went.

Since we did drive to Stuttgart and then to Heidleberg to stay, then to the Alps to see castles, a drive around Oberammergau, to Munich and museums, a long time spent on the Romantic Road stopping in Medieval Villages to stay, this trip is one that will be revisited.

This story is about backseat driving.  And from a kid who had never driven a car. I learned some German the hard way.  Driving into Heidleberg where we had to park outside of the walking square where one of our unusually booked hotel was, the Zum Ritter, a lovely Renaissance-style hotel in the heart of old town.  The splurge was worth the stay. I asked the kid what road we were on because those German street names are all strung together in one work and in small lettering on the sides of the buildings.  He said, “EinbahnstraBe.”  I had to tell him that was not the way to street to the garage parking.  He said, “Mom, it means one-way street.”  Well, at least THIS time I was going the right way.  It is a word I will never forget due to all the times I was driving in the wrong direction.  Funny kid.  I think he was proud to pull a fast one on me.

I will revisit the cities in other blogs because they really deserve attention, especially when we found the family artists from the Flemish period and we have painters back to the Renaissance.  OK, so the artist kid and I really enjoyed Heidleberg, even when I lost him as he bounded up the stone stops to the wonderful castle and I had to drag myself up there in the rain.  Finally I found him which was a miracle due to the size of this place perched atop the city.

As for dining, I had to eat in all the pubs from the “Student Prince” musical movie from my childhood with the voice of Mario Lanza.  “Eine, zwie, drei, vier, lift your steins and drink your beer…” he sang in the drinking song. mugs of beer swinging in the air from the drinkers.  Well, this is a college town.  I just had to relive that movie. This is old college town.

We were having a great time in the towns, seeing old Porsches, watches castles up along the Rhine, hanging out in the castles of Ludwig in the Alps, getting lost in Munich and finally to the Romantic Road for a portion we could pick up from Munich back to Frankfurt, then our flight home.  This is not an assigned road on a map.  You have to find the little Medieval village, walled villages and take the turns to get to them.

Did I tell you that I HATE to drive?  We did deviate or stop when there was something we just decided to see along the way but first we were on our way, a little off-the-route to see the hot air balloon museum in a lighthouse that wasn’t near water but as we wound up the stairs we read and saw photos and drawings of the advent of the history of the hot air balloon.  I love hot air balloons.  My son and I used to chase hot air balloon races from inflation to landing.  We did go up in a tethered one when he was really young.  I went on another over some awesome countryside in Africa a few years later.  You got it.  You have to await that blog.

We — oops! — I was driving the Romantic Road backwards instead of down, I was traveling up.  Well, that was the way we planed the cities we visited and castles we say and oh, those fast Mercedes-Benz racing past me on the atuobhaun.  The last Medieval city we stayed in of the three was Rothenberg.  By that time, I was sick of the kid backseat driving me.  Before we left home, he asked if he could go off on his own.  “Sure, when we are in a walled village and you won’t get lost.” What kid that age wants to be seen with his mother?  Witness the running up the steps earlier in the week to the Heidleberg castle.

It didn’t help matters when we drove into Rothenberg.  Little walled Medieval village with narrow streets.  Wow, with mostly Germans vacationing there, wandered those narrow streets with wall to street buildings.  And there was mom, who never figured out how to read the signs when I found them.  Down the narrow road I drove — the wrong way.  “EinbahnstaBe, einbahnstaBe, einbahnstaBe.” hollered the Germans, wagging fingers at me.  The kid was ready to crawl under the steat.  “Hold on honey, I will go very slowly.  No way can I back up.  Only one way to go — down.”  Certainly didn’t help his mood.

We stayed in the 600-year-old Greifen.  All buildings have signs that are wrought iron pieces of art hanging off the buildings from at least the second floor.  They are quite small and tasteful.  We leaned out our hotel room window and there was a sign hanging for a McDonald’s which we ignored on street level.  At least it didn’t show off with Golden Arches.

The kid was most excited about this place because it has the Crime Museum. My son has a dark side and loved the idea of seeing all the torture items shown and explained.  Before we went there, we were going to spend a day in the Town Square seeing our list for the day.  Here we were on a Sunday and he didn’t want to go to the doll museum, then St. Jacob’s Church and the Town Hall plus a show in the square.

Getting a bit tired of his company as he was of mine, I asked him to please ask the German  couple coming toward us where we could get money changed.  I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and had no idea where we could go.  He asked me why and I was adamant as I stopped the German couple.  This was pre-Euro.  “Why?”  “Just do it.”  I pleasantly stopped the couple and my son said, “Gelde, gelde.”  They were not understanding him, so he put his fingers together like a pawn broker and said, “Gelde.”  They understood and showed him where.  We got money exchanged and I handed him a wad a bills and said,  ”Meet me at the hotel at 6:00 p.m. for dinner.  Have fun.”

That just wasn’t acceptable and he decided he wanted to see the sights.  So, off to the Toy Museum for a quick visit.  Then to St. Jacob’s Church which is fascinating.  The item to see if up the stairs behind the altar, the Holy Blood.  That altar is 500 years old and 35 feet high.  The church is filled with old stained glass windows and so much to see that having a kid and a schedule didn’t give us enough time for everything.  But we did get to the Town Hall and witnessed what lawmaking was like in Medieval times.  Seems that after some work, the lawmakers took beer breaks.  Hence, the show in the Old Town Square. There is an old clock.  Every couple of hours, the animation starts and the beer drinkers come out lifting steins, first in the air and then to their lips.

The next day was probably what the kid waited for all week — the Crime Museum.  My artist kid has a dark side.  It is housed in an old prison so the rooms are interesting in themselves.  As you walk down some stairs to another room, you can look through the a small barred window at the feet of the people on the floor above.  The torture items were encased in glass.  After two floors my son wanted photos but wanted me to go back and take them, which I did.  There were some pretty nasty things like scythes to cut off heads all sticking out a barrel like a bunch of wooden cooking spoons.  There were the silly such as a metal headdress with a horn sticking out the front.  The offender was someone who played music terribly off-key and for his annoyance to his neighbors had to stand in the town square wearing the headdress and being mocked.  There were dunking barrels for those who had too much to drink and were encased in the barrel and dunked into the river.  Coins and wax stamps and books of laws were available to view from various eras and rulers.  The best present to bring home was the Crime Museum book which I bought for my son.

In the town, he saw a suit of armor standing on a pedestal.  He stood beside it and said, “Look, mom.  It’s just my size.”  My heart melted. If I had the money, I would have bought it for him.  Instead he chose a sword.  They are not made in Germany due to lack of material but in Spain.  Oh well, he was happy to bring it home.

This trip was absolutely wonderful.  So memorable in two ways.  I loved sharing it with my son and I was so proud of myself for driving through a country with no speed limits and signs I could not read.  I think I mentioned this before. I HATE to drive.  But Germany was absolutely beautiful and worth it. This is a trip my artist son will never forget and neither will I.

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FRANCE — Halloween on Mont Saint-Michel

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

On a tour of France, I spent Halloween on Mont Saint-Michel on the west coast of the country.  From a distance, it is such a beautiful sight, an enourmous monastery topping winding road through a village of shops, stores and homes.  Spectacular!

Who would have thought that after seeing this austere monastery, there would be a sexy Adventure awaiting us? Certainly not the party poopers who went were dropped off at the hotel to sleep.  The monastery was once a prison during the French Revolution; hence, I call it the Rock.

Driving across the small bridge covering the quicksand to the Rock is an exciting Normandy adventure. The monastery was once a prison during the French Revolution: hence, I call it the Rock.  The UNESCO site was a shrine that monks chose as a lifetime pilgrimage and many died in the quicksand in their zealous religious attempt to reach the Rock before there was a bridge.  Mont Saint-Michel was named for St. Michael, of course. Climbing to the top is over 900 steps. We had a driver, Jacques, and a guide, Lexy. Although Lexy was a Californian married to an Italian, she was a French guide. Go figure!

And did she ever have a mouth on her. Lexy would get out of the van, make traffic stop, back up, move, whatever she desired, in order for the van to have a parking spot. Yes, this woman was yelling at Frenchmen and they were following her directions. Being the astounding blonde woman she was, she also gained access to places no one else could go. Thus, Lexy held an old key about five inches long in her hand so we followed her to the back of the abbey. We were in the tower, the highest point inside the abbey and there was a giant gerbil wheel. Monks walked in it to haul goods on rail up the rocks for storage. We were seeing something tourists do not normally get to see.

Lexy and Jacques had something interesting going on but we just needed some proof. Twice his age, she was sexy Lexy and he was a hot, young Frenchman. Checking in the only hotel open on a dark street, we were given two keys (the old-fashioned ones but not five inches long) and told not to lose them because no one would be in the hotel when we returned and we needed one to get inside. Eight of us needed to possibly be on our own in this dark, little town with nothing happening after dinner? C’mon! Back into the dark van we climbed, waiting for Lexy. She got inside the Halloween decorated van and kept her back to us. She had on tight black leather pants, black top, and a black leather beret with her blonde bob shining. I mean this city was as dark as the inside of a cow. The inside of the van was dark, Lexy was dark all except the blonde shiny hair. She inched toward Jacques who was in the driver’s seat. He fiddled underneath her top, and then slowly she turned around. An orange pumpkin, gracing the front of her black sweatshirt had eyes blinking on each breast. That was Lexy. Outrageous lady. “Happy Halloween everyone!” Back to the winding paths of the mount which was filled with shops and small homes and hotels just to go to La Mere Poullard, famous for its omelet. Ooh, la, la. It was huge like a soufflé and cut into servings as an appetizer. Yummy! Cutting into it caused it to deflate. Oh well, we had the treat. Driving back down to the hotel, Lexy asked who wanted to go to the disco, and any who did not could  dropped at the hotel on the way. You’ve got to be kidding; there was a disco in this dark place? I am talking black cat dark. No house lights. No street lights. No hotel lights. Where is a disco and where are there any people except up on Mont Saint-Michel? No jack-o-lanterns except the paper ones in the van windshield.

OK, the spoiled sports can stay in that empty hotel in the dark. The other four went with Lexy and Jacques into an actual disco. There was no sign, no lights, just a bar and seats and a large dance floor. There weren’t even any patrons, just bartenders and six of us. Dancing amongst ourselves, drinking, staring at videos playing above the dance floor on either end on large TV screens while music played.  While watching long-legged sexbomg, Tina Turner, belting out “Proud Mary.” there were Lexy and Jacques rocking it out on the dance floor and this was NOT the first time these two had danced together.  They were great!  Case solved.

Still with no one around, it was better than the dark hotel and the night was young. Howling young! Midnight in the city beneath Mont Saint-Michel, the bar lights lowered and people swarmed the disco. Where did they come from? Whoo, it was Halloween.

The videos that had been showing disco videos along with the music changed. Other than Lexy and Jacques, the four of us drank, stopped dancing. staring at the video screens. Example: A wife alone, let in her stud of a lover and they fully unclothed. lustily making love all over the bed, tangling the sheets. A door opened. The lover climbed under the bed and the wife straightened the sheets and crawled under the covers. Her husband, excited to see her in bed, undressed, joined her and made love to his wife with the bed bouncing up and down on the lover hiding beneath the mattress. We laughed at this lovely French farce, drank lots more and then started to dance with the locals.

The next morning at breakfast, the other members of our group were absolutely upset they missed the fun.  It wasn’t Lexy and Jacques.  It was the sexy videos we watched.  The word had passed quickly and, oh, how jealous they were.

Reminds me of a poem by my six-year-old son about pumpkins. “The first one said, Oh my, it’s getting late. The second one said, There are witches in the air. The third one said, Well, we don’t care. The fourth one said, Let’s run and run and run. The fifth one said, I’m ready for some fun. And out went the lights and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.”  That was us, the ones who chose to stay up late to see what else was in store this Halloween.  The others were in bed, out of sight.

Moral of this story: ALWAYS choose Adventure.

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Germany coming soon…

Posted on September 18, 2011 by

After losing all journals, maps and books for 54 countries in Hurricane Katrina, it does take me a long time to write a story.  Memory plus research gives me my story. And I work during the days so have to write at night.

Driving through Germany for 10 days with a backseat driver, no speed limit, when I get lost in my own back yard and hate driving was a true test of strength on my part.  I was so proud of myself for doing that, and with a young backseat driver to boot.  I told that 14-year-old son I would NEVER drive him anyplace EVER.  NOT ANYPLACE! Four years later I booked three motels for him to stop and stay overnight on his drive to his university.

A week before he was to leave he said, “You know, I probably would only have to stop two times if you would drive with me.”  Me, “You mean YOU ARE ASKING ME to drive in shifts with you?”  Him very humbly, “I promise I won’t backseat drive you.”

Yes, four years after that one comment he remembered.  And he kept to his promise.  Funny boy.

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HANOI! Actually, how do YOU cross a busy street?

Posted on August 27, 2011 by

Did you ever wonder how you would cross a Manhattan street without any traffic lights?  I never thought about it.  Those lights are just there and we stand like a herd of sheep and follow the masses as they step off the curb when the light says GO!

In Hanoi, the capital of  Vietnam, with a population  of 2.7 million, the streets are racing with mopeds.  Thousands of mopeds.  There is the occasional car and many cyclo-guys with a basket on the front pedaling passengers to destinations.  Actually the stats are, to be more precise, one million bicycles and 700,00 motorcycles. Loved the cyclos and they were not as scary as in Indonesia which is another story.  Kathy coaxed me into one last ride around the old city  when we returned there the last day of our travels. They were a fun way to see everything at a slower pace.  Just ignore the noise and watch the sights.  Fascinating city.

I actually stayed in the old walled city.  Originally there were 16 gates, but only one, the Old East Gate survives in this medieval place.  You are stepping  back to about 1000 AD.  The hotel was rather antiquated and the air conditioner sometimes worked and the unit in the next room made a loud racket all night.  The busy Old Quarter belies what is outside the walls; a beautiful city with lakes and classy stores.  There are wide tree-lined streets, the Water Puppet Theatre, the art museum, parks and a long queue of thousands of  mainly Japanese travelers waiting to go inside the granite mausoleum in Ba Dinh Square to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh.

Yes, there he lies on a four-poster bed with a guard at each post.  His body down in a cut-out section of floor so that visitors can walk around and look down on his uniformed body.  His mausoleum is fashioned after Lenin’s in Moscow.  Every six months, he is shipped off to Russia for renovation… and new makeup, I would presume.  Then he is back in place for visitors.  He was there in all his regalia while I visited so, naturally I had to see this site for myself.

Ho Chi Minh was an interesting character.  He followed in the Confucian tradition of his scholarly father  His father taught him much and Ho was able to write well in Chinese as well as his native Vietnamese.  He loved to fly kites and fish, but he was a very scholarly child.  This carried on as he grew into a young man.  He traveled often and seemed to be on the move much of his young adult life.  By working in a ship’s galley, he made his way to New York where he worked as a baker at the Parker House.  Books state that while in New York he met Korean nationalist and started to develop his political outlooks.  He traveled to London, Belgium, Paris where he embraced Communism, Russia, Hong Kong and China.  In China he married a young Chinese woman because he felt he had to learn Chinese better and needed someone to clean house.  He wasn’t with her more than a year and to my knowledge remained married.  He was more interested in his scholarly pursuits and stayed away for several years.  He contracted pneumonia and could have been spreading it as he traveled until he finally stayed in Russia until he was over the illness.  He had a mistress for a while and she bore him a son.  From what I was told and have read, he did have mistresses but never settled with his wife.

Ho was a rather solitary figure.  He was now a Marxist when he returned to Vietnam during the French occupation to oversee the French leave his country.  Hanoi was his home base.  He became the Marxist leader of the Democratic Republican Party, a one party system.  During the Vietnam war he and the Vietcong fought for communism to remain the way of life and that is what Vietnam is today.  Indochina under the French was gone. There was no more division and fighting between the north and south.   Saigon became known as Ho Chi Minh City.  Ho often suffered poor health.  He had malaria and finally diabetes.

I asked Han, our guide about the loudspeakers blaring messages all day and they were propaganda.  Han said in the small villages they play more often.  Hanoi, however, is a large city and I heard the loudspeaker messages loud and often.

I asked Han if the Vietnamese liked being Communists and he said, “We don’t mind as long as we are prosperous.”

With traffic honking, people chattering, loud speakers blaring, Hanoi is a noisy city both in the old and new Hanoi.  That becomes white noise because there is so much to see.  Noise if ignored.  I wondered if the locals ignored the propaganda like I ignored all the noise.

Ho hand a small, humble home near a lake stocked for him to fish.  His study chair was back to the window because he did not like to see anyone looking at him when he was writing.  A larger, more lovely home was built for him and it, too was on the large fish-filled pond.  He seemed to prefer the more humble abode.

He is revered in Vietnam because he saw the war to the end and the country remained under communist rule and his rule.  He did no harm to his people so there is really no reason for the Vietnamese to find fault with him.  The French left and the Americans left.

In the old  city the streets are lined with family shops with no room between then.  They are built  together and the goods pour out to the garage-type doorways that are flush with the streets and sometimes sidewalks.  Families sometimes sleep inside at night to protect their wares,  Each shop offers a certain type of goods.  For instance, one may be filled with nothing but pots and pans while another shows off decorations for celebrations.  During the day the families with little children playing at their feet sit on tiny stools and shove food into their mouths with chopsticks. People carry goods to the stores on poles over their shoulders with baskets on either end.  It really is a different world than outside the gate.

Once outside the gate on foot, the wide boulevards bustle with traffic.  Manhattan without traffic lights.  Han tells the six of us that we must cross that street, walk straight, do not stop, keep the pace steady, do not deviate, do not hesitate or we will end up flat as a pancake.   Those thousands of drivers justify their actions as we walk and continue around us.  They do not slow down.  Believe me, this is an act of faith stepping into the traffic and walking without a care or deviation.  It as if the Red Sea parted as I stepped into the traffic.  Safely across, I continued to look at the scenery and forgot about the others for a few moments.  I was oblivious.  The lake and greenery were so lovely and peaceful even though everyone was honking wildly.  I think they were not honking at those crossing the street.  They either like to honk at each other or are just saying, “hello,” not “get the heck out of my way!” Some of the small group would not do this.  They stayed on the curb, very anxious they would be hit.  Not me.  I loved it.  This is what the Vietnamese were doing to cross the boulevard.  It is the way of life.  Someone had to have gotten the others across because I finally saw the other five.  I had not a care in the world.

Reminds me of two movies.  Dustin Hoffman had to navigate the Manhattan streets as a cripple in Midnight Cowboy.  As in movies, actors must do many takes before the director yells, “Cut!  That’s a wrap.”  In movies, the car and taxi drivers are programmed to stop and honk at various stages.  Over and over, take after take.  Finally, during one take a yellow cab almost hit Dustin Hoffman, who slammed his hand down on the hood and ad-libbed, “Hey, I’m walking here.”  That was the take used in the film.

The other movie is Scent of a Woman.  Al Pacino finally won  an Oscar for his portrayal of a blind colonel.  He used a white cane.  He was stubborn, tired of waiting, so he just walked into the busy New York City street.  He was almost hit.  Of course, that was programmed and he had to do this over and over for the director. I watched him interviewed and  he said he will never do anything like that again.  Well, I guess not!

In Hanoi, I just put my trust in what Han told us.  I put my trust in the drivers as he told us.  Off I went many times, crossing streets.  This was a first.  It was an adventure.  This is what the Vietnamese did so I did the very same thing.  It actually works.

I saw two Hanoi’s; the every day in the Old Quarter and the modern and green-spaced new city.  Once ravaged by war, the new city is beautiful.  Even the body of Ho Chi Minh wasn’t a downer.  It was more of a curiosity to me.  What really was sad was, after our urging to Han, we saw what prisoners of war called the Hanoi Hilton.  This dreadful place was where many of our soldiers spent years during the war in torture.  The place isn’t whitewashed for visitors who, like us, insist on seeing it.

Hanoi is so beautiful and so busy, it really is necessary to use a vehicle most of the time to get to other sites.  It was walking across traffic, however, that I remember and love. That was part of my Adventure Actually.

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ADVENTURES ACTUALLY AUTHOR — Kate from New Orleans

Posted on August 21, 2011 by

My name is Kate. Having had a wanderlust since I was a small girl, then spending so many years in resorts, clubs, restaurants, travel and tourism, I decided to start my own business, Adventures Actually.  The blog site is an offshoot of that.

Writing as an anonymously just isn’t me.  I want you to know me.  When I was very little, my aunt and uncle sang with the USO.  They sent post cards from all over the world.  After the parents finished reading a card, it would be lying on some table.  It was someplace where I could see it.  I cherished the post cards and stared at those photos of far-away lands and silently told myself, “I’m going there some day.”

That started a long yearning to see foreign lands.  I wanted so badly to see them.  Every state in which I lived, I was eager to see what the state had to offer.  And I have lived in 11.  New Orleans, however, has been home over twice as long as any other state in which I have lived.  This city suits me.  It is the most European city in the United States.  It has more places listed on the National Registry of Historic Places than any city in the United States.  That is fodder for me.

Working in the travel and tourism industry for 20 years allowed me the stipend to take a subsidized trip somewhere in the world every year.  Usually I tried to make the stipend last so I could take one international and one domestic trip.

Airline travel was really fun.  Those were the days well before 9/11.   I remember booking a side seat and waiting until the hatch was closed.  There were empty rows in the middle.  My companion and I would toss our items into a row of several seats until it was safe to remove our seatbelts and move to that row.  We were able to spread out and sleep when we felt like it for the night.  Stretched out in economy class in comfort.  Once my friend bought a lamp abroad and took it on the plane.  She pulled out the seat cushion (flotation device) between us and stood the lamp in the hole.  I loved the airlines and they loved their passengers.  Now airlines are packed since the airlines can’t afford to fly more planes.  There is no room to move.  Bring a good book because it is the only thing to keep your mind off a very uncomfortable flight.  Of course, I am still talking about economy class.

Even before 9/11 which brought TSA, long lines and more rules, the airlines were providing fewer services.  I remember the days when you were handed a menu of choices in economy class just flying cross-country?  Really!  There was a choice of an entrée and other courses, all nicely printed on a small menu.  Plus a choice of wines that were actually top-notch.  The Adventure of the Destination is what really matters.  Still, I miss the added luxuries offered such as snacks, full meals, magazines and newspapers passed along the aisles.

I ignore what may be inconvenience and little luxuries  and think of my destination and not in getting there.  International airlines do a better job. Asian airlines are top-notch. When in Asia, for instance, there is wonderful service with sensational food for a two-hour flight.  The Oriental airlines and people know how to treat their passengers on the best airlines with the best services, all the while remaining safe to board. The uniforms are not all male-dominated styles either.  There is simply added quality everywhere you look, from design of the interior, to cleanliness, to serves and the appearance of the onboard staff.  I think it might be called not only great service, but colorful.  The feeling onboard is cheerful and pleasant.  Even the passengers behave better when treated like they are all first class.

Oh, for the good old days of the American-based airlines.  Since deregulation, they have steadily become worse.  They don’t know how to regulate themselves.  Many have gone out of business.  Most are not making money so they keep raising fares even when gas prices get lower.  Remember the kids in the movie, “Sleepless in Seattle?”  The little girl booked a flight for the little boy cross-country on her mother’s airline travel computer.  “What is the fare?” he asks.  “Nobody knows.  It changes all the time,” replies the little girl.  So true.

My advice is to go with the flow of much-needed security and less needed nonsense, I can’t help myself.  I have a wanderlust.  I have intrepidity.

When you aren’t traveling, sit back, relax and take a tour with me at Adventures Actually.  Almost every travel story includes the film fanatic in me.  You will usually see one or two movies mentioned pertaining to a location.  You will read about food and wine.  And, of course, there are going to be movies mentioned that are about food.  You will go with me into tombs and cemeteries.  You will climb ruins and delve into the arts around the world.  You will be on a barge, old train, sailing on a feluccas, riding an elephant or high in the sky in a hot air balloon.  You will wander with me through the world museums searching for particular family painters.  There is always the adventures of the people who are with me to add some spice. You will even catch me doing things I would never do here — eat and drink what I would consider the most disgusting things you can imagine.  When in Rome…

I leave the details about every tiny site in each place to the guide-book authors.  These are my travel stories.  They are about Actual  Adventures encountered along the way.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.  The stories are real.  The people are real. Oops, there comes the film fanatic in me.

Enjoy the Adventures.  I have Actually encountered every single one.  And I have loved every Adventure.  There is a whole world left out there for me to see.  Yeah, I know, Rick Steves says, “Keep on traveling.” Me?  Keep on reading.  And traveling.

Ciao,

Kate

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GREECE and Beyond — Liz, the Good-time Gal

Posted on August 19, 2011 by

 Strolling in the Plaka near the Acropolis on our first night in Athens, one of the four of us was creating quite a disturbance. Here we were, Gerald and three women, just trying to see what was around the hotel … Continue reading →

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