well, that was allright…

So Matt came over for a weekend. Train to Bologna on Friday. Train to Siena on Saturday. Train back home on Sunday….followed by a bit of chaos 🙂 Great weekend! Great cities! Great friends!

San Fransisco, CA

First time in San Fran. Loved it!!! Great city. I think I could live there if I was rich. A bit too much driving for our crazy schedule. Gotta plan those road trips better me thinks 🙂

Saw Fillmore Slim (at Blues n Biscuits) who it turns out is sorta famous.
http://www.deadline.com/2011/09/snoop-dogg-to-topline-fillmore-slim-biopic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_Slim

The food at that place was outrageously priced…I paid 20 dollars for Jambalaya…Don’t eat there if you can help it. Food was OK for a street corner, but it was by no means gourmet.

I think we in the city about 36 hours which is not enough. I’d love to get back there sometime soon.

Coos Bay, OR

Did one night in Coos Bay. Weather was absolutely fantastic!!!

We arrived midday. Flirted with a waitress at lunchtime. Drove around. Discovered we had a bolt in one of the tires. Had it fixed at Les Schwab (great service as usual), went to a divey bar to play pool, then the casino.

Salem-Portland, OR

Came to Salem, and saw a couple small shows. Met some people. Played some pool. Saw some more people. Went to a football game (OSU).
Missed seeing a bunch of people I wanted to see…

Centralia, WA

We stopped at Centralia as it was a halfway point between BC and Oregon. We Stayed at the McMenamins hotel there. I’ve been there before and it’s pretty cool. Played some pool. Watched a movie (ok I fell asleep) in the hotel pub theatre, then took Carly to the train station in the morning (so she could go back to Sydney).

Vancouver BC

After Eric left, Matt, Carly and I went up to BC for one night. It was OK.

Here’s the most important thing I learned in BC…don’t EVER eat at Fatburger…
Second most important: There are lots of homeless people in BC and at least one of them is an amazing artist. I sat with him on the sidewalk for 15 minutes while he was drawing a picture. I bought it off him cuz it was pretty amazing! I’ll frame it.

The best interchange with a homeless (not the previously mentioned artist) went like this:
Homeless dude: “Hi. People have been really rude to me tonight. I just need 4 dollars to get a room at the Y. Can you help me? Anything, even change will help.”
me: “I can give you all my change (takes out change). It has some euros mixed in”.
Homeless dude: “I don’t want your Euros”.
me: (removes euros and prepares to hand man my change).
Homeless dude: (sees pennies in my hand) “I don’t want your pennies”.
me: (removes pennies and prepares to hand man my change)
Homeless dude: “I don’t want your change” (storms off)
Homeless dude: (walks up to next guy walking on the street). “This guy over here is being really rude to me (referring to me). I just need 4 dollars to get a room at the Y. Can you help”?
Random non-homeless guy: No!
Homeless dude: I knew this would happen! Fucking vancouver! I hate this place!

Seattle, Washington

Landed Friday late at Sea-Tac. Go meet Matt and 2,oh at a pub where they are hanging out with Garret, Lilly (Pete’s sister and brother in law) and Cid. I had met them in Frankfurt once before. They rock and we met them again on the last night in Seattle. It was great to see Eric again as well. I hope to see you in Europe again soon…

Carly came on Saturday and Eric left on Monday. The weekend was pretty much chaos, board games (which I mostly won at 😉 ), a wasted day drinking hard cider, and two buck chuck!

back home….

So I made it back…The day started with Matt waking me up about 50 minutes before my flight to JFK…ummmm…
HA!

This is what happens when you hit snooze one too many times 🙂

Somehow I made it. I had to run a bit, and got scolded by the ticket man, but live and learn??? Probably not!

I slept good, so now I guess I gotta upload stuff…I should probably make separate entries by city or something…
Standby!

I know what you’re wondering

You’re wondering if I packed…It was the most grueling 4 minutes of my life, but…YES!

it was cold, it was wet, it was great!!!

So back from the Northland today. I’ll try to recap…

Tuesday…flight was delayed…Missed connection…spent 6 hours at the Frankfurt airport waiting for next flight. Land in Stavanger at about 11:40. Arrive hotel about 1:15.
Wednesday…worked for a few hours. Took a boat ride with everyone from the workshop. great great great!!! We stopped off someplace and had fresh shrimp and baileys with coffee 🙂 The nicest day of the week. Windy, but sunny. No rain.
Thursday…worked for a few hours. Had the best restaurant dinner I’ve had in a very long time. Incredible food in some tiny historic town. Then took a tour to some fjord where the Brits sank a german boat in WWII and killed a bunch of Russian POWs…I was only half listening to the history lesson, but it sounded quite interesting.
Friday…worked for even fewer hours – are you getting the hint that the Norwegians only work for about 2 hours a day 😉
Took a nap then went to a place called “BarBar”…I was accosted by some grandma who really liked me…and not in a grandmotherly kind of way 😉 It was kind of cute to be hit on by a 60 year old woman. We all had a laugh. Luckily, I was strong enough to resist her charms 😉 maybe next time Jenny!
They stop serving alcohol about 2, so I snagged a couple beers from the hotel minibar and went down to the harbour until about 3 with Agnieszka. We had some good chats.
Today the plane was delayed a bit, but my boss and I made our flight (Agnieszka did not!). Finally got home about 9. Long day…tired.

Norway was beautiful and I’d like to go back again for a holiday sometime. In the pics you can see all the flat rocks. I guess they were formed by glaciers moving over them. The glaciers left lots of rocks on tops of hills, which is kind of funny – to see boulders on top of a hill.

Here’s your chance to learn something today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

and here~s the full pic page:
http://www.joesquires.com/egersund-norway-may-2011/

 

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