Croissants and Pay Toilets

A Word on Travel in Europe

A few months ago a friend contacted me and the following conversation ensued:

Friend: Hey, a few of us are getting and trip to Europe together and we'd like you to come.

Me: Hmmm. I don't think so. Everything I'd want to look at would bore everyone to-death.

(Click)

Another few weeks later:

Friend: How boring are we talking here?

Me: Like a three hour factory tour in a language none of us speaks. 

Friend: I think we can deal with that.

Me: Are you sure?

I still maintain that they had no idea what kind of mania they were in for on my part, but long story short is that I went.

I had contemplated taking a trip to Europe before, but I could never figure out exactly what I would do after having spent all that money on the plane ticket. That sounds ridiculous now that I've actually gone, but nonetheless that was my thought. So when my friends put this trip together it seemed like the perfect opportunity. They really did all the planning and scheming and reserving and they did a great job. I just had to send them money and show up. They only part I insisted on was, of course, some time at Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg Germany. 

I think the best way to post about this trip is to break it up a bit so we'll start,...uh...at the start.

Because I live in the most isolated place in the lower 48 I had to start my trip with a 4 hour drive to Salt Lake, followed by a 3+ hour flight Seattle. In Seattle I met up the other three members of my travel group (we'd all been in the same ward our Freshman year of college at BYU). After a short layover in Seattle we began our 10 and half hour flight to Frankfurt Germany. Because of the flightpath the sun never went down during the flight and I got to see Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland (albeit from the air). Jet lag on the way over didn't bother me too much which was great. We got to Frankfurt and then began our 10 days of not understanding anyone. We picked up our rental car (a nice car, but a profound disappointment as I was finally in Germany and we were drive a Ford).

 

The car was more specifically a Ford Kuga, which is a small SUV with a diesel engine and manual transmission. At speed it sounded like a sick coffee grinder and on the Autobahn it struggled to hit 120 mph. (a tragedy, I know). We managed to get out of Frankfurt without getting a parking ticket and pointed in the direction of Paris France. We got to Paris that night and went straight to our hotel and crashed.

 

For me the trip really began the next morning when we road the metro into downtown Paris, stopped for breakfast at a street cafe outside of the Louvre, and ordered omelets where the waiter happily brought our plates with a pleasant "voila" and a sincere "bon appetit". I guess I just wasn't expecting that and honestly it made my morning.

From there it was on the Louvre where we saw the Mona Lisa and some Asian tourist get yelled at for standing on the statue Winged Victory to mug for a picture. I believe the exact words said by the guard were, "GET OFF, this is not Disneyland!"

Then we saw some cathedrals, walked some, ate some more buttery french food and then went and saw a bunch of dead people at the Catacombs. I was more uneasy about being that far under the ground with that many dead people than I had planned on being. It was interesting and creepy and I was glad I went.

Of course we did the Eiffel Tower clear to the top. Afterwards we had crepes and then walked around seeing things like the Arc de Triomphe, and some other stuff. I was usually concerned with eating. We stayed in Paris and then went to Church the next morning before leaving.

To be Continued......

A Word on Family Pictures

And a little late for Mother's Day, but it was just too funny.

Winking Eye, Alcohol Suggestion

A word on surgery and narcotics.

First off, if you happen to be female and have had a kid, I don't want to hear it. I'm sure it's awful and I'm sure I will never be able to relate. I had surgery last week. The doctor made it sound like it wasn't going to be anything serious, however in the end I still feel like I got stabbed in the gut and run over by a truck. In all fairness, this was my first time as a patient in a hospital so I'm not sure what I was expecting. Well, I take that back. What I was expecting was some time in a humiliating hospital gown, some pain, and a day or two of rest. I hadn't taken into account the hours of waiting, the general anesthesia, the myriad of nurses with different and often conflicting instructions, nor the narcotics (which I might add are pretty amazing). Post surgery I'm looking at a around a month of recovery. Recovery entails limping around and not lifting anything over five pounds. By the way, do you know what weighs more than five pounds, EVERYTHING! I had the singular joy of taking my bandages off today which I had built up in my head to being something akin to the terror of opening a tube of Pillsbury crescent rolls. I would just keep pulling on the packaging until I eventually popped. Luckily that didn't happen. IV's, suck. Hospital gowns suck. Operation rooms, really suck. It pretty much felt like I had been wheeled in to a morgue. I've actually been healing pretty quick and all in all modern medicine is pretty amazing. I might actually try driving tomorrow!

Easter?

This may surprise everyone (that is, everyone not in my family), but the Easter holiday is something I just don't get. Growing up I remember hunting Easter eggs a couple of times and possibly having a family Easter dinner a couple of other times. I do remember doing Easter activities in elementary school, but I honestly felt more like a Jehovah's Witness on Christmas. This was mostly due to the remarks I recall from family members saying things about eggs and bunnies are not how you celebrate Easter. In fact, I remember thinking one year that Mormons don't celebrate Easter. This all was brought home again after watching my uncle's new family celebrating Easter like it's a second Christmas; new outfits, presents (big ones), candy out the yin-yang, big dinners, etc... In my adult years I've taken the stance that extravagant Easters are silly. (Mostly because I have to have something to say when people ask what I'm doing for Easter.) Why do you need presents, you don't have to go to hell, that's your present, Happy Easter! My married siblings all spend Easter with their in-laws and that leaves me eating some vaguely Mexican-themed dinner wondering what holiday it is that everybody keeps referencing.

A Sickness

I wish the first 7 minutes of this video didn't ring so true with me, but they do. I can't help myself.




There is no need for you to watch the rest of the video, but if you have time I recommend it.

A Word on Sequestration

Dear employees of the federal government,

       Really, this is nothing personal. We know you have families, and mortgages, bills, hopes, and aspirations for retirement just like the rest of us. However,  you had to have seen this coming. Your employer (good old Uncle Sam) has over spent. Wait... that doesn't seem quite accurate- your employer has GROSSLY  OVERSPENT! (still not adequate, but it will have to do) and he hasn't blown trillions on good things most of the time either. He has spent money on conflicts, bail-outs, hand-outs, studying and saving the endangered Moapa Dace, and a whole host of things most people would find upsetting. Trillions has been spent with little to show for it. I mean, I could understand the debt, to a point, if our infrastructure was up to date instead of crumbling, or if public eduction worked, or, or, or.... but that doesn't appear to be the case. It is unrealistic to assume that your employer can make the spending cuts he needs to and still keep employing all14 million + of you that he thinks there are (he's not real sure how many people he employs). So once again, please don't take this personally. We'd love to have you over here in the private sector. For those of you who went and got an education and training that is completely useless outside of government employment, you can always go get training or schooling more applicable to the world the rest of us all live in. Is it inconvenient? Yes. Will it be hard? I'm sure it will be. However, life is hard. You may not be handed a pension after working for a whole 20 years. You may not get benefits. You may not have the security of knowing you won't be fired no matter how bad you are at doing your job. The rest of us deal with all these issues and since we're the ones paying into the system we are sorry but you're fired.

A Couple Things To Discuss

First off, the Jeep is history. The only other employee of the engineering firm I work for had a Toyota Tacoma for a work vehicle and I asked him if wanted to trade. He asked why and I told him that I detested the thing. He responded with, "sure, I don't care what I drive." I spent at least 30 minutes trying to convince him that simply couldn't be the case, that he had to care what he drove to some extent. He was unmoved on this point so I gave up and we swapped keys.

While I'm no real fan of Toyota products I do enjoy this truck exponentially more than that clap-trap of a Chrysler product that I was driving before. It's a 4 cylinder with a manual transmission and 4WD. This is the first car I've used with Bluetooth and I must say it is quite handy.



In other news, this:

The Ely Stake YSA group had a temple trip to St. George last weekend and Megan and I (well just Megan) called Aunt Millie to come and join us. Yes, that is her waving at the camera. We had a fun visit. She is always a hoot.