Today started out as hot or hotter than yesterday but the trick was to get going early. We were out by 8:30 and had 5 good hours of touring done before the sweltering midday sun got to a point where us mere mortals couldn't handle it. (People here are dressed in jeans and leggings and even long sleeve shirts believe it or not! The temperature in the main square at 9 pm read 28 degrees so I can only imagine what it was at noon today! ). All that said, the mornings and late evenings are great and we took full [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Zagreb today on schedule - at 12 noon - and stepped out of our train to an unbelievable heat! I couldn’t get internet at the hotel so I don’t know what the temperature was but it felt like 40 celsius. After a fairly long and steamy tram ride we arrived at our hotel area. (Trams here come in two flavours: the new modern air-conditioned variety and the old somewhat beaten up window open if you are lucky variety.) We got the latter on our route! The hotel is very comfortable and central air makes the room nice and [View Full Entry]

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I'm a bit late publishing this entry - we were without internet for a couple of days - I’ll start by talking about dinner on Sunday night in Budapest. We decided on a restaurant just off Vaci utca (the main shopping and tourist street of Budapest) that was suggested in our guidebook. It turned out to be a great choice. A violinist and xylophonist were playing outside on the patio where we ate a very nice traditional Hungarian meal. Nothing exceptional but good basic food (seems typical of Hungarian cuisine) and nice wine. The musicians were very good and it made [View Full Entry]

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What a difference a 1 hour 40 minute plan ride can make! From the flatlands and canals and bicycles of the Netherlands to the hills, the Danube and majestic buildings of a bustling former communist city. Budapest is impressive -- we arrived on a Sunday and at first I thought that that might have been a bad idea. It turned out to be a very good one. The main bridge spanning Buda and Pest across the Danube was closed to traffic and turned into a huge Sunday market with all kinds of goods and more food that one could possibly imagine [View Full Entry]

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A very nice day here today ... a few pics of the ancient Utrecht canal system. [View Full Entry]

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Well we woke up this morning to beautiful sunshine for our last day in Utrecht. We plan to squeeze in a cruise on the old canal between conference sessions some time today since it is our last chance to do so. i will hopefully come back with some interesting pics later. Karla and I did our conference presentation yesterday afternoon and it was very well received. Nice to have it over now and to be moving on soon to the real vacation part of the trip. We ate last night (for the second time!) at a Portuguese restaurant not far from [View Full Entry]

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This entry is more of a reflection on the bicycle situation here. I know it is a cliche but honestly the number of bicycles on the roads and in the parking stalls is amazing. I've attached a picture of a bike parking lot at the station in Amsterdam - unbelievalbe. Also, one has to be very careful walking to watch out not so much for the cars and trams but the bikes- they are silent but deadly! 5 pm here now and we are back from our first conference day. Extremely well organized! [View Full Entry]

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Today started out with torrential rain but things cleared up nicely around mid-morning allowing us to do a 3 hour walking tour of Utrecht. I tried to pick out the best of the pics -- it really is quite a beautiful old city. We came back to the hotel to rest and do a little work for the conference. The hotel only has 7 rooms and is really very nice. I've attached a pic of the garden out back that goes down to a sliver of a canal. A nice spot to sit and have glass of wine! The owners are [View Full Entry]

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Lenora and I left Amsterdam this morning and 30 minutes later after a comfortable train ride found ourselves in Utrecht - a very nice city of about 300,000 (about Ottawa size). Still rainy but sunny breaks here and there. We walked a lot today - about 30 mins into the town centre from our hotel -- did that there and back twice. Hopefully it will balance out the food and drink! We plan to do some touring here tomorrow - boat cruise of the old canal here in this medieval city and some walking about. My colleague, Karla, and I register [View Full Entry]

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Well, day 2 in Amsterdam began with a walk from our apartment to the Centraal train station where we took a cruise of the harbour and canals. It turned out to be a beautiful day as the pics show. Afterward we walked back to our apartment and along the way stopped for a beer and and a snack (fries and mayonnaise - a local delicacy!) It started to rain so we and another couple with two small children moved under a canopy. We started to talk to them and discovered they were from Vancouver. They had house-swapped with a couple from [View Full Entry]

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