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der coach Joined: July 7th 2008
Logged in: July 13th 2008
Logged in: July 13th 2008
Travel Blog Posts
hillside
Hello from beautiful Aurora; last week we arrived home after an uneventful trip from Vienna. I like uneventful trips, especially on planes. We had a fun last few days in Europe let me tell you about them. We were traveling with the Atwood’s, Mark and MG. Luke’s parents. We drove south from Vienna and turned east at Graz and found ourselves driving through rolling hills not unlike we see in east Multnomah county heading towards the Cascade range. In fact the terrain is nearly the same. If Mt. Hood suddenly emerged behind the hills to the east we would be in Estacada. It’s very, very green and come to think of it if we substituted rock walls for grapes we would be in Ireland…beautiful. We found a nice Zimmer (hotel) on a hill overlooking all this ... read more
jogging
Hey; On a sky blue clear Sunday morning I stood on a wooden dock with a bright sun shining down on the still water of “Oh my God it’s cold” lake just outside of Jyvaskyla. I know it’s cold because last night, along with most of our team, I leaped into the frigid depths, without hesitation, to cool down from the sauna. It’s a Finnish tradition, but I don’t think it’s going to catch on in America. Too much shrinkage. I felt like George in a classic Seinfeld episode. After a Saturday double practice session we had a team ‘boys’ night out in a church camp, not unlike those you see in central Oregon. In fact with the abundance of pine trees it could have been somewhere outside Prineville, maybe on lake Paulina. The camp was ... read more
the danube
Howdy; Nancy and Joey arrive on Saturday and we play the Innsbruck Raiders on Sunday. They are the team that spoiled our perfect season last year. Beating us in the Austrian championship the week after we won the European title. It will be interesting. We will be trying to avenge our loss and they will be trying to prove their win wasn’t a fluke. It’s going to be a fun weekend. Here’s how I spent Thursday, our day off. I walked along the Danube uninterrupted for about an hour and decided because it was such a beautiful day to go to the Prater in the afternoon. The Prater is an amusement park situated on land filled with trees, paths, flowers, playgrounds and open fields for the people of Vienna to relax and enjoy nature’s sunny ... read more
rome
. America is a land of convenience and Europe is not. That in my estimation built on spending about a third of my adult life hopping around, traveling through or living all over this continent, is the main difference between Europe and America. Of course there are many more. The most obvious being language. I speak food Deutsch. I can order the meal, ask for the check and not gag on either. The rest of the language is pretty foreign to me. Although courtesy of John Mangan, the German teacher at Mc Nary, whom I managed a “B” in first year German, I can understand more than I can speak. Others are money; most of Europe uses the Euro, the value of which seems to fluctuate to the advantage of the smart people of the world ... read more
inside a church
In 1964 I hitch hiked across the USA in four and a half days. I got to New York City too fast and had to find a place to stay for five more days before flying to Europe. I found a mid-town YMCA that worked. I only bring that up for financial reasons. That first trip to explore this continent cost me a grand total of $900. That included a plane round trip ticket from NYC to Luxembourg, a euro-rail pass for three months, lodging and food. I was traveling for ninety days. My math tells me that’s ten bucks a day Nancy, our niece Kelly and I had a wonderful trip to Rome, that’s in Italy, not Georgia. It didn’t begin too great though. First of all the flight was about as smooth as ... read more
let's go joey
If you believe in folklore Dürnstein is the place in Austria for you to visit. It’s a small village located about thirty kilometers west of Vienna on the Danube in what is called the Wachau valley. It was here in 1192 that King Richard the Lion-Heart was imprisoned in the castle of Kuenringer. Legend has it that the King was discovered when he recognized the voice of his minstrel aide singing a merry tune on his way to Vienna while in search of his master. For me the city conjures up visions of Robin Hood, Prince John and Maid Marion. Robin Hood is Errol Flynn and not Kevin Costner. I don’t care what went on behind closed doors in Sherwood Forest, Errol Flynn is Robin Hood. Besides the only tight pants Kevin Costner looks good ... read more
shore line
Hi, One of the perks in this job is during our bye weeks we often take a three or four day trip to someplace in Europe that we haven’t been to before. The Aegean Air flight into Athens was a considerable improvement over my first venture to Greece. In 1964 I took a boat from Brindisi, Italy through the Adriatic to Patras and then a bus over a treacherous tiny two-lane highway with sheer cliffs an inch or so from the wheels of our over loaded and careening vehicle. One missed turn and we would plunge five hundred or so feet to our death. I assumed the driver had made the trip before and hoped that was the reason he was passing on blind curves in the middle of the night with only his parking lights ... read more
