spatrickr
Scott Richards Joined: July 2nd 2009
Logged in: October 4th 2009
Logged in: October 4th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
My good pal, and former flatmate from Eastie, Jens, drove up from Cologne to Amsterdam just to pick me up and drive out to Berlin...his total trip time was 9 hours! Crazy bastard! What a friend eh?? Well, he also had a bachelor party to attend, which I joined him for. The car ride to Berlin was fantastic. Ever been on the Autobahn? 250km/hr, WOW! We made it from Amsterdam to Berlin in less than 6 hours. We arrived in the evening and quickly pulled ourselves together for the big Benno Bachelor Party. Met up with the guys downtown somewhere I can't recall the name of. The bachelor, Benno, was easy to spot with his neon yellow t-shirt, sparkly top hat, and vending tray hanging from his neck, full of tiny bottles of liquor for sale. ... read more
Before leaving Antwerp, Riet and I packed up my beer glasses and went to the post office to send them off to the US. There they told us that they couldn´t send glass. I persisted and they said they could send the package but there was a good chance some glasses would break. So we went around the corner from the PO and found another cardboard box to wrap around the other box for padding, and returned to the clerk in the PO to send it. It just barely weighed under the 5kg max for 26 euros. I came to find out later from my uncle that 5/11 glasses did in fact break. Sad, but hell, the glass were free anyways! hehe, off to Brugge. Riet sent me off at the train station and directions how ... read more
My train from Antwerp departed around 3 in the afternoon and arrived at 8 in the evening. My good friend Jeroen from Holland came to retrieve me from the train station. On the way to his car I took a good tumble right in the middle of the street and scuffed up my elbow :-O We packed up my things in his Audi wagon and drove to his place, just on the other side of the tracks from the popular downtown area. He told me about his peculiar leasing arrangement for his apartment. He is renting for a bargain because the owner needs someone living there while he waits for the man on the bottom level of the building to move out, at which time he can finish updating the house and flip it for a ... read more
Antwerp, Belgium July 8-10 I caught an early evening train to Antwerp from Lille and arrived to my host’s apartment around 8pm. I got a bit lost on the way, but that tends to happen quite often in new cities. Riet was immediately very welcoming and easy to talk to. I could tell we’d get along great. After dropping off my load at her place, we walked a short distance into the center of town and went to a bar where there was a good local rock group playing. We’d arrived a bit late, and it was completely packed to the door with people. We squeezed our way in and grabbed a couple of drinks. I of course got my first Belgian Trappist Ale on tap!! I got Orval, which was served in traditional Belgian fashion, ... read more
Lille, northern France I was off to Lille by mid-day on the 7th. I caught the TGV (Fast) train which took only an hour and a half to arrive in Lille. It was quite the experience to sit on a train cruising at 250km/hr. In fact it took me a good 20 minutes of reading and listening to my IPOD before I looked out and realized how fast we were going. The ground nearest to the train was impossible to follow, and even the trees and hills in the distance moved faster than my eyes could follow. When I arrived in Lille it was around 4pm , and it had just started to rain. Unlucky for me, I wasn’t able to reach my host on her cell phone after a few tries, so I walked around ... read more
Just my luck! I finished typing a huge passage about Paris and lost it all when I submitted it to publish. Here’s a summary. Day 2-3 of Paris continued…On the eve of my second day in Paris I finished my walking tour of Paris at the Hotel de Infediles, an enormous old brick building with a large courtyard and a military museum. The museum seemed more fascinating after I saw the old mini tanks at the corners of the courtyard. These tanks which were designed by the French military gave them a new edge on their competition in WWII. If Ford gets their hands on the blueprints for this, it could become the next Hummer! After a bit more walking around the Hotel, I hopped on the Metro to go to the restaurant recommended to me ... read more
Dublin day 2 & 3! The craic is 90!! Ok, so the craic is an Irish term loosely translated as "good times" and the 90 refers to the year 1990 when Ireland experienced one of it's greatest economic and sports years. What I did on Days 2-3-- -Took the Padi walking tour starting at the tourist center, formerly a Catholic Church. Lasted about 2 hours and gave me a great intro to the history of central Dublin and sites. - Hiked along the Liffey River toward the Guinness Brewery. I buckled down and bought lunch at McDonald's. Yeah, I know, lame, but food is NOT cheap here and I was famished. Even my Big Mac meal cost me over 6 euro!! Took me a good 45mins to walk to the brewery, but it was a nice ... read more
I've just arrived to Dublin at 5:15 this morning on an evening flight out of Boston. Not quite a red-eye since I lost 6 hours in flight. I hung around for awhile at the coffee shop so I could catch the first bus into the city center. I got to the gate of my CouchSurfing host at around 8:00 and I'm pretty sure I woke the poor guy up. Anyways, he greeted me and we talked over some tea. He was off to work, so I headed out on my own to catch some sights. I checked out the tourist office, which was formerly a Catholic Church (Still preserved and gorgeous). Got myself a map and snuck in behind a walking tour group to see if I could get an earful of what was around us. ... read more
