The End?

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Well, back at home now. A bit sad...you plan a vacation for over a year, and when it's over you know it will be a long time, if ever, before you can do it again. The jet lag is ferocious; thank heaven for 4th of July so I can sleep. All the language study finally paid off...as I boarded the plane in Amsterdam for Detroit, I answered the desk agent's question in Dutch - and she saw "Peterson" on my passport and replied to me like I was a native! A small reward, but something!!

A great time. Loved Amsterdam, and Romania was as fun as I remembered. No desire to go to Germany ever again, and London only if I can afford it! I will probably go to the Orient on my next trip, and when I return to Europe, I will will push further east. Sofia, Kiev, Riga and Moscow are certainly on my list. Italy and Spain and Greece someday, but probably will wait until i retire.

Almost 3 weeks gone, 6 countries and over 10 different cities and dozens of great people! It is hard to be an American traveling now - but for the most part, people were friendly to me personally, if critical of my government. The only real overt anti-US attitudes I caught were, of course, from the Germans - but who needs 'em. And one really cool hotel owner in Ingolstadt almost made up for all the other problems with the Krauts. If you are ever in Ingolstadt, stay at Hotel Domizil, ha ha! The Brits were friendly, Portuguese, Dutch and Mexicans were great, as were the Czechs. The Italians and Serbians were obnoxious, but its the World Cup - so I give them a pass. And, of course, the worst behaved were the Americans! We should screen people before we let them leave the country!

Will I go to World Cup 2010 in South Africa? Dunno - maybe, but the US Team will have to have improved dramatically. I spent a lot of time, effort and money to see two goals in two games....and I'm still not the biggest soccer fan. I realize even more now why the game isn't popular in the US. Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of fringe sports - I love hockey and lacrosse and hate baseball and basketball. But sports in the US are willing to change the rules and tweak the game to make it more interesting and more fun to watch. Soccer refuses to do so, so at times the games are painfully boring. The diving has to be eliminated - 2 minutes after a player is fouled and is moaning on the grass he is back in the game. Its embarrassing and silly. The goals should be made smaller so the keeper actually has a chance, and the field should be shortened and there needs to be 8 players a side instead of 10 to free the game a bit. None of this will happen, so soccer will never have any great following in the US - and that's ok. Leave it to the euros.

I like being outside the US and more and more I think I will need to tweak my career a bit and work abroad eventually. Rotterdam is the biggest port city in the world: someday - who knows!!

I will post a link to the pics here within the next couple of days - I took 200 photos, and am still weeding out the bad pics, labeling them, eliminating the red eye, etc. So, if you like, check back by the end of the week and I will have a slideshow link published here. I will try to work with Quigley to publish all our photos in the same album.

Anyway, if you made it this far - thanks for reading! I hope it was somewhat entertaining for you. Sorry the blogs weren't longer, more frequent, or more detailed, but it was more fun to do the things than write about them....and internet access was hard to find at the best of times.

I have a lot of great memories from this trip and hope Joe and Quig do also. Take care!!!

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Comments

[suz]

:)
Amazing trip! It's been fun reading about your adventures...there is nothing like traveling internationally! :) I"m looking forward to seeing the pics.