Paris!

Bruges to Brussels no problem. Then the high speed train to Paris.

This will be short as the French excuse for a computer keyboard is an abomination. Who ever heard of using an ALT key to type a period…? And the Q and the A keys are transposed as well as a few other quirks.

It kills me I cannot show you the night shots of the Eiffel Tower!
There are some cool pics I will share when I can.

Thanks to every one for the well wishes and good thoughts!
Cynthia is doing well and so am I.

A quick update

Back at the Internet cafe for a quick update. Cynthia is fine. We got around today with no problems. Even with a bandage on her nose she is still the prettiest woman in Europe. She climed the 375 steps to the top of the clock tower in the central square and that perked her up.

We found the world famous Devon Chocolate Shop and stocked up. Wait till you see those pics! William the sheep has made some new friends. You could say he is a “good wool ambassador” (groan).

I purchased two Cohiba Cuban cigars at the local tobaccoist and have smoked one in a nice pub as I drank a brandy. Ahh, decadence!

This is the coolest little town. We saw a lovely statue of Madonna and child. It is said to be the only Michaelangelo statue outside of Italy. It is carved from a single block of Marble as is his style. It’s awe-inspiring.

Gotta run! Tomorrow is Paris!

Disaster

Upon arrival in Bruges we had a bit of a scare. As Cynthia was entering the cab for the ride to the hotel she slipped and smashed her nose on the door frame. Blood began to run down her lip and there were numerous abrasions to the forehead and the bridge of her nose.

Our desitnation quickly changed from the hotel to the nearest hospital. The nurse admitted us quickly and within 20 minutes Cynthia was being x-rayed and treated. Fortunately the nose is unbroken and in tact. No concussion. All in all it took 1 hour in the emergency room and we were on our way with a prescription for extra strength ibuprofen.

The doctor spoke Dutch and a little English. When he looked at the paperwork and read where we were from he quipped “Houston, we have a problem.” The levity went a long, long way.

The hospital did not charge us. They will mail us a bill back in Houston. Can you imagine? We walked in, got treated and were sent on our way. Imagine some poor sap from the EU who spoke no English getting such good treatment in an emergency room in Houston…

All is well now and Bruges is fantastic. The Internet cafe I am in rests in the shadow of The Curch of Our Lady and is quite cool.

More when possible. Two days here and it’s off to Paris.

It’s all “Dutch” to me…

I’m using the B&B landlord’s PC. I managed to hook up the iPod successfully (even with Dutch instructions).
The plane ride was uneventful. When we arrived in Amsterdam we found out George Bush would be visiting. There were some protests. Getting “Stop Bush” fliers handed to us by the local dissidents was a hoot.

Cynthia and I hooked up with my friend Carl and his lovely lady Suzanne. We did some sight-seeing by foot on day 1 and managed to stay awake the whole day before crashing around 7:00 pm. That meant we were awake better than 24 hours and allowed us to (mostly) overcome jet lag.

The next day we went to the Van Gogh museum. Very nice. That evening was spent with Carl and Suzanne at their place. We had a lovely dinner and if I hadn’t been overcome by a hefty sinus headache we would have been up all night engaged in wonderful discussion. As it was, the evening was still mighty fine.

Today was spent taking the train to Liden and on to the Keukenhoff to check out the Tulip festival. It was spectacular!

Tomorrow is on the Bruges Belgium for chocolate and beer. I’ll update as I can.

Stephen Hawking, Ray Romano, The Simpsons and analogies

Commencing countdown, engines on.

If my impending trip to Europe were to be compared to a black hole you might say I have reached the event horizon. Time is slowing down as I am pulled into a singularity that is my vacation

The next few days stretch out before me in what seems to be an eternity.

It’s an odd feeling. Matter is energy and I am vibrating at a whole new frequency. Soon I will be invisible to the naked eye of employment (if only for a short time). Who knows what wonders await on the other side?

I guess I do since I have been planning for so long now.

iPod is go for launch

All the bugs seem to be worked out.
The iPod now successfully interfaces with my laptop and with my camera.

Yesterday I took my Sony DSC f828 camera and shot 228 5 megapixel images on my 512 MB memory stick.
When I arrived home I dined on delicious home made sloppy joes that Cynthia had made for dinner.

I was upbeat and optimistic and ready to take on the iPod for the final round.

My first order of business was to connect the iPod to the laptop and download the 300+ songs Cynthia had ripped (so far) from our CD collection.

*side note; The iTunes software is pretty damn amazing. Cynthia is not all that technically savvy and does not warm up to new software applications very readily. That being said, she has pretty much mastered the ripping process and has even begun to create some nice custom play. This is a HUGE bonus as it has sped up the process of digitizing the music collection.

I connected the iPod and, as it should, the iTunes software fired up. iTunes allowed me to name my iPod and initialized it correctly for Windows use. All 300+ songs were uploaded to the iPod in less than 10 minutes.

The next step was to connect my camera to the iPod and pull off the 228 images. All went as planned and the iPod brought up the proper menus and allowed me to offload the entire memory stick. It took approximately 30 minutes to transfer the whole load and used about 1/3 of the battery charge to do so. I deleted the memory stick using the iPod and disconnected.

Now for the real test. Could I recover the images from the iPod?

I connected to the laptop and looked under the “My Computer” icon. The iPod showed up as an external drive and I was able to browse the contents. There were my images in a folder. I copied the folder to my laptop in under 5 minutes. I then deleted the files from the iPod which took another few minutes.

All in all, a huge success and a much less painful day than the one before.

At this point I feel confident that I made the right choice. I have a solution for handling my pictures while traveling overseas.

And the bonus (as previously mentioned) is that I have an iPod.
I’m sitting at my desk listening to Cat Stevens as I type this.
On top of that Cynthia can use it and she is even excited about it. The idea of having access to some of her favorite music on the flight or when riding on the train has great appeal to her.

So, in the end, I not only have a practical solution for a problem that was presented in the planning for our trip, but I also have a gadget that will enhance the travelling part of the vacation for Cynthia.

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