Travel – Page 6 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Winter Coats

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Winter Coat

Hello dalink, have you seen moose and squirrel?

Winter Coat

We have acquired new winter coats along with hats, gloves and wool socks. We’re also packing scarves. Highs in Brussels are in the 40’s and lows are near or below freezing.

Travelling Digitalia

Digitalia

I think I have the tech for the upcoming trip to Brussels sorted out. The G1 Android has been unlocked and I have been in communication with Belgacom and they indicate I should be able to pick up a “pay as you go” SIM card for my phone that will allow me to make voice calls and data connections over their 3G network. This will be much less expensive than paying T-Mobile roaming charges and will allow me to utilize the features of my phone like the GPS and Google Maps. Not that I have a real need, but the geek in me wants to play….

I’ve also acquired a MSI Wind U100-420US 10-Inch Netbook. 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM (upgraded to two), 120 GB Hard Drive, XP Home and a 3 Cell Battery. Built in WI-FI as well as an Ethernet port this computer should be all I need to keep up to date with my online obligations as well as allowing me to offload and process my pictures. Web cam, nice large keyboard and display and it weighs under 2.5 lbs making it something I can tuck into the pocket of my backpack for easy toting!

For the price, this thing rocks! There are some newer models coming out at the beginning of 2009 which have more features (and cost alot more) but this is all I need. It’s snappy and easy to use and being relatively inexpensive it would hurt my feelings to lose it while abroad, but it would not be devastating.

Shiny Euros

We have received our travelin’ Euros for the upcoming trip. I love the colour of European money. The holograms are so pretty. It’s like play money in that it doesn’t look real, but it also evokes the passion I associate with travel. Having Euros in hand makes the whole thing more “real”, if that makes any sense.

Of course, being the shutterbug I am, I wanted to photograph the bills as a matter of course so I played with different configurations and ended up with the above shot.

When I had finished procressing the RAW file and went to open it in Photoshop CS3, the strangest thing happened. This message popped up saying “”This Application Does Not Support the Printing of Banknote Images”:

In doing some research, this seems to be the same for the new American bills that were recently issued.

What stikes me is that this is not a scan of the Euro notes. It’s a photograph and it doesn’t even include a complete, unobscured bill in the photo. Yet Photoshop recognized the content of the image and produced that warning and, presumably, will not print it in the unaltered form.

It only let me save the oringinal file as PNG and I have not tried to print it.

Technology is cool!

Beer And Spiders

Cynthia @ The Dumon Chocolate Shop in Bruge 2005

We’ve been to Belgium once before, specifically Bruges. Long time readers of this blog might recall the “Maiming Of The Nose” incident where we had to rush Cynthia to the hospital after arriving on the train from Amsterdam.

When plotting the previous trip our friend Bill Shirley was most helpful in suggesting how to go about exploring beer options while we were there.

Cynthia is not a fan of beer. Prior to going to Belgium that time she had consumed less than one beer, pronouncing the drink undrinkable.

It was suggested by Bill that Cynthia try a Lambic, a traditional Belgian brew that is fruit flavored (peach, raspberry, etc.) to see how she would like that.

As it happened, we went downtown prior to our trip and ended up at The Flying Saucer where Cynthia was able to sample a Lambic prior to our journey. She liked it quite a bit and we made a point of acquiring some during our stay in Bruges.

Cynthia actually liking a beer is, well, incongruous. She had the few prior to and during our trip but none since. As we are laying the groundwork for our upcoming trip she’s actually mentioned how much she is looking forward to having a Lambic or three while we’re there (along with samples of chocolates from the some 80+ chocolatiers listed in the Brussels phone directory).

As we were reading up on the upcoming Christmas trip Cynthia found information regarding the brewing process for Lambic. Turns out it is not fermented the way other beers are. With traditional beer brewers, yeasts are added manually to ferment the wort. But with Lambic beer, wild airborne yeasts””present in the atmosphere in and around Brussels””are allowed to permeate the wort naturally.

To accomplish this, the wort is pumped into a copper tub called a “cooling tun” which sits in an open sided building, exposed to the elements where the naturally occurring, airborne yeasts fall naturally into the wort.

It is then poured into untreated wooden barrels where the wild yeast and and wort ferment.

The process cannot be duplicated manually and since the process is the only way to actually produce this particular brew, the Lambic brewers are exempt from any of the the same health standards and regulations that govern all other brewers in Belgium.

This has Cynthia conflicted. I believe the exact term she used was “eee-yewwwwww!”

On the one hand, she finds Lambics tasty and enjoyable. On the other hand, she has to reconcile the fact that the brewing process operates outside of sanitation standards she finds acceptable.

We’ll see how it goes. I wanted to see about touring a Lambic brewery, but just found out they have a tendency to attract spiders that feed on the bugs that are attracted to the wort.

Cynthia says God has quite the diabolical and ironic sense of humor.

Poor Impulse Control

Cynthia e-mailed me this morning saying:

OK- I’ve suddenly been bitten by the travel bug. I can be talked out of it though. Go ahead and tell me why it wouldn’t be a great idea to fly to Brussels for Christmas!!!!!!

I couldn’t think of a single reason…

3 hours later we have our flight and hotel booked.

Looks like we’ll be hitting up the Plaisirs d’Hiver/Winter Pret (“Pleasures of Winter”) festival to celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year!

w00t!

Seattle

Both of these best viewed large. Click image to see large version.

Downtown Seattle

Moonrise Over Lake Union

Another Resource

One of my friends/co-workers who follows along here at baldheretic.com and read about the grand scheme suggested I take a look at Facebook for information on the upcoming trip. Turns out there are several groups dedicated to Valencia and Las Fallas.

Another resource! I have joined some groups and posted to the public forums.

On a related note, I’ve had some very good dialogue with the contacts I mentioned previously.

Contact

Previous trips have benefited from online resources like Tripadvisor to get insight into which hotels to reserve and sites like Expedia and Travelocity to secure plane tickets. We’ve even used city/state/country sponsored tourism sites to gather valuable information about our destinations.

This will be the first trip for us to use social networking as a means to enhance our vacation.

It’s been less than one day since I started my social networking experiment and I have already made 3 contacts.

Via Twitter I have met Iwan, a Dutchman living in Spain for the last several years working as an IT architect, and John who is a transplant to Spain from the UK. John has been living in a suburb of Valencia for the last 20 years working as a professional translator, translating Spanish to English.

I love John’s e-mail signature which includes a clickable link to his geographic location (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.637,-0.6195).

Via Flickr I have met Manel. Manel does not speak very good English, but he’s an avid photographer and is an active Flickr user. His photo-stream includes pictures of a photowalk in Valencia. He and his friends look like the Spanish equivalent of any handful of Assignment Houston photogs.

They’ve all been very kind and receptive to my social networking experiment, each offering to answer questions and even meet up when Cynthia and I arrive in Spain for the festival.

We’re off to a good start.