Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I'm leaving on a Jetplane...

So... in 1:15 in the morning... I leave for the airport at 2:15 to arrive at the pre-determined 3:20 meeting time in front of the US Airways desk in PDX.

I finally got my apartment situation worked out, made the holding deposit today, I go in to work out the lease agreement before or on the 1st of June. So I have to try to cover rent for 3 months without Andy... that's gonna be spendy.

So back to the trip, now that my life when I return is more or less in order, I am leaving in an hour, I am mostly packed, though worried that my bag may way over the 50 lbs. that US Airways allows (and it charges $50 if you are overweight), what an unforgiving airway, or you could pay $25 and have two checked bags... once again... what an unforgiving airline.

But other than that worry I'm okay, I'm taking my laptop, Flip, video Nano (with about 3 hours of Yogi Bear cartoons I just bought off of iTunes for $10USD) [I'm going to start referring to things in USD from this point in the blog until I return from my trip as a way of differentiating between what things costs there. According to Yahoo! Finance, the Euro to Dollar is 1.5554 everything costs 1.5x what it does in the states. Yippee! With rent when I return! Crap...

Back to Europe again! I'm flying to Amsterdam... I'm leaving at 5 a.m. this morning and I get there at 8 a.m. WEDNESDAY MORNING! Just for those of you keeping track... that's 25 Hours of loss (not really because of time zones, but I'm not caring about time zones, this is my rant, I can have it be as miserable sounding as I want)... 25 Hours of sitting in a plane with babies screaming, but I have Yogi bear with me, and about 10 hours of Podcasts about European Travel, specifically Amsterdam and Parisian travel. Am I going to be bored? Doubtful, I like being able to watch old Yogi Bear cartoons and sleep and drink soda all day :)

ALAS! I doubt they'll let me just waltz into Northwestern France and buy an old sword and take it with me home... and that's a sad day. Someday I'll own a house in France and then I'll horde antiquities.... Swords and armor and I'll get into some sticky situations in town where someone got almost run through and I have to ride my horse/mule/pony/donkey back to my chateau/house/hut/shack and quickly tear out of my rusty armor before the police show up to question me...

But I want to rent a car, a Citroen or something that we don't have in the states, just for fun.

I'm also considering going to the Heineken factory in Amsterdam, Sarah thought it might be fun as well.

We'll see, I have my flip so I'll make an attempt to upload movies sometime this week if I get brave enough to take my laptop out into the sea of European pickpockets to find one of 2, YES I SAID 2!, internet cafes in the entirety of Amsterdam. What kind of country has only 2 internet cafes? Honestly... they would have an aneurysm is they saw the media-drowned existence I lead at home in the United States of America. Wi-Fi on every corner, 45 year old men playing World of Warcraft, talk about a culture shock.

But until then, Au Revoir!

I have a French Phrase book that is hilarious, has pickup lines and everything, we'll see how that goes. Haha.

Later Hombres.

1 comment:

Whatafreak said...

I'm sure you would have no problems getting into France or obtaining those items you desire, but trying to explain just why you have a set of armor and various medieval weapons in your luggage to the check-in attendant probably isn't going to end with positive results.

Is that phrase book the same as the one you and Sarah and I looked at in that bookstore? The ones that have the riotously funny sex/pickup lines in them? Anyway, I feel envious. Someday, I would like to make a trip to Europe as well, but I have no idea where I would want to go specifically.

If you get the chance to upload some videos I would surely appreciate it. If you run into any trouble converting them to a usable format (the Flip records in an obscure codec) then feel free to send them to me and I can convert and post to YouTube for you or something as a temporary solution until you get home.

Have fun! I mean, I know you will, but I still have to be a well-wisher, right?