Road Trips and Europe

I've been travelling a lot for work, but vacations are one of the benefits of why you work and time to re-charge. Last month was a pretty cool month for vacations...Road tripping around northern California with David and then Europe for 11 days with my mom...

Road trips with friends are always interesting and how it goes often reflects that friendship. You're with your friend(s) in close quarters and for longer periods of time....Generally, either the friendship becomes stronger or you can't wait for the road trip to end. In my case, it was such a cool trip on so many levels and our friendship continues to grow. So....almost 400 miles in 3 days we covered a lot of ground...Carmel, Monterary, 17-mile drive, gaming it up at Dave & Busters in San Jose, experiencing Fernet, creating the "czar" shot, lunch at Boudin in SF, hiking through Muir Woods, chillin in Sausalito and dinner at Little Star in SF...It was such a cool trip on so many levels and our friendship continues to grow....

Europe was also a good trip. This year we went to London, Barcelona, Budapest and Amsterdam....London is always one of my favorites, but of course when in London so does the rain. Our dollar was really weak all over Europe, but especially in London against the GB Pound. When it costs $9 for a value meal at McDonald's, something is wrong...It was great to be back in Spain and getting to use my Spanish again. It's such a cool place for archetiture. Budapest was very dissapointing and I was expecting more. This was our first time in Eastern Europe and let's just say it's much different from the western parts...As a former Soviet property, the country is still facing economic problems. It's very dirty and poor, with very little English spoken. I guess I was expecting a little more basic English in high tourist spots and at the hotel. We were sold the wrong subway pass (no one spoke English) and were fined $30 each...Just paid the fine, I can't imagine Hungarian jail being very nice. People say how rude people in Paris are (personally, I think the people there are not rude based on experiences), but let me tell you if you think Paris is rude you won't like Budapest very much. Where shop keepers and hotels complain about how poor their country is, you think they would be very nice to any tourists...Yes, there were a few exceptions but I'm not rushing to go back there anytime soon...

We'll see where 2008 takes me...

Is Europe A Country?

I was just in Budapest a few weeks ago and this is hillarious....check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juOQhTuzDQ0

Styling in Vegas...

I was in Vegas this week for work which was very cool....and I missed 2 snowstorms in Milwaukee, I can't complain. I've been going to Vegas for 15 years now and I've never understood how people dress is Vegas. Why do people wear suits/ties on vacation?!? If those same guys always wear suits/ties at their jobs, ok maybe they're just used to it. Watching the tables this week, I saw the guys with suits and the guys in shorts/flip flops. The suits appeared to be more confident, but who won? Who got the comps? Answer - The person who plays the game the best and spends the most money, dress isn't a factor. I think people often dress to become someone they're not, why not just be yourself especially when you're on vacation?