So I just shared my story about being a "green" traveler, green as in inexperienced not environmentally concious. However, there has been more to my trip than that, so I thought I would add to the saga a bit.

For one, there was three days of solid work. That isn't much fun though, and I suppose some portion of it is somewhat confidential, so I will move on to the good stuff. Saturday did not have any work related necessities, so we (Jack and I) had the day to go sightseeing. The bus system really hasn't improved from that first day. Generally the bus is late, if it shows up at all, and trying to figure out which bus to take is like trying to find a worm in a bowl of alfredo linguini. They all look the same so you end up just waiting for one to move and then jump on it.

Saturday morning was no different. We stood in the cold morning chatting for about 35 min until the bus showed up. Of course just because it showed up doesn't mean we got to ride it. It went right past us. I suppose he thought that we were standing in the mud under the bus stop sign for half an hour trying to get a tan. Who knows. So we decided to go for a cab instead.

When the cabbie learned that we just wanted to go to the Metro station, I think that he was offended. He certainly wasn't happy. We got in and as far as I could tell he was going the wrong direction. We asked him which station we were going to, and he gave the right answer, I think. I don't know what nationality the guy was, or what school system he had come out of, but we couldn't understand most of what he was saying. When we got to the station the bill was higher than expected, but what do you do? We paid him and got out. Of course later that day we find the route on a map and figure out that he went around the whole university, rather than straight through it to the station. It doubled the trip.

The metro, as predicted, was much more reliable, straight-forward and understandable. We emerged near the Washington monument. It is interesting how my perception of the world has been shaped by the media. I pictured the mall as a big open grassy area with nice paved walkways. That is how it is in the movies. It turns out that there were gravel trails instead of pavement and the grass was little more than a muddy field. In fact it resembles my lawn, which is in a shameful state.


We stopped for pictures by the Washington Monument and then decided to swing out and see the Jefferson Memorial and then around to the Lincoln Memorial. On the way we saw the Holocaust Museum, and since it was on my list of recommended sites, we went in. We didn't come out for 3 hours.

It was a disturbing experience, and in that respect it was totally successful in its purpose. The naivety of the people, the evilness of the Nazis, the desparate situation that came of all of that; it is both almost umbelievable and a constant warning. How a whole society could turn from complacent to wicked in a matter of months, or a few years at the most. How so few were willing to stand up to a bully. How little we remember the few who did stand up to fight. How slow their neighbors were to help out. It could all happen again, too. That is one of the scariest things. It could be happening right now, and most of the world wouldn't even know it. Yikes.

As you can imagine, that put a spin on everything else we saw that day. Our next stop was the Jefferson Memorial, where this country has literally etched in stone the words and ideals that we were founded on. And you can't help but wonder how we failed in those purposes for millions of people. We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial next and saw the words of another leader who fought to end oppresion, and I realized that his cause still exists and has always existed. It is the classic good vs. evil dichotomy that all of us must choose between. Germany chose evil for several decades and look what it has costed them. The U.S. has been on both sides at times, but where are we today?


We walked through the Vietnam Memorial, and it is obvious that it is not easy to know when to be involved and when to let other's have their freedom. We struggle with it within the country on an individual level, so how can we make the right choices on an international basis? It also seems that politicians don't actually help the process. They come with their own desires for power and can steer nations into collision courses almost at will. Where are the benevolent leaders who make moral-based decisions?

And then we had lunch. I had an unsatisfying glorified boloney sandwich while Jack enjoyed a delicious Philly steak and cheese.


We decided to go for something a little lighter and spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the Air and Space Museum. Now that was cool. My boys would love that place, full of rockets, spaceships, airplanes and science. I waffled on whether or not to take in an IMAX movie about flying F18 jets, but my cheap side got the best of me and I skipped it, which was OK. Instead we ran over to the Natural History museum and spent the last 30 minutes running through the displays to see what ever we could.
It was great. There was one photography exhibit that was fantastic that I took some pictures of.
My shots don't do the real ones justice by far, just as a picture of a mummified ox doesn't have the same effect as seeing it does. It was still cool.


We went to China Town for dinner and ate some moderately good Chinese food. I guess that I am as picky as my mother claims if I can call Chinese food from China town moderately good. But it was.

So that was the adventure. Other than another botched attempt at using the bus system, and another cabbie who stiffed us by a couple of bucks, the excitement was pretty much over. Both Jack and I agreed that this would be a great place to bring our families. To my surprise admission was free at all of the museums. My tax dollars are paying for it all so I might as well use them. There is a week of solid entertainment right there. We'll just have to see when the next opportunity arises.

Planes and Buses and Trains, Oh My!

I am enjoying my first visit to Washington DC, and it has been a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. Being fairly new to travel, I think I have a pretty good handle on airports, and after my London experience the subway/tube/underground/metro thing isn't too difficult either. As long as I stick to those I am fine. This trip is a little different because I had to rely on buses to get around. Sure, I could have taken a cab anywhere, but frankly, the taxi ride is another alien form of transportation for me, so I decided to keep costs low and use the buses.

I flew into the Baltimore airport and after collecting my luggage started looking for the bus stop. It was on the way to the bus stop that I realized that I didn't have cash, so I stopped at an ATM and took care of that problem.

One thing that always makes me feel more secure when I am traveling is to have a map. I don't have to actually look at it, I just have to have one on me somewhere, and I feel like I can never get too lost to find my way back. I stopped at an information kiosk and was given a whole pile of paper, some useful, most destined for the trash bins. I was also given some very useful directions. Ride the B30 bus to Greenbelt station and then ride the Metro to College Park, where I should emerge from the Metro station next to the University of Maryland, and I knew that the Archives were next to the U of M and that my hotel was apparently more or less on campus. The bad news: I would need exact change for the bus.

I ended up walking back to a newsstand (next to where I had started) so I could buy an overpriced pack of gum whereby I could have the exact $3.10 I needed to ride the bus. I shoved the changes in my pocket and I started walking back to the bus stop, jingling the quarter and two pennies in my pocket. Wait a minute... My change didn't include the coveted dime I needed. Unlucky for me I was a fast walker and was half way back to the bus stop, which was in another terminal. I walked back to the newsstand and exchanged my quarter for two dimes and nickel and then booked it back to the bus stop. Of course, I just missed the bus. I now was blessed with a half hour wait in the cold.

Forty-five minutes later I was enjoying a rather scenic ride to College Park, rehearsing the directions the information-guy had given me. My maps were in my briefcase, all was well. I get off the bus and follow the herd down into the metro station, where I stopped at one of the machines to get my ticket. I was going to be there for a while, so I was going to get a pass that I could use anywhere. After 3 attempts at getting a pass I was stumped. I was using a company credit card, and I didn't know the zip code that the bill went to. On the fourth try I used my own card and it worked. And I missed the train. Another cold 20 minute wait.

Thirty-five minutes later I got off the train at College Park still cold (it was only a five minute train ride) but feeling a little more confident. Yes, I was delayed, but in the end I had won. Or so I thought. I emerge out of the hole that was the metro station and look around. I don't see anything but a line of buses, a parking structure and trees. Where was the University? It only took me about 10 minutes to decide that I had to ride a bus, and after examining a map and a few schedules I picked one out that went to the University. For those of you who are thinking that I am too stubborn to ask for directions, let me give my rebuttal now. First of all, I was in this mess because of that very strategy. I had done what the guy in the airport had suggested, and that didn't work. Also, from this point on I asked every bus driver I encountered (yes there are several) for help, and in every case I got one of two responses: 1.)"I don't know" 2.) information that turned out to be incorrect. So there.

So with the assurances of my bus driver I climbed on board and settled in a seat where I could see where we were going. After riding for 5 minutes I started to get concerned and after 10 I realized that this bus was not going where I needed it to. I got off at the next stop, which happened to be a 7-11. I went inside to get some more help (bad idea).

After looking at me like I was crazy (A lost white guy towing his luggage in a "rough" neighborhood in Baltimore. Crazy is a good word for that.) they pointed me towards a bus stop down the street. I went and stood next to the sign. The wind had picked up and it was cold.

Fifteen minutes later the bus came. I stepped on board and followed my routine of questioning the driver. "Does this bus go the University of Maryland?"

Another "you are crazy" look. Maybe it was the luggage.

"No. You need to be one more street that way," he said, pointing in the direction that I was calling North at the time.

"Can I just go around this block to get there," I asked with a pointing gesture of my own.

"Yep."

"Thanks."

I got back off the bus and as it drove off I headed around the corner. A couple of houses down it was clear that this was a dead end street. There was a business at the end and I thought that maybe I could cut through their parking lot to get to the other side of the block. That was until the guard dog came from around the corner. He was mad. We discussed it for a couple of seconds and we both decided that I should go back around the block the other direction. I hate mean dogs. They could have at least tied him up on the property.

So I headed back down the street, around the block and found another bus stop in the opposite direction the 7-11 lady had indicated. They should really try to hire better people I thought. As I waited under the new bus sign I thought about what I was doing wrong. Maybe I should stop asking about the University. I decided that I would instead ask to go to the Archives. We had picked our hotel based on the information that it was the closest hotel to the Archives, so if I aimed for that I should have a winner.

Ten minutes later the bus pulls up. Yes, it went to the Archives. I settled into my seat. Fifteen more minutes of riding found us turning into the Archives driveway, only I didn't see the hotel. In fact I didn't see anything but trees. We drove into the property passing three different security stops and finally we stopped at the doors of the archive. This didn't look good, so I decided to question my driver further.

"Is the conference center near here?"

"Yep."

"I didn't see any sign or anything."

"I think it's attached to the archives. It is real close. The guard in there should be able to tell you."

Who was I to argue with a local. So I got off the bus and stepped up to the glass doors as the bus drove away. It was dark now, being close to 7 PM and the wind was still making it feel colder. For some reason the doors were unlocked and I stepped in and smiled at the guard. I believe in making a good impression, no matter what.

He must have thought I was out of my mind, and the smile didn't help my case.

"No," he said slowly, probably trying to make sure I understood, "there isn't a hotel attached to this building. The conference center is to the left on the main road back there."

"So, I just go to the main road and turn left?" My intentions were obvious. He glanced at my luggage, my thin Disney sweatshirt before he responded.

"Yes, just to the left. It is a little far to be walking though."

I thanked him and stepped back out of the doors. Yes, it was cold, and I had luggage, and I didn't really have a clue where I was, but I had already considered the idea of just walking to where I needed to be if I got some straightforward directions, and now I had them. I walked back through the three guard stations and turned left at the main road. It was poorly lit, and the sidewalk even poorer. Clearly the suitcase manufacturer had not designed the wheels with off-roading in mind before they shipped them off to Costco.

Thirty minutes later I walked in the door to my hotel. I smiled at the lady at the desk.

"How was your trip, sir?"

"Fabulous. I got to see a lot of this area."

"Can I help you with anything else?"

"Yeah, do you have a map showing the bus routes around here?"

No, they didn't have a map, and I figured it was just as well. I got settled in my room and started focusing on the rest of my trip.

Wow. What a day. I'm an in London for the first time, and today was my one and only chance to do some site-seeing. If you haven't been able to tell from my Disney posts, I am a strong believer in vacationing hard, and although this trip is not a vacation, the hours from 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM were discretionary, so here is what we did.

I say we because I am traveling with Mike, my boss. He has been here before and was very nice to me all day, letting me pick the sites I wanted to see. The day actually started while I was over the Atlantic, but I will skip that part. I deplaned (the technical term) feeling like I had survived an ordeal, which was actual better than it could have been. There was no one in the seat next to me and even though I wasn't comfortable, I did get a decent amount of sleep (4+ hours?)

I grabbed a small booklet in the airport that said "Welcome to London" and it turned out to be a fantastic find. It had a basic sightseeing map and info about the tube (subway). Mike happened to run into someone on the plane who he had worked with before and that was our second great find. Mr. Bartholemew has been to London a lot lately and quickly led us through the airport, put us on the right train, and even helped us buy our tube passes (oyster pass is the real name, although I don't know why it is named that.) After these two big wins and a couple of extra minutes here and there as we learned how the tube system worked and we were checked into the hotel by 11:30 and ready to hit the streets.

>

I had been given a thorough debriefing on London sightseeing by a friend at work before I left (a third boon, really) and I had already decided that I didn't want to spend money on a tour. We just rode the train to the Westminster stop and got off and started walking. I also decided to travel light, so I didn't take my borrowed travel guide with me. While it was nice to have an uncluttered experience, I do wish I had had a bit more of the background on some of the things we saw. Next time I think I will spend some quality time with a photocopier before I leave home, or even better, invest in a good pda.

Anyway, so the first thing we see upon exiting the underground is Big Ben. Oddly enough I don't think either of us were 100% sure it was Big Ben. It was certainly a very large, gothic-looking clock next to the river Thames, but for some reason I expected something bigger. It probably had a lot to do with how we just popped out of the ground right next to it. I took some pictures, and then we walked around and got a picture with some of the attached parliament houses as well. From our new position we decided that the large cathedral we were standing next to was Westminster Abbey. It being Sunday it was not open for tours, but we wandered around the grounds and visited the gift shop. It was cool just for the architecture if nothing else.

This seems like a good time for a rambling side note. FINALLY I found a practical purpose for my GE history classes. Every now and then some ridiculous piece of trivia from those classes that would come to mind. So let that be a lesson to everyone out there. If you are ever sitting in a boring history class just remember that someday you might visit the place concerned and knowing the history will make your vacation better. There you go. A noble purpose. Now on with the report . . .

We then went looking for Buckingham palace, and after a minor detour we found it: big, square and plain. Kind of disappointing really. It had really fancy gates, but other than that it looked like an oversized bank. There weren't any guards with the red coats and fluffy hats either. Instead there were funny guys in blue coats. Every couple of minutes they would do a funny high legged walk for 20 feet, turn around and go back to where they started. Since I don't think they were allowed to actually turn their heads to look around I can't imaging they are very good at guarding anything.

After that we walked from the palace down to Trafalgar square. I hear it has some nice fountains, etc, but I wouldn't know because today London decided to celebrate the chinese New Year on the square. It was packed with people, and I found it ironic that We Europeans (or Westerners, if you are offended by that generalization) like to celebrate other people's holidays with our own customs. For instance, when we walked up there was a cute Chinese girl on a stage with a couple thousand Londoners watching while she played some very European classical music on her violin. Weird.

Well, that was pretty crowded so we then took a few more detours (got a little lost) and then made it to Covant Gardens. I didn't actually see a garden, but rather it was an open cobblestone square for performers surrounded by quaint shops and restaurants. This was a great part of the day. These two guys were just out in the square getting ready to do a show. They were funny. They were jugglers, I suppose, but it was the comedy that made it worth it. They kept our attention for a full hour, and my only regret is that I didn't have enough battery in my camera to record the whole thing. At the end they were up on 8-foot unicycles juggling back and forth. It was great.

By then our feet were hurting and it was time for lunch. We picked one of the small eaterys in the square (in the garden?) and had a great meal while the next act went on. It was a guy playing a cello with 5 high school or college aged kids with violins. They were awesome. They did lots of laughing and moving around while they played the classic Classical pieces that everyone knows (Pachelbells Canon, etc.) They were really good. The lead violinist was funny because he was a punk-looking kid, with a mohawk and multiple piercings, but he was a tremendous violinist AND he loved playing the classical stuff AND he was excellent with the audience. It was cool to watch. Everyone performs for tips, more or less, so their success is based on making the audience happy. To my mind, that is the way ALL entertainers should be compensated.

We strolled through a few shops and then decided to walk the river trail down to the Tower Bridge, which turned out to be more like a 2-mile hike.

It was very scenic though, with side walk performers and vendors everywhere and museums and significant historical sites AT LEAST every other block. The mix and match between old new was very intriguing. At times it looked like the new construction was out of place, and at other times it looked like it was just a hassle for society to preserve some old building. In both cases I found that I enjoyed the culture and the experience of just being there.

Finally we made it to the Tower Bridge, which is named that because it is next to the Tower of Londen, which actually isn't much of a tower. It is more like a really old castle, sinking into the river bank while the sky-scrapers go up all around it. I got pictures of both, although they are sketchy because of the dark.

At that point our legs were done, so we rode the tube back to the hotel (with serious delays because a big-time football game just finished down the road from the hotel) and cleaned up and enjoyed a nice Italian meal (made by real Italians). Now it is time to finish up this posting and go to bed. It has been a lot of fun, but tomorrow is when the work starts, so we will see how that goes.

Cheerio.

My January Project

So I have struggled with what to blog about. It isn't that I really lack things to say (it has been suggested that I can be "opinionated.") It is more that I am still trying to figure out what is the right stuff to say. Blogs are so public, and yet if you go browse through what is out there they are largely personal. Anyway, this is me trying to get it right.

So what have I been doing this last month? Other than the trips to the emergency room, cleaning up after the holidays and learning to take care of a newborn all over again, I decided to get healthy. I know, it is kind of a cliche thing to do around New Years, but for me it was serious. For one, I have never seen any kind of positive will power around any diet or exercise regimine. I didn't know if I could even do it.

The New Year stated out great. I was exercising and cut my calories in half. I lost some weight and improved my lung capacity (probably not technically correct, but you get the idea). It was all going great until I got sick. It was just a little bug; I didn't even miss a day of work, but it sapped my energy so that I didn't exercise for a week, and now I am back where I started.

I have decided that this is a metaphor for life. It seems to me that one mistake in life costs ten times as much effort to get back to where you were.

Example 1: The obvious: Dieting. It is easy to fall off the wagon and have a double scoop of chocolate ice cream while watching a football game. You can clear out both scoops in under 5 minutes without even knowing that you did it, but it is a sentence of 30 minutes of hard labor to burn it off.

Example 2: Money. If I accepted every credit card offer that showed up in my mailbox in just one week I would have the ability to bury myself in debt for 20 years. And no, that wouldn't be hard to do.

Example 3: Time. If I miss one full day at work it takes me the rest of that week plus several of my own hours after work to catch up. In essence I never get days off because if I take a day off I just have to work 8 - 10 hours extra on other days. (There is a loop hole to this one though. That is to take over a week off, at which point you are so behind that you never catch up and then all you have to do is take the punishment for anything that didn't get done.)

So before I end the posting sounding all negative and stuff, I should acknowledge that my original statement is not completely true. While I do have to work on establishing my good habits of diet and exercise again, I do have the experience to know that I can do it. Previously my will-power record was probably counted in hours (<100) and now I have counted it in days. The next step will be months I suppose. In any case, while I do not relish the thought of starting over and being sore again, etc. I do appreciate the knowledge that I can do it and that will have to be enough to carry the day.

P.S. I'll let you know how it goes. Not because I think that anyone out there cares, but more because I don't know that you don't. It is free accountability.