A visit to Nauders
End of january / beginning of februari I was able to enjoy 4 days in Nauders, Austria.
An apparently famous church, with most of it below the water/ice surface.
A view of the mountains
btw, I was in Edinburgh
Little more then a month ago I took a short holiday and traveled together with Bas to Edinburgh for a weekend. To keep it short: we had a great time and the Scottish are great. Cheers!
View on Edinburgh from the top of Arthurs seat
Weekend in Brussel; Belga Queen
I´m in Brussel now, writing this entry on my eee-pc in our hotel room. Went sightseeing today, lots of walking. Brussel is a really nice town, lots of stuff happening on the streets (without being very crowded), which makes it a very lively town. Nice atmosphere. Must say I am a bit disappointed by the famous beer offering. Basically you can get most of it in the Netherlands as well. But I don't know the special places.
Another reason to blog, the restaurant we visited today: Belga Queen. Really nice, definitely a recommendation. Cool building, splendid food.
Had some tasting menu. Four course menu, each course with a matching beer (at least that was the idea). Very good meat, some baby deer (hertenkalf) rib, very good stuff.
Anyway tomorrow a bit more sight seeing and then back to the Netherlands. Powered up for work on monday. 
Nice start – Thank you KLM
Nice start of my travel to canada. I wanted to check in online, but somehow the webshite couldn't find my flight/booking. Gives you the "oh oh" feeling.
Calling KLM.... it took the klm lady awhile but she found out that schiphol decided to cancel the flight and they booked my flight to one two hours later and its not a direct flight anymore but i have to transfer in montreal. Great, and I can only get a new ticket tomorrow at the airport. Nice comment of her was that it said "please inform customers", good thing I was calling. Apparently they like to do such things one day before flight. Go KLM.
So now instead of a flight which leaves at 13:25 and arrive 8 hours later (15:30 localtime or something) I have to leave at 15:25 fly to montreal, arrive there at 17:00 (8 hours flight) and then leave for toronto at 18:00 where I will arrive at 19:20.
Little update (31/12): So indeed yesterday I arrived in Toronto. Quite a bit later however. The KLM flight to Montreal arrived on schedule (even a bit earlier). Really quick through customs, yay! perfect, to the transfer desk. Where is your luggage? Uh, on schiphol they said it would be transferred directly to Toronto... No! thats not true you have pick it up anyway. I had to bring it through customs myself. So a problem, since I already passed customs. Had to find some baggage phones, where you can call your airline and ask them to bring your luggage out at an alternative custom entrance/exit. Too bad noone popped up. Then I asked a someone from some nearby luggage department, he went looking... i waited... now it was 30 minutes till departure time. Some guy from air canada and he went looking for me as well. Luggage guy came back with nothing. 20 minutes till departure time. Few minutes later the air canada guy popped up with my luggage.. yay! After explaining everything to the customs lady I finally got my luggage but now they told me I missed my flight at the checkin. Fortunately there was more then just one check-in lady. My flight appeared delayed! yay! So I made it, I actually had to wait for another hour. In the end I arrived at Toronto airport at 10:00 with 3 hours delay. The only good thing about this last part is that KLM didn't put me in economy class for the Air Canada flight, so I had many buttons on my chair.
Summer Holiday 2006: USA!
To continue the tradition of traveling around with my father once a year, we will go to the USA this summer. Last year we went to Rome together (5 days) and two years ago to Barcelona (3 days). This year for 16 days! Were planning to fly to New York first, stay there for 4 days and then fly to Orlando. In Orlando we will visit some theme parks and then rent a car and drive to Daytona beach. From there we will drive along the coast all the way to Key-West. And fly back home from Maimi.
We still have to plan most of the details, if there are any interesting updates I'll blog about it. 
The USA was not on the top of my list of countries to visit. But I really look forward to it. It must be a great experience, since its so different from Europe.
Ubuntu Below Zero ended
Since UBZ is over now,.. its time for fun! 
If my canadian friend here is still up to it well go out tonight and so I can check out the Canadian nightlife. Tomorrow and monday will be focused on hanging tourist style. Visit some old buildings and noteworthy things here.
Edit: Ofcourse the evening ended up totally different. Something went wrong with meeting up (just like the rest of the week :p). Today Israeli guy from the hostel told me about a party nearby last night and I wish I was _there_. So it doesn't really matter regarding last night since I would have missed that party either way.
Canadian update
- Cars don't have licence plates on the front here.
- Beer is ridiclously priced here (5,75 dollar for 342ml in the hotel).
- You can buy Grolsch here (2,5 dollar for 0,5lt in the supermarket).
Some pictures
Canadian fast food, next to the burger you find poutin. Fries with cheese and saus. Not really nice, greasy.
I found a Canadian Chinese Catholic Church here. Quite uhhh... unexpected.
House of Jazz
Yesterday we went out for dinner to the "House of Jazz" here in Montreal. Quite expensive but really enjoyable. There was a live band. The food was really great as well. I had an 16oz steak. Godlike.
I don't know if they are more rude to tourists then to Canadians but it seems normal here in Montreal to write the tip on the bill for you. 15% extra tax. Doesn't leave much space for expressing your opinion about the offered service. Had to pay 5$ for the music and 2$ for the coat as well at this place. Though guys here.
The band and a part of \sh.
The drummer, and in front you can see some Ubuntu developers.
First impressions of Canada
Everything is a bit different here. Besides everything is in French but the people can speak English (you don't see that in France ). The subway has wheels with tires on them. When we had to buy a metro ticket you bought it at a booth and then give it to another employee immediatly (standing next to the booth) and throw it in the a box there. I thought this was some kind of Canadian employment project but a Canadian Ubuntite ensured me that was not normal.
The architecture here is quite boring according to Martin Pitt. :p Mostly some american style. But between the high and boring buildings there are some european style buildings. Which makes it at least a bit interesting. :p On the picture below you can see the Notre Dame Montreal version.
Notre Dame by day
Sunday evening we went for dinner with a group of 40 to an Etiopian(?) restaurant. New experience for me. We had to eat with our hands and the meal basicly consisted of pancakes and pots with meat and stuff. With the basic principle of throwing the stuff in the pots on the big pancake and then eat it off with parts of the small rolled pancakes. I can recommend it and it was not too expensive, only 15 canadian dollars (although the beer was 5 dollar).
The Holiday Inn hotel were the summit is held has a Chinese theme. So unexpectedly my first lunch here was with chopsticks.
It was actually halloween today, but besides some dressed up hotel personel nothing to see today. The locals celebrated it completely in the weekend it seems (ofcourse saturday is a much better party night then monday). Had some pizza today. Can't say Canadians are any good on making pizza. :p
Notre dame by night
First day in Montreal
Montreal at 8:30
Ubuntu Love Day
A few general talks, the afternoon was quite interesting. I got an introduction on ubuntu/debian package management from Martin Pitt during the MOTU workshop.
on the picture: kiko, seb128, ajmitch, dholbach and some other people
After this there was a presentation about Edubuntu/LTSP. LTSP will have some cool features (for example: pluggable media at the clients). Got ogra quite excited about the project were finishing up with OSSO. The day ended with a question round. A fun day with lot of interesting talks.
Twitter: hpbos
- Gisteren the men who stare at goats gezien. :-) jeff bridges++
- @Ronald_R: Anders heb je nog Zombie Strippers! als optie.
- @Ronald_R Lesbian Vampire Killers... http://www.pajiba.com/trailers/new-lesbian-vampire-killers-trailer.php
- @joostdrijver stink voetbal, mijn reistijd naar kantoor verdubbeld in de laatste 500m.
- wie wil er vanavond "the men who stare at goats" met mij kijken? :P
- Rabobank internetbankieren is buggy as hell.
- Net film the fountain gezien. Wel mooi gemaakt maar niet mijn ding.
- Groningen binnen. Niet bijzonder. Nu coma tijd.
- Wat een kak verhaal van rouvoet. Ook met 4 procent geteld, lame.
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