Tour Begins - September 15, 2008

I rode the escalator down to the lower reception area of the hotel. It was 5 till 6 p.m. and I was finally going to meet the guide for the La France tour I'd signed up for with Globus. I was wearing my Globus name pin so people would be able to see what my first name was. When I arrived at the reception area, I saw a number of strangers who were wearing similar pins. A blonde haired lady in her 40's or 50's was walking around with a clipboard meeting people and checking them off her list. Eventually, she made her way to Harvey and I. She introduced herself. Her name was Susan (she never gave a last name), she was going to be our tour guide for the entire tour (Globus also uses local guides who cover just a specific city or site) and she needed to confirm our information. I asked her how many people were going to be on the tour and she said 42. It was going to be another large group. Interestingly, there were people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. This was going to be the most international group I'd ever been with on a Globus tour.

Once Susan had accounted for everyone, she led us to a restaurant that was somewhat close by called the Le Bistro Champetre. This was our first group dinner and a chance to get to know fellow members of the tour. For the next 2 weeks, we'd travel over 2,000 miles together. During the meal, Susan told us what optional excursions were going to be available. Globus includes a list of possible excursions with each person's travel documents but, you find out what ones will actually be available from the tour guide. I went through the list again and figured out what ones I wanted to take and what it would cost. All totalled, I settled on 7 excursions which included an illumination drive of Paris, a visit and dinner in Monaco and a visit to the medieval town of St. Paul de Vence. We also received our wake-up, breakfast and departure times. The wake-up time was the time Susan would arrange for the hotel to give us a wake-up call. The breakfast time was the time the breakfast buffet would be open so we could have breakfast. Our tour included breakfast every day we were on tour. The departure time was the time the bus would leave to begin the morning city tour. On days we were departing for another city, this would be the time we'd leave the city. On days we departed for another city, there was also a bags out time which was the time we had to place our suitcases outside our rooms so they could be picked up and taken to the bus. It became a routine that Susan would give us these times sometime during the afternoon each day so we would know when to be up, have breakfast, be packed and be ready to depart.

Dinner was good though the portions were smaller than what I was used to in the U.S. This would turn out to be standard throughout France. After the dinner, we walked back to the hotel. It was then that we had the chance to do our first optional excursion. It was an illumination drive of Paris. What that means is you get to drive around Paris at night and see all the lit up places in the city. Paris is really stunning at night. One special treat we received was a special illumination of the Eiffel Tower. For 6 months, France would hold the presidency of the European Union. To mark this special occasion, France attached 12 gold stars to the tower representing the 12 original members of the union, back lit the tower in dark blue light and created a shimmering waterfall of white light that ran down the tower. It was incredibly beautiful and everyone ooo'd and awed at the sight. After driving around seeing all the beautifully lit buildings and monuments, we drove back to the hotel. The next day, we would get to see various sights in Paris.

Getting There - 14 September 2008

This is the first post in my France tour series. I'll be putting a date with each one so people can understand I'm talking about past events.

I didn't sleep terribly well but, that was normal just before a big trip. I did manage to pack everything I needed though I got 1 surprise when I found out one of the shirts I wanted to wear during the tour had 2 big stains I didn't know about previously. I packed the shirt planning to find a dry cleaners in France where I could get it cleaned.

I was out in front of my apartment early waiting for the airport shuttle. My biggest concern was getting to the airport. Once I made it there, events were out of my control. It was up to the airlines to get me to Paris. To my relief, the shuttle arrived on time and, I was its last pick-up. The drive to the airport took only 20 minutes or so. Traffic was light as it was Sunday.

I had no problems checking-in and found the departing gate. I had over 2 hours to do something before the flight. I checked out the airport shops but, they didn't have anything I wanted. I played a game of level 2 Sudoko which took care of 45 minutes. My flight ended up being late getting in due to mechanical problems. Our departure got pushed back over 30 minutes. However, once the airplane arrived, the American Eagle staff were quick to turn around the aircraft and I was soon on my way to JFK.

I had to change terminals at JFK which was something I'd never done before. I followed posted signs and managed to find the airport terminal tram. It took me to the next terminal but, I wasn't thrilled that it left the secure area so that I had to go through security again. I managed to find my friend Harvey and we proceeded to explore terminal 7. There wasn't much to explore. Compared to other terminals I've visited, JFK terminal 7 was small. After checking out the terminal, we went to the British Airways lounge. We found an excellent selection of snacks and drinks. I was starved by this point so I tore into the small sandwiches they had. I figured I would have some of those till dinner time on the flight. After we'd finished our snack at the terminal, we decided to wander around the terminal some more and see what shops they had. The shops didn't turn out to be terribly impressive. Also, I was leery of buying anything as that would mean I'd have to carry it with me for 2 weeks. When we returned to the lounge, we found out they were serving dinner in the lounge for the flight. They wouldn't be serving dinner on the flight. I wasn't thrilled with this news as I was pretty full from the small sandwiches I'd eaten there earlier. We decided to have the offered dinner in the lounge. It turned out to be excellent and was one of the finest airline meals I've ever eaten.

Finally, it was time to depart for London Heathrow. We made our way to the gate and didn't have any problems boarding. The Business Class sleeper seats were very high tech but, they weren't as wide as I expected. I opted for a window seat and enjoyed watching as pulled away from the gate. We promptly got stuck in a queue that was on hold. We ended up waiting over 45 minutes before we were able to finally take off. This turned out to be standard for JFK.

The flight to London Heathrow was very nice. Unlike my flight to Copenhagen, Denmark, I managed to get at least 4 hours of sleep which would serve me well later. By the time we arrived at Heathrow the next day, the airplane captain had managed to make up 30 minutes which was invaluable as we had a short layover in Heathrow. We still thought we had plenty of time to get to the gate as it was also located in the same terminal the new terminal 5 building. We got a shock when we had to go through security again. This turned out to be standard too. I don't understand why if I'm staying in terminal 5 and I don't leave the secure area that I have to go through security a second time. This ended up seriously delaying my friend and I and we had to hurry to get to our gate.

The flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle International (CDG) was a very short puddle jumper. We arrived at CDG within 45 minutes. I was surprised to find out I didn't have to fill out a landing card. French customs was a breeze. We kept checking our watches as we were anxious to catch the Noon Globus shuttle to our hotel. To our delight, a man named Louis from Globus appeared outside the luggage area showing a Globus sign. We let him know we were there for a Globus tour. To our dismay, my friend Harvey's suitcase didn't arrive. Considering the short time we had between flights at Heathrow, it was understandable. A lady with British Airways summarily took all the needed information and assured Harvey his bag would be on the next flight to CDG. After that, we made out our way out of the baggage claim area and met Louis. He directed us to the assigned waiting area where we met our first fellow tour members. They were a couple from Australia which I thought seriously cool. I loved their accents. Louis summarily lead us to our coach where we met our driver who would drive us the entire tour barring mandatory days off.

The ride into Paris was uneventful though interesting to me as it was the first time I'd seen the place in over 6 years. We said good-bye to Louis at our first hotel and, we never saw him again. Apparently, he works out of Globus's Paris office and is something of a jack-of-all-trades. Our hotel, the Novotel Paris Tower Eiffel was just off the river Seine and down the street from the Eiffel Tour. We found out that we would get to meet our tour guide Susan at 6 p.m. in the lower reception area. This seemed to be the standard meeting area for tour groups as there were signs for our group and 2 others. Once we received our keys from the reception desk, Harvey and I dropped off our bags and decided to go see the Eiffel Tower. It turned out the Eiffel Tower was farther away than we thought. It took us over 20 minutes to walk to it though it was an easy walk as we just followed the river and road to the tower. To my delight, I was able to find a BNP Paribas ATM machine at the tower. BNP Paribas has a deal with Bank of America where they won't charge you a fee for using their ATM machines. I planned to use their ATMs to get Euros (the European Union currency). After that, we walked back to the hotel where we waited for our first group meeting and the beginning of the tour.

Home Again

Yesterday, I arrived back in Maryland. My British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Baltimore Washington International Airport was very nice. I'll talk more about that when I start posting blogs about the trip. When I got home, I was relieved nothing was stolen. I'm leery about leaving my place for long periods. I haven't forgotten that other apartments where I live have been broken into. Thankfully, mine was left alone while I was gone. Now, I get to work on getting adjusted back to the local time. There is 6 hours difference between Paris and Baltimore time zones. Also, I get to hand out presents I bought for various people. I gave the Baldons their's yesterday. Modestine enjoyed her small purse from Chateau Chenonceau and Tami liked the candy I bought for her at London Heathrow. I hope to mail my sister Ellie's and my mom Kay's presents sometime soon. I can be really bad about mailing things. Work wise, I'll go back Wednesday and deliver Express Mails though that's always subject to change. Work schedules at the Post Office are subject to repeated change. I am curious to see what has happened while I was gone. The Post Office where I work is like a long running soap opera. Personally, I don't care for soap operas but, I'm having to learn how to deal with real life ones. Lastly, there will be things I have to do like grocery shop. I tried to use all the food that would go bad before I left and I succeeded. So, I have to buy more.

It's always a bit of a come down when I return from a trip like the France tour. Two days ago, I was enjoying a kebab in Paris. Today, I'll be visiting Sam's Club to buy some of their roasted chickens. Big difference in routine. This time, I do have one pick me up. In 5 months, I'll be leaving for Egypt. When I got back yesterday, I started checking into that. There'll be things I have to do in preparation for that. I need to get my Egyptian visa from their embassy in D.C. I have to make sure I have transfers to and from the airport. I need to buy a current travel guide. To my annoyance, I found out the one I had for France was out of date. I knew about that but, it slipped my mind about getting a new one. I had plenty of time then. I didn't when it came time to leave for France. So, I have that to look forward to.

Also, I plan to get with Alliance Francaise and start french lessons again. I really enjoyed them and, I only stopped because there wasn't time for them in my military life. Hopefully, I can find time in my Post Office life. The only drawback to the lessons will be the hassle of getting down to D.C. to do the lessons. I suspect I'll have to do 1 on 1 tutoring vice taking a class with them. We'll see. I'm looking forward to those and doing even better with my french when I return to France in 2010. Pour maintenant, au revoir.

Tour Update

Greetings my faithful readers. I thought I'd fill you in on what's happening at my end of the woods. The tour of France that I've been on the past 13 days ended last night with a nice bang. I got to see the famous Moulin Rouge for the first time. I can't say I was very wiped out with it. A lot of the ladies were very model looking which means they had very little top side. Also, some of them were heavy with the fake eyelashes which I think is ugly. Because of those 2 factors, I wasn't impressed with their female dancers and singers. They had some acts between the dance and song routines which were very good. There were 2 gymnasts who were incredible. The man part of the duo must have some killer muscles considering some of things he did in regards to lifting his female partner. Also, the had a hilarious ventriloquist. He managed to make it look like his dog was talking and his dog had some witty quips. Lastly, they had a juggler/drummer/golf ball extrordinaire. The guy could juggle golf balls so fast he beat a drum with them. He could also juggle them with his mouth firing them over 5 feet straight up into the air. He must have some killer lungs.

After the show, our tour guide got us back to our hotel and I said my last good-bye to her. I thought she did a fine job. I was sorry to say good-bye to her.

I didn't much sleep at the hotel as I had an early departure. I left the hotel around 5 a.m. I got to Charles de Gaulle International and had to wait to see a British Airways rep as I couldn't check in for some reason. I found out why when they checked into it. It seems British Airways had a flight change that made it impossible to catch my connecting flight to New York JFK. They never told me. It looked bad for a bit but, things unexpectedly worked out for the better. They were able to get me on a straight flight from London Heathrow to Baltimore Washington International saving me a layover at JFK. I was delighted.

As my flight flew in, it flew over London. I got to see London Bridge, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. Also, I got to explore the new terminal 5 at Heathrow. It is impressive. I posted this entry from BA's lounge which is even nicer than the one at JFK.

Concerning my trip to France, I took copious notes and will post a number of entries detailing day by day what I got to do and see. There was some seriously cool stuff. The American Cemetary was beautifully and enormously sad. There were almost 10,000 crosses and stars of David there. Mont St. Michel was mind blowing. I could easily imagine I was at Minas Tirith. The vineyards around St. Emilion seem to go on forever. Monaco was very classy. Some of the yachts were unreal. I got to go to my first wine tasting in Beaune and, I ended up buying 2 bottles which made it necessary for me to buy a new travel bag.

I enjoyed France so much that I hope to go back in 2010. Also, I'm going to look into picking up French lessons at the Alliance Francaise. I enjoyed trying to speak french in France and, I feel my french improved considerably thanks to the tour. If I get back with Alliance Francaise, I'll continue to improve. Funilly, I did such a good job making myself understood that people promptly replied in french. Unfortunately, my ability to understand spoken french was far worse than my ability to speak it. This left me struggling to figure what the person responding said. That'll come with practice.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for entries on my France tour. They should be interesting. Cheers all!

Tour Almost Over

Greetings my faithful readers. My apology for not posting more but due to high costs to getting on-line and having to hunt and peck on French computer keyboards, I haven't been posting much. I plan to post a lot of interesting blogs when I return to the U.S. telliing about my travels. Currently, I'm in Dijon, France but I'll be leaving for Paris this morning. Tomorrow, I fly back to the states. Cheers!

Travel Update

A fast update. Today, I got to visit 2 of the beaches they landed on D-Day, the American Cemetary, Pont du Hoc, see the Bayeux Tapestry and see the abbey at Mont St. Michel. I found it surreal that the beaches could be so peaceful considering the deadly combat that had taken place there. The American Cemetary was sad as there were row on row of white marble crosses and stars of David. The Bayeux Tapestry was fascinating and bigger than I thought. Mont St. Michel was awesome! If Minas Tirith were ever to exist it would look like Mont St. Michel. I was in awe walking all the walkways and seeing the various rooms of the abbey. It's been an awesome day. I can't wait for the next.

France

Greetings my faithful readers. I've made it to France. I had a nice couple flights with British Airways. Business Class still rocks. Paris seemed the same. Still very pretty. There are 42 people on my Globus tour. All of them seem very nice. One interesting item is that we have 3 couples from Australia. I bet they had some killer flights. I can't say anything super exciting has happened so far. However, tomorrow I visit Mont St. Michel. That should be awesome. I'm looking forward to it. That's all for now. I'll try to post updates as the tour progresses. Stay tuned.

OkCupid Update

I finally gave up on OkCupid. I got tired of them trying to match me up with women older than I am or women that were terminally ugly. Also, the site is rife with liberals. While most of the time this didn't cause me a problem, I got tired with the Sarah Palin bashing that is raging on the site. In my opinion, she is a wonderful woman and a very smart pick for Vice President by John McCain. I never would've thought he would've picked her. She has done wonders for electrifying the conservative base in the Republican Party as well as caused a serious dilemma for Barack Hussein Obama. Obama passed over Hillary Clinton for his V.P. pick as well as some other qualified female Democratic Party members. I'm sure the women in the Democratic Party are giving him no small amount of grief over that.

Anyway, maybe, I'll give Conservativematch.Com another try once I get back from my trip to France. We'll see. Cheers all!

Post Office Update

It's been a busy week for me at the Post Office. I got tagged to do a full route 5 days and to deliver Express Mail/packages a 6th day. I should make some good money this week though I won't see it for a while as I'll be leaving in a couple days for France. I hope things go all right for my boss. The notorious single moms continue to play their stupid games. Considering how tight we'll be people wise while I'm gone, my boss will just have to suck it up and hope they show up.

We got a new sub who is a TRC which I believe stands for temporary rural carrier. Unlike me, he never took the rural carrier exam. Because of that, he was able to get hired on quicker however, he'll get paid $5 less an hour than what I get. So far, he seems to have a good attitude. We'll see how long it lasts.

The Postmaster informed every one that the Post Office plans to bring flat sorting machines to our Post Office. What is a flat sorting machine? It's machine that sort what we call flats in the Post Office. Flats are catalogs, newspapers, magazines, large card mailers and fliers. By bringing in these machines, the Post Office hopes to save money by cutting the number of clerks they need and the number of hours the mail carriers need to case their mail. Currently, carriers get their flats unsorted and it can take a while to case them in their mail case. Another way the Post Office plans to save money on the machines is since the carriers won't spend as much time casing the flats, they'll be able to spend more time delivering the mail which means they can make their routes longer. That means there won't be any new routes for a while which means I'll be a substitute mail carrier longer. That doesn't cause me any heartache but it would make it tough for other subs who don't have benefits like I get from the military. I do wonder if the union will go along with the flat sorting machines. We'll see.

That's all from the Laurel Post Office front. Cheers!

Lost Users Manual

Last year, my friend Harvey introduced me to the game called Sudoku. It's a logic game where you have 9 blocks with 9 squares in each block. Every square in each block is filled with the numbers 1 to 9. The part where this game gets challenging is that you can't have the same number twice in any of the rows or columns of the larger 3 by 3 block grid. While flying back from Oslo, I found out Continental Airlines had an electronic version of Sudoku for sale. I bought one and I was very pleased with it. Then, I had a brain fart. I threw out the user's manual for the game. I didn't realize it was for my electronic sudoku game until it was too late. Subsequently, I looked for another game console so I could get another copy of the users manual. To my surprise, I couldn't find the same game any where on the Internet. Also, I couldn't find a webpage for the company that makes the game unit. Finally, I wrote the company that distributes the game asking them if I could buy a new users manual or game console so I could get the users manual. To my delight, Mr. G. Pollard of Scorpio Distributors Limited, Lowfield Heath, United Kingdom sent me a users manual for free. Many thanks to him and his company. I promise I won't throw that one out.

Hanover Five Guys Restaurant

Earlier this week, I had a nice chat with my friend Harvey. He mentioned that he'd gone to a Five Guys restaurant within the past week and really enjoyed it. It'd been a while since I visited a Five Guys restaurant so I decided to check out the new one that had recently opened in Hanover, Maryland. This review is about that restaurant.

The Five Guys restaurant in Hanover, Maryland is very easy to get to. It's located just off Arundel Mills Boulevard when you take the Arundel Mills exit off of Maryland-295 (Baltimore Washington Parkway). It's located in a small shopping center called Arundel Preserve.

The restaurant is like other Five Guys restaurants in that the decor is a bit spartan. The most noticeable thing about the restaurant was the copies of articles that had been written about the chain and how many times it had various awards for the best hamburger restaurant or cheap eats.

However, I would have to disagree about its claim to be cheap to eat at. The small burger as they call it costs $3.19 and comes with 1 beef patty and a large selection of toppings. It is the toppings where Five Guys separates itself from other hamburger joints. You can get fried mushrooms, fried onions, green peppers, A-1 sauce, jalapenos, hot sauce or the standard ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles or lettuce all at no charge. As far as I know of, no one else offers such an extensive list and at no extra charge. The only 2 toppings that do cost extra are cheese and bacon. Those come at a stiff 60 cents each. I tried their regular burger with bacon, cheese, fried onions and fried mushrooms. The regular burger which has 2 beef patties costs $4.19. In my opinion, for an extra buck, you might as well get the extra patty. With cheese and bacon, my burger ended up costing $5.39 which wasn't cheap.

Five Guys also offers 2 types of french fries. They have Five Guys flavor and Cajun. They come in regular and large size. A regular will cost you $2.40 while a large fry will cost you a stiff $4.19. I tried their large fries and I did get a good portion of fries but, $4.19 isn't cheap.

Five Guys offers hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches if you're not in the mood for a burger. I didn't try either of these but, a friend at the Post Office has tried their hot dogs and he raved about them. For those who are vegetarian, they also offer a vegetarian sandwich.

Lastly, Five Guys offers the standard line of soft drinks such as Pepsi, Hi-C, and some kind of Root Beer. A regular drink will cost you $1.79 while a large will cost you $1.99. They also offer bottled water at $1.79. For those who dine at the restaurant, you can get unlimited free refills. If you are going to eat the restaurant, you might as well save yourself the 20 cents. If you're not, you should spend it and get the large drink. I tried the Root Beer and the lemonade and both were fine.

Overall, I found Five Guys a cut above your average hamburger joint like McDonalds or Wendy's. All the hamburger they use is fresh as are their french fries. They actually keep sacks of potatoes where customers can see them. Price wise, they are a bit more expensive than McD's or Wendy's but, their burgers are good and their service is prompt. If you want a better burger or want one with some of their excellent toppings, you should try them out. They are very good. Bon Appetit!

Renaissance Festival

I got to go the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville, Maryland yesterday. I try to go every year. The festival has good acts, excellent shops and decent food. I watched Fight School, The Rogues, the jousting and Hack and Slash. Fight School did the same routine with some new jokes thrown in. They were still good. The Rogues had a new fiddler and a new CD. They sounded nice. The jousting was all right. I didn't envy the knights wearing their heavy armor in the heat. It was in the high 80's or low 90's yesterday. Hack and Slash did the same routine and it was as funny as ever. I need to buy their Christmas show DVD sometime.

In regards to food at the festival, I had the mandatory turkey leg. It was very good though they raised the price on it a buck to $5. Also, I tried their sweet corn on the cob. The people running the food booth had a pot of melted butter that they could dunk the corn into. They also offered various seasonings. The corn was very good though a bit pricey at $2.50 a piece. Lastly, I tried their lemonade and their raspberry smoothie. I thought both stunk. The raspberry smoothie was little more than a weakly flavored icee.

Some of the shops had some very nice items for sale. I was sorely tempted to buy some new leather bracers for my festival costume and a hand bound journal. However, I'll be leaving soon for the 2-week tour of France I've told my readers about so, I decided it was wise to cool the spending. I ended up buying 2 t-shirts that I could wear when delivering mail.

Overall, the festival was really nice. I very much enjoyed going. One word of advice to any readers that may try to go to the festival. Make sure you leave so you'll arrive shortly before they open the gates. If you do, you should be able to get to festival parking without getting stuck in a line. If you don't, you could end up in a bumper to bumper line trying to get in the parking lot. Also, the festival is fully capable of handling large crowds. I heard one person say the festival could handle over 26,000 people! (It's possible considering how big the festival grounds are. Also, if you plan on going this coming weekend, the festival has a coupon that will get you $4 off the price of an adult admission as well as discounts on other admissions until September 8th. Ticket prices did go up a $1 this year for unknown reasons. Cheers all!