Holiday to US and EU

[steveyO]

Add to that they now even charge to use the toilet

Actually, they never intended to do this,  it was just a very cheap publicity stunt which succeeded in getting the attention of the masses.  Travelled with them once, which is more than enough.. Easyjet a slightly better option, although they have little hidden costs in their website,, just make sure you read all the small print..

[pjt33]

Actually, they never intended to do this,  it was just a very cheap publicity stunt which succeeded in getting the attention of the masses.  Travelled with them once, which is more than enough.. Easyjet a slightly better option, although they have little hidden costs in their website,, just make sure you read all the small print..

I was going to say "emphasis on 'slightly'" - not much between them in my experience, which is about 20 flights with Ryanair and 12 with Easyjet - but now that I think about it Ryanair's latest policies (you must check in online in advance and print your boarding pass or pay 5€ to check in at the airport) does constitute a non-trivial difference. O'Leary doesn't even care whether people think he's evil.

Sorry, I'm getting wildly off topic. I'll shut up now.

[CommanderKeith]

Lol, yeah I flew RyanAir quite a bit 3yrs ago and went to 'Barcelona' once which turned out to be Girona, about an hour's bus ride away!

I'm in san diego, just moved from Gas Lamp area to Ocean Beach. It's very beautiful, and very chilled out. Everything is massive - the cars, roads, food, buildings, everything. Everyone thinks big too which is funny. Like these fisherman who weren't happy with fish, they were convinced they'd catch sharks!

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[OverKill]

It is not freezing here in Germany, just a LOT of snow ATM, but that should be gone soon. (I guestimate 1 week max)
Funny thing is, it was quite warm up until around the end of Nov here.

RyanAir really does not land anywhere near populated areas.
Frankfurt/Hahn is more then an hours drive away from Frankfurt.
Baden Airpark is 1/2 hour from Baden/Baden (a small town in itself).

When you have your European trip mapped out, pls update and I'll see what my plans say.
At the least I can pick you up from Baden Airpark, have lunch/dinner and then drive you somewhere.
Stuttgart is also reachable.
Frankfurt not-so, but I might be able to combine it with a trip to friends.

[CommanderKeith]

Cool, will do! Thanks Overkill. Baden-Wurtemburg is very nice, would love to go there again. Sounds funny, snowing but not freezing

I'm in LA at the moment. I've seen some funny things, like on a chewing gum pack it advertises 'naturally and artificially flavoured', as if that is better than just naturally flavoured.  I thought the 'naturally flavoured' aspect was good because it wasn't artificially flavoured      
 
And on this flavoured water bottle it's selling point was 'less than 1% juice'. There's loads of other weird things like a treadmill that simulates the earth's terrain - why not just run on the earth?  And also fake grass made of plastic which costs $100 / month.

I'm going to san francisco tomorrow    see you soon demonpants and shannon!

[OverKill]

Oh the snow can turn to ice, but we consider 'freezing' to be like below -5°C or so. Mainly for road conditions.
When it can go below -10°C, -3°C is no longer 'freezing'.

[hug0x]

Hey overkill, i visited baden baden and bad wilbad last year, this is beautiful ^^

For me, I'm in france, in Blois, we have lots of beautiful castles (loire castles)..

[Eli Delventhal]

I'm going to san francisco tomorrow    see you soon demonpants and shannon!

Oh nice! Yeah, I'll see you Saturday. Should I decide when and where?

How about Saturday, 2:00 PM, Vega At Langton coffee house?
http://www.yelp.com/biz/vega-at-langton-san-francisco-2

It seems reasonably close to BART and the freeway, and also got very good reviews on Yelp. I've never been there, personally. I'm not sure what will be best for you, Keith - what area of San Francisco are you planning on looking at? Would you be more interested in something closer to Market (the main thoroughfare)?

[CommanderKeith]

Perfect, that's just a short walk from where I am at the moment near the Powell St train station. Hopefully Shannon's good for it too 

Maybe it's just the area I'm in now, but downtown San francisco seems way nicer than Los angeles and San diego. Far less car-dominated and more street-level shops and restaurants. Maybe it's the flash subway system that makes it better

[Eli Delventhal]

Perfect, that's just a short walk from where I am at the moment near the Powell St train station. Hopefully Shannon's good for it too 

Maybe it's just the area I'm in now, but downtown San francisco seems way nicer than Los angeles and San diego. Far less car-dominated and more street-level shops and restaurants. Maybe it's the flash subway system that makes it better

San Francisco is considered the "most European" American city, that's probably part of it. Also, being contained by the bay makes it harder for the city to have as many low-income-high-crime areas, making it much more difficult for San Francisco to ever get to the point of violence that LA has reached. Instead it all goes to Oakland and Richmond. :-P

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[ShannonSmith]

Hopefully Shannon's good for it too

Works fine for me, see you guys Saturday.

[CommanderKeith]

Perfect, see you both then 

[CommanderKeith]

Met up with Shannon and Eli today, great blokes. Very affable and chilled. Talked lots about all sorts of things. Definitely the highlight of my trip so far

I managed to offload my vegemite payload too Much lighter backpack, and no more getting stuck at airports due to it being classified as 'gel' lol

[Eli Delventhal]

Met up with Shannon and Eli today, great blokes. Very affable and chilled. Talked lots about all sorts of things. Definitely the highlight of my trip so far

I managed to offload my vegemite payload too Much lighter backpack, and no more getting stuck at airports due to it being classified as 'gel' lol

Yeah, it was great meeting you, and also great seeing Shannon again. Those two hours flew by pretty quickly! If I'm ever in Sydney then I will unquestionably look you up.

My fiance has apparently tried marmite and thought it was gross, so we'll see how the vegemite goes!

[ShannonSmith]

Just echoing what the CommanderKeith and Demonpants said, was great meeting up and chatting about Java/games with such like minded individuals. And thanks again to Keith for the Vegimite, eating it as I post.

For anyone putting Keith up on any of the legs of his trip I can personally vouch for the fact that other than being an Australian he is a friendly, down to earth guy.

[h3ckboy]

Just echoing what the CommanderKeith and Demonpants said, was great meeting up and chatting about Java/games with such like minded individuals.

you have no idea how much you sounded like Paul from MOD(Masters of Deception) . hmm, I just realized no1 here is that nerdy as me

[elias4444]

So, are we going to get some pictures posted from these fabulous meetups?? 

[Eli Delventhal]

So, are we going to get some pictures posted from these fabulous meetups?? 

Wow, I'm an idiot. I really should have taken a picture with my phone. I'm terrible about taking pictures.

And, to my knowledge, neither Shannon nor Keith took a picture either. Bummer.

[CommanderKeith]

Rats, I had a camera too. what a pity.

Oh well, just picture 3 nerds sitting in a cafe receiving funny looks from normal people 

For anyone putting Keith up on any of the legs of his trip I can personally vouch for the fact that other than being an Australian he is a friendly, down to earth guy.

Lol, thanks. You know New Zealand started life as a state of Australia ...   

I'm in Chicago now and it's -3 celcius and very windy. Looking forward to get to NY and Europe 

[CommanderKeith]

Big thanks to Greg (delt0r) for letting me stay at his place in Vienna. Greg gave me a tour of the local bars and kebab joints and he even showed me the art of hustling tourist louts into buying him beers! His family let me come to their daughter's party which was great fun, and I was taught the austrian waltz  . I'll put up our photos when I get home.

Here are all of the cities I saw over the last 5 weeks:
San Diego
LA
San Francisco
Chicago
Boston
NY
Miami
London
Paris
Lyon
Vienna
Dusseldorf
The Hague
Amsterdam

In the US the highlights were San Francisco, Boston, NY and Miami. Miami was rich, clean and beautiful, which is actually how i imagined all US cities would be. Somce US cities, especially LA, were car-dominated, sprawling, and full of bums which I have to say is completely the opposite of cities in europe. San Francisco and Boston were great since they're both dense and buzzing with activity and they have areas with a relaxing university-town laid-back feel thanks to their large student populations

In Europe, Vienna and Amsterdam were surprisingly fun places. Vienna was very impressive for how many impressive palaces and monuments it has in a small area, and the way they actually use all of this old stuff by having events in inside and around, including a massive ice skating track which was sensational. Amsterdam is where I am now and I really like it. When they say it's the bicycle city they are not exaggerating, there are bicycles everywhere! As I arrived at the centraal station I saw a 3 level 'car-park' which was actually a bike-park chokkas full of bikes with no spare room at all. Amsterdam is the first place I've found where you can go out on a freezing cold snowy monday night until 4am (unlike NY!).

Big thanks to Greg, Shannon and Eli for meeting up, and thanks to Simon and Overkill for offering to meet, it's too bad I/we just didn't have time. Next time for sure!

And to anyone coming to Sydney, make sure you let me know so I can show you some sights!

Keith 

[delt0r]

My daughters friends keep asking when are you going to add J's to your friends at facebook. Think you may be getting some friend requests . They also asked when are you coming back. It seems you left a good impression.

[CommanderKeith]

  My face book friends are mostly family as is which is a bit lame, so I'll friend-request everyone ASAP...

[Eli Delventhal]

  My face book friends are mostly family as is which is a bit lame, so I'll friend-request everyone ASAP...

You can find me Eli Delventhal on Facebook. I should be the only one.

[pjt33]

I was taught the austrian waltz

Would that be the one I know as the Viennese waltz? 180 degrees turn per bar for most bars and 60 bars per minute? Good fun, but I'm impressed if you managed to learn it in a short trip!

[OverKill]

Would that be the one I know as the Viennese waltz? 180 degrees turn per bar for most bars and 60 bars per minute? Good fun, but I'm impressed if you managed to learn it in a short trip!

Thanks to multiple courses in dancing (it is a German thing), I think to remember that there are TWO walzes:
The (slow) Walz and the Vienna Walz (faster with more spring and turning). If you can get by the 2nd without being dizzy, you have not drunk enough

[CommanderKeith]

I must have been taught the beginners/slow waltz then, it wasn't as elaborate as the vienna waltz you describe!

I'm back at home now, and enjoying normal non-backpacking life, espcecially having a car, fridge, hot shower and my own room 

[CommanderKeith]

I've been meaning to put up my photos. I loaded them on facebook which has shrunk them to a reasonable size and now they're on photobucket too:


Greg (delt0r, middle), me (right) and a spanish dude at the kebab (or duram???) shop at 3am in Vienna. Good times, but unfortunately Greg lost his holden commodore jumper at the bar 


San francisco, with Alcatraz prison island in the background. I met up with Shannon  and Eli (Demonpants) in san francisco, but we all forgot to take a photo!


A backpacker friend and I crashed a lecture at Columbia university in NY just to see what it's like. Finance, pretty boring


Making party in NY


Amsterdam, a beautiful and exciting city. This is one of the canals at night. The floating white things are actually swans sleeping!


A dutch beach with snow, that took some getting used to!



A very strange but common Austrian toilet. The hole is in the front of the bowl, so apparently when you sit down you actually have to straddle the toilet and face the wall. A very unusual experience! No wonder why there's usually a lot of graffiti on the wall there!

Thanks again to Greg, Eli and Shannon for meeting up and showing me such great hospitality! It made the holiday 10x better

 

[OverKill]

Nice pictures.

@Austrian Toilet:
Haha!
No that is intentional! On the one hand it is to conserve water because if IT would drop directly into a reservoir, you'd have to flush the whole thing, regardless of the amount.
Plus, IT dropping into a reservoir tends to have a gross side-effect, IfYouKnowWhatIMeanAndIThinkYouDo.
Also a big advantage when the hole is in the front is that YouKnowWhat has enough clearance and you don't wind up with 'FirendlyFire'.
+ other stuff we need not discuss here

and if you think that is unusual, you have not been to Italy or other southern countries, where eating the food is only the first part of the adventure.

[CommanderKeith]

Lol, thanks for the explanation

But I thought that the whole point of a toilet was the S-bend which kills any odours since IT stays submerged underwater      

This design seems to defeat the purpose since IT sits right there on the raised back surface! 

[teletubo]

A very strange but common Austrian toilet. The hole is in the front of the bowl, so apparently when you sit down you actually have to straddle the toilet and face the wall. A very unusual experience! No wonder why there's usually a lot of graffiti on the wall there!
 

Man I LOLed hard here at my work when I read that .
I never actually tried the backward straddling sh***ing, but when I first saw one of those in Germany I also wondered why the hell they are like that .

And to be honest, I don't buy Overkill's expanation ! Unless you wait to accumulate a nice ammount of material and then flush (which would indeed save water, but you could do the same with a regular toilet . ).

Anyway, nice pics ! You really had a great time I guess