Category: Travel

Categories
Travel

In Bruges

After a LONG day of travel, we’ve made it to our hotel in Bruges, Belgium.

The flight leaving PDX was delayed on the tarmac due to some break heating issue, so we sat on the plan for about an additional hour before leaving on our 9 hour 30 minute flight. Once in Amsterdam, we caught a train to the main train station in Amsterdam where we figured out what tickets to buy and what platform to go to for Bruges. The train ride was about 4 hours to Bruges, stopping to transfer at the amazing station at Antwerp (it was a 4 or 5 story train station, with different platforms on different levels, all of which could be seen from an open center.

After we arrived in Bruges, we caught a bus into the center of town (the Markt) and it is incredible. The square is just lovely. We walked through the medieval streets and made it to our hotel with ease. We’re now going to muster whatever energy we have left and go out for dinner and some beers. Very tired, didn’t sleep much on the plane and dozed off here and there on the train but haven’t gotten much solid sleep. It will probably be an early night. 🙂

Photos are in the gallery.

Categories
Travel

Up, up and away

At the airport. Boarding is about to begin. Thank you M for the ride to the airport, it saved us the mess of mass transit during the May heat wave. Flight leaves at 4pm… then it’s 10 hours to Amsterdam, and then another 5 or 6 hours of train rides until we reach Bruges. More to come, hopefully late tomorrow.

Categories
Entertainment Movies Travel

Shows, movies, The Goose, and more travels

Since the last recap, Kelly and I got caught up on Lost and Battlestar Galactica (both of which were really good episodes, after waiting through some ‘filler’ episodes recently), and we went to see two movies, Iron Man and In Bruges.

Iron Man was really fantastic. I’d heard good things, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite as good as it was. Not only was it a fantastic comic book film, but it also was a good movie all around. A great mixture of humor, action, romantic scenes, and all around good acting and a fun story. Gorn says “yessss”.

Later that same day (last Sunday) Kelly and I went to Kennedy School to see In Bruges with M & B (who will be watching over our furry black evil, otherwise known as Arthur Guinness, while we’re gone). The movie was great fun. Not only was the setting something which Kelly and I were keenly observing, but the story was fun and the acting was great. Even Colin Farrell, whom I don’t generally like, was likable and hilarious. I couldn’t help but thinking through the entire film “in 7 days from we’ll be there”

Tonight brother T and I went to The Goose (Goose Hollow Inn) for some beers and dinner after work. There really isn’t much better than their reuben sandwich. Yum!

Kelly’s in Chicago at the moment. She had to get up around 4am this morning to fly out with a coworker for a work event, and returns tomorrow afternoon. Then, we pack and get ready, and fly out on Saturday about mid-day. Really looking forward to the trip.

Categories
Beer General Travel Work

An update-y thingy

Since my last post of randomness, a few things have happened… most importantly, Kelly had her graduation for her MBA last weekend. The ceremony wasn’t too long, a little over an hour, however due to the order of events, and our shared last name, Kelly was nearly the last person to get presented with her degree. My mom came into town and sat in the bleachers at Concordia University with me, so it wasn’t just me hooting and hollering when her name was announced, though I’m sure she didn’t hear it. 🙂

Afterwards we briefly went to the ‘cake and coffee’ event before returning home. We had some friends and family over to celebrate, a bit of a last minute BBQ thing. Had really good time. And congrats (again) Kelly!

Today we went out to my folks place to celebrate an early Mother’s Day with a late lunch of sandwiches and salads. It was really nice, and there were three generations of mothers there; my grandma, my mom, and my sis-in-law (with my nephew ‘Bart‘, who’s growing insanely fast). My brothers and I spent some time wandering around the wooded three acres where we spent nearly all of our youth running around. We visited the former location of our old tree house (a three-story behemoth that we spent several summers stealing dad’s lumber to construct, which was sadly destroyed during intense wind storms last year) making our way through the now-overgrown paths, and realizing how different the property is now, partly due to some light cedar logging my dad did a few years ago, and partly due to the aforementioned wind storms. It was a nice day too, the weather which threatened rain remained fairly warm and rain-free.

Aside from that, it’s been a few weeks of intense work, and the usual going out to pubs with Snooks and my brother T for after-work beers.

Oh, and about one week from now we’ll probably be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Europe. Looking forward to the trip, but the amount of work I have to try and complete between now and then is daunting. Must keep focused on all the beer that awaits me in Belgium. Mmmmm… beer.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Music Travel

Hot Chip, and general update

Hot Chip at Crystal Ballroom, April 2008, 1Wednesday night Kelly and I went to see the great electro-pop band Hot Chip at the Crystal Ballroom. After work we went to Ringlers Pub for some dinner and drinks before the show, where I had a fantastic brew (which I guess is only being poured at Ringlers), called Liquid Friend. It was a lighter ale, with a very balanced flavor (with a very slight citrus/sweet hint) and was delicious. The server said it was his favorite McMenamins beer, and I think I agree with him. It’s at least up there with their ESB served on nitro.

Anyway, the show started at 9pm, we got in at about 8:30pm, went to the balcony and were able to get a couple seats while we waited for the opening band, Free Blood, who were a kind of quirky. It was a male & female duo who danced around singing to pre-recorded, bass-heavy dance music. At one point I thought I ‘got it’, it’s like some white raver-kid version of old-school rap. Kind of. But in the end, I was like, meh. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. The songs on their MySpace page sound better than they did live.

Hot Chip at Crystal Ballroom, April 2008, 2Hot Chip however, were fantastic. The whole ballroom became a crowded dance club for an hour and a half. The vibe of the entire venue was good, and even the servers working the bars seemed less hipster-surly than normal. The band played pretty much everything Kelly and I were hoping they’d play from their last two albums. The encore held a couple fun surprises too. First was the hybrid of their track No Fit State and the classic New Order track Temptation, which was a fun surprise (you can watch a version of it here from last year). The second surprise was the band’s choice to finish the show by combining their song In the Privacy of Our Love with Nothing Compares 2 U (the Prince song that Sinead O’Connor made famous). It was really good, and a great way to end the show.

Now on to the really quick update of the past couple weeks: gone out to the pubs once or twice, had friends over for dinner last weekend (Kelly made pulled pork, and hot damn it was good), been workin my ass off, and I finally booked the last of the hotels for our upcoming trip. I think that’s about it. I think.

Update: Oh, I forgot something. The weather here has been schizophrenic. It went from warm and sunny, to cold and nasty (it even snowed briefly a few days ago), and now back to being a bit more consistent with this time of year. Sheesh!