I Need Your Ideas

I had this great idea to use a picture of Uncle Sam to symbolize that I'm asking for your participation...but now I think it's just creepy.  Despite this, I'm leaving the picture.  Sorry.

I thought it would be fun to do a blog with rankings of top cities, food, experiences, sights, museums, etc.  I'll do that.  At some point.  But before I do that, I'm asking for your help.  I would like you to send me ideas.  Is it because I'm lazy and not wanting to come up with things on my own?  No.  I just want to address specific things that my faithful readers might be curious about.  What kinds of things?  ANYTHING.  Here are some examples...
What was your favorite city?
What were your top 5 favorite meals?
What will you miss most from Europe?
How did you become such a great blogger?  And so handsome?
Who did you miss most while in France? (The answer will always be the sender)
Rank your top 10 things you saw.
Can you buy corned beef in France?
Etc...

You are even allowed to use these examples.  I don't care.  Send me anything.

How do you submit your question(s)?  Easy.  Send me an email (nschluet@gmail.com).  Comment on this blog (below).  Send me a message on Facebook.  Yell really loud.  I will hear you.  Homing pigeons even work very well.
* I think the only route that would allow you to stay anonymous would be to comment on this blog.  I recognize voices pretty well.

Timetable?  Sooner the better.

Catchy Title about Prague

Prague: The Golden City.  The gold "they" are referring to is beer.  Maybe it should be "The Amber City"?  You'll find this as a common theme in my review...beer.  Which is funny given my recent love for the drink (I drank my first ever beer this last summer).  While I'm on topic, I might as well talk about the...

Beer
It's cheap.  It's abundant.  It's wonderful.  It's Czech.  .33L in Oslo cost me about 6 euros.  In Prague, .50L=1 euro.  1 euro!!!  And maybe it was all the hype, but it has been the best beer that I've had so far.  On top of that, the variety is outstanding.  Many different brands, and you can actually get dark beer (this is very uncommon in Europe).  Go to wherever you keep your pop (or soda) and look at a 2L.  That's how much beer I drank each day I was there.  And I was never drunk.  Not even close.  It's common to just walk along the street and get yourself a beer when you're thirsty (at a REALLY cool bar).  Or it's great to go with your....

Food
Food is meat.  Meat is food.  The traditional Czech cuisine consists of meat (typically pork), heavy sauce, and dumplings.  When I heard this before going, that sounded like an insult.  It is not.  How can you go wrong with a 5 lbs. hunk of pork on a skewer?  With fat.  Cooked in, you guess it, beer.  Girls might cringe at eating straight fat...but don't.  Eat it.  It's worth it.  And how about the next day following that with some sauerkraut pancakes filled with meat?  You'll have to be careful, though.  Make sure you have nothing important after one of these meals.  Can you imagine stuffing yourself with meat, fat, grease, and beer, and then trying to go to the...

Opera
This was my first trip to any kind of opera (La Boheme).  I have to say, it was much better than I thought it would be.  I was pleasantly surprised to find English subtitles on a screen above the stage.  The singing and the sets were great.  But, I was laughing in my head the whole time.  How can someone sing so passionately about how warm her mittens are?  Oh!  And the best part was sitting in a private box!  I felt like the Lincolns.  Thankfully, my show ended better than Abe's.  No one yelled "Death to Tyrants!" at the show, but I did see plenty of them at the...

Museum of Communism
Czech history: Holy Roman Empire, Hapsburgs, Nazis, and finally Communists.  This museum was about the latter.  Very humerus museum.  It was really cool to see artifacts, posters, statues, and documentaries about this Red past.  I love stuff like that.  And not to mention the way the Communist propaganda talked about America (definition of irony=the picture below is the museum...right next to a McDonalds)!  It was cool to see the comparison of the...

East vs. West 
Prague is a great mix of things.  It has the grandeur of a Paris (not quite), the beer of a Germany (even better), the nightlife of a Copenhagen, and the global-ness of America.  Yet, it has the food and the bars of a Krakow and the quirks, landscape, and people of a Budapest.  Other than the beer, its hard for me to say that Prague is the best at anything.  But it is great at so many things.  It truly is the center of Europe.  With all that being said, what really sets it apart is the...

Price
I loved Prague.  But if it weren't for the low-cost of so many things, I'm not sure if I would have loved it as much.  If it was 6 euros for .33L of beer (like in Oslo), I would have gotten water.  If you couldn't get the same exact food as a pack of hungry wolves for 12 euros, I would have eaten crappy McDonalds.  And then what are you left with?  A nice city, yes.  Some nice things to see and do, yes.  But would it leave a lasting impression?  No.  So...visit Prague right now.  Enjoy the cheapness.

An Aspiring Satorialist at the Geneva Car Show

This last weekend, I went to the Geneva Car Show.  I thought nearly every major city in Europe has a car show...nope.  Geneva is the big kahuna.  So that's pretty neat, right?

I don't love cars.  I don't hate them.  I just like car shows.  My dad took me to Chicago's car show a couple times, so it makes me think of him and consequently, home.  I think that's why I wanted to go.

So what does a 24 year old male notice at a car show?  That's right...the models.  Out of all the pictures I took, not one was of a car.  And when I say that I took pictures of models, that's a bit of a stretch.  They were more like relatives of the people in charge, dressed hideously (see bottom photo, especially) to help distinguish them from any normal person walking around.  I wanted to take a picture of all the models, but I felt like a creep.  So I ended up with a bunch of pictures of the "models'" asses.  I was too shy to take a picture of their faces.
(If you're curious of what "Satorialist" means in my title, look at this blog.)

A couple final thoughts:

• Yes, that man in the blue suit has matching blue shoes.  And yes, that was their uniform.
• I'm going to get super patriotic here, but America is smarter than everyone else.  The only section that really stood out from the others was Ford.  They gave out free drinks, had multiple different games to play, and dressed their models HORRIBLY (bottom photo, again).  Did the cars make us stay around?  No.  The brilliant marketing did.  Why don't other companies do this?  Don't say that Ford needs to make itself noticed due to their inferior product.

Making Paris Interesting

Last weekend, I said that I was going to detail my roadtrip a bit more.  After careful consideration, I decided it was going to be too boring.  Instead, I'm skipping ahead to the conclusion of the trip: Paris.  And even that is a little boring.  Did I just say that?  Paris was boring?  I don't mean that.  Paris was not boring.  But describing it would be.  I think that's where my blog is going.  I feel like anything I write is boring to read (that's why I've included interesting pictures like the one on the right).  But I don't want to quit writing it.  I need the attention.  How did I get on to this?  Anyway...with further ado, here's what was interesting in Paris:












Butler Bulldogs

The main reason for my trip to Paris was to see an old Butler friend, Sora Lyu. To you, this is insignificant and boring (solidifying my previous "boring" comment).  To me, this is earth-shaking news.  Why?  Because she is a friend from my former life and she brought her friend, Libby (a Butler Bulldog and fellow blogger, http://libbyadventures.blogspot.com/).

• Importance of a friend from a former life: Huge.  She knows who I am and where I come from.  To not have to explain this to her, is very significant.  She understands my humor immediately and gets why I'm so weird.  I loved spending time with her.  And Sora was a lot of fun.
  
• Importance of Libby: Other than being just a really cool girl, she's a Bulldog.  For anyone who knows me, they know just how much I'm in love with Butler.  And seeing Libby immediately transported me to 4600 Sunset Ave.  She is the quality of person I became used to while at Butler.  I miss that place.  And Libby was a lot of fun.

Parlez-vous francais?
I'm horrible at French.  And really, I don't care...don't care enough to learn it.  While I'm with friends out here, I always step aside and let them speak French.  And when I'm by myself, I don't get any satisfaction while speaking French.  But when I'm with friends who don't speak French (Sora and Libby), I get to show off.  For some reason, I really like that.  I think that goes back to my tour guiding days.  I think I just like to know things other people don't.

Quick Hits on Paris

• Paris is by far the best tourist-city that I've been to in Europe.  So much to see, beautiful, cool people, easy to conquer, great food...everything you could ask for.  It's still not my favorite city, though.
• The Louvre is too big.  It is great to see, but you almost have to run through the place.  Everything becomes one painting.  There becomes a time when a museum can too much...the Louvre is there.
• Pompidou Center is a must-see if you like modern art.  I hate modern art paintings...but I LOVE the more interactive stuff.  And frankly, let's be honest, I like seeing all the naked women (see pics).
• Duck confit is a revelation.
• Yes, Parisians can be uptight and mean.  But nearly every interaction I have with a Parisian has be remarkable (in a good way).  I was in desperate need of gas while leaving the city and had a 50 euro bill to get some.  Well, after looking for an hour, (is finding gas in America ever difficult?) I found a gas station!  What relief!  Too bad it only took debit cards.  Well, a Parisian saw me ranting and raving at the pump and offered to let me use his card for the cash.  What a nice guy!!!  And on top of that, this was our exchange of words while waiting (all in English):

• "Where are you from?"
• "America"
• "I thought so.  You have no accent.  I can never understand British accents."

• Amelie!  The girls and I had coffee at the same exact cafe where Amelie worked in the movie!  Really cool (see below).
• If you're ever in Paris, go to Montmatre on a weekend.  The more crowded, the better.  I love the atmosphere there.

A Driver's Guide to a French Roadtrip

View Larger Map

That is France.  I tried to draw on the map to show where I recently drove, but I found that a Sharpie doesn't work on a computer screen.  So I'll have to describe the trip:

1. Started close to Geneva (just East of France)
2. Went W to near Limoges
3. Went N to Tours
4. Went NW to north of Rennes (at the coast)
5. Went NE to north of Caen
6. Went E to north of Paris
7. Went S to Paris
8. Went SE back to Geneva

Phew!  That's over 28 hours of driving, over 40 gallons of gas, and over 1300 miles.  This is about the equivalent of driving from Indianapolis to New York and back.  And this was all by myself.  Was it boring?  Surprisingly no.  But here's what I learned:

• Don't let your GPS's battery run out.  After my first stop, this happened.  I needed to re-install the software...wouldn't work=no GPS=I used a map.  Old-fashioned roadtrip.
• French tolls are HORRIBLE!  If I used the toll-roads, it would have cost me over 80 euros!
• Not driving on the toll-roads saves money (gas and tolls), makes the drive interesting (winding roads, small towns, complicated directions, pass trucks on small roads, etc), and shows more of the actual country.
• Instead of having cops patrolling for speeding cars, they have cameras set up.  In theory this is good and efficient.  The problem is, they warn you every time there is a camera coming!!!  You slow down for the camera, and you're fine.
• France is an OLD country.  At first, its charming.  After a while, it just looks crappy and dirty.
• You better like McDonald's if you are doing a French roadtrip.  This is the only fastfood.  Boring.  There's a chain called "Quick", but its horrible.  Stick with boring McDonald's.  And buy McChickens...cheaper than beef.
• Speaking of fastfood...all my avid followers will remember me talking about the packaging McDonald's gives you.  I took a picture of the packaging Quick gave me for a burger, fries and drink.  Look below.
• Driving in Paris isn't so bad.  Driving around the Arc de Triomphe...horrifying.  After only one time going around the circle, I got honked at 3 times and almost hit twice (really...almost hit).  There are about 8 lanes and 12 streets that run off of it...with seemingly no rules or traffic regulation.

I'll explain the places I visited along the way in my next post.

I've Transported My Kids to America!

OK, maybe not.  But look at this next picture and tell me it doesn't look like visual evidence supporting my title.

But now look at this picture.  How more French can you get?  It's February and cold (don't let the sun fool you).  And it's just a normal Thursday afternoon.  If there's 1 thing French people hate, it's fast food.  If there's 1 thing they love, it's McDonald's.  And if there are 2 things, it's that and eating outside...even in the dead of winter.

A few notes on McDonalds:

• They serve beer.  No wine, though.
• To us Americans, McDonald's is cheap and fast.  Here, its neither.  It's cheap-ish and fast-ish.  I've never waited in a drive-thru longer in my life.
• And to me, a Big Mac tastes the same here as it does back home.
• No, you can't get a 64 oz Coke here.
• Speaking of Coke...Europe tends to call it Coca.  It sounds weird.
• Europe is soooo concerned about the environment.  But then you go to a McDonald's.  The packaging!!!  If you get a meal, they give you a whole box.  If you get a drink, they give you one of the 4-cup-holder things...without asking.  They even give you a tray with a paper liner (dining in) even if you just get a muffin.
• The menu isn't nearly as large as it is back home.  But there are some nice regional treats, like chocolate mousse, Parmesan burgers, croque-monsieur, etc.  Oh!  They have potato wedges instead of fries (only if you want)!  They're great!
• Thankfully, they keep the American tradition of free wi-fi.  The lack of free wi-fi in Europe is devastating.  Yes, devastating.

Carnaval: This is like their Halloween (without trick-or-treating).  See Aiden as a cowboy (part knight)...

See Aiden on crack...

The Ups and Downs of Skiing Trips

Life is full of ups and downs.  So is skiing.  So was this weekend.

Down: 4 hour car ride (into the Alps...Chatel) with Aiden in the back seat complaining that he has to throw up the whole way and his cousin (Alpair, 2) crying because he couldn't hold his mother's hand.  Traffic was also horrible.

Up: I managed to figure out how to put on snow chains without instructions or any previous knowledge of anything snow chain-related.  They work amazingly.

Down: I had to listen to Aiden's crying and coughing all night and Alpair's crying.  Due to the tight quarters, sleeping was hardly an option.

Up: I had a private lesson my first day.  My instructor (Fenny) was terrific!  It made a HUGE difference to learn from a teacher who spoke the same language as me.

Down: I learned how to go down a slope the proper way.

Up: Skiing became much more enjoyable.

Down: Macsen got sick on Sunday.

Up: I got to take his private lesson.

Down: I learned how to go down a slope even better.

Up: Eating while skiing.  Great food and drinks in the Alps.

Down: Alpair got sick Monday morning, so we couldn't go skiing (my "family" went home Sunday night, so it was only me, Alpair, and his mom).

Up: Alpair threw up in the car on the way home.

Ok...in all seriousness, skiing went really, really well this weekend.  The Alps are simply gorgeous and the skiing was actually fun.  I wish I had a video of my attempt at skiing my first time compared to where I was on Sunday.  I improved to not being able to go down green slopes (1st level) to being able to do reds (3rd level...out of 4) aaaannnd....
When I first started skiing, I noticed crazy lunatics going "off-slope".  I couldn't believe how crazy they were!  Well, on Sunday, Juliette's friend joined us.  Because she lives out there, she showed us all the great "off-slope" areas.  Me!  Off-slope!  I'm serious, I was doing jumps (not on purpose)!  I turned into one of those crazy lunatics!  I don't want to say that I'm really good or anything, but I'm much better than I was because of some great instructors.

• I uploaded a video of Aiden skiing.  Look to the right.
• I'm hoping to get some pictures of me skiing.  Juliette's sister is supposed to send me some pics.  I was too worried I would fall on my camera while skiing.