Chris.Derecola

[Sweet Movie] Earlier this year, I picked up a hand-held GPS. It comes in handy using topographic maps for hiking in Shenandoah National Park or canoeing the Rappahannock River, but it really earned its keep with the City Navigator Europe map. It was great for getting back to our Paris hostel when the train stopped running at 1 AM and driving from Maastricht to the track. A nice bonus was the ability to track all of our movements. Besides just being cool to see, it’s especially helpful retracing your steps to find that great neighborhood restaurant you had a delicious meal at.

I saved each day as a new track, which I was able to import into Google Earth/Maps. I was also able to color code the different days, not only making it easier to look through but also creating pretty cool map in the process. I don’t think Maps is designed to handle the amount of information I threw at it (days are paginated), but it definitely works if you just want to poke around. You can zoom into the street level, but if you really want to dig around use the View in Google Earth link. If you see a straight line, that generally means the GPS lost its satellite lock on a train and then connected the dots after the fact. Enjoy!

Back to Reality. Our vacation is over; I’m happy to report everything went well and we had a good time. I have a lot to talk about but I also have a feeling it’s going to take me awhile to decompress and digest it into readable bits. My calendar is somewhat full for the next 10 days but I’m hopeful I can get stuff on here before you lose interest. In the meantime, here a few things off the top of my head.

• 19 days is a long time. It was actually long enough that I caught myself thinking a few times that living out of a backpack and moving around all the time was my normal life… like I got used to it or something. Travel/vacation never felt that way for me before and it was pretty cool. I was definitely ready to come home, but I appreciate the experience.
• The weather was somewhat crap but kinda awesome. We didn’t count, but our best estimate is that it rained for 13-14 days of the 19. I’m not talking 5 minute sprinkles surrounded by sun, but rather gray with on/off rain or just plain rain all day. Rain on vacation sucks, but it didn’t get to me as much as you might think. We were prepared for the most part and given that most places didn’t have A/C, I was okay because it rarely went above 65°. The days it was sunny were absolute perfection, so I’m not really complaining.
• I shot 791 pictures and 35 movie clips. I really thought I was going to shoot more, but the weather ran interference with that. Some days it was just so wet and gray that I didn’t feel it worthwhile to pull the camera out. Still, those counts are nothing to sneeze at and I’m sure it’ll take some time to get them online.
• I managed to cross two things off my Life List. I was thinking it would be three, but the timing and logistics just flat out didn’t work. As with several things on the trip, we felt it better to dial it back a notch and not force it.
• I ate a ridiculous amount of most everything I try to avoid on a regular basis and only gained two pounds. I truly feared the scale after all the beer, foie gras, chocolate, pork, wine, bread, bone marrow, butter, beef and ice cream I had but was pleasantly surprised. The significant amount of walking we did – averaged nine miles/day in Paris, where I stopped keeping track – must have compensated for the caloric intake. This fuels my belief about why Americans are fat; more about that in another post. The unwanted side effect of this food appears to be the resurfacing of acid reflux. It went away four years ago when I stopped eating crap, so I’m pretty sure it’s related. Bah.

That’s it for now. I apologize if the thoughts aren’t entirely coherent or ramble on – I’m still six hours ahead. I should also probably apologize for the overuse of the word but. I didn’t count but I usually end up with far too many if I don’t make a conscious habit not to. More later… and with less buts!

In a few days, we are departing for 19 days in Europe. We will be spending time at a few different places in France, doing a week in Belgium and doing two overnights just across the border of Netherlands. This trip was originally scheduled to last a month, have us visiting four countries and include three Formula 1 races, but a few things changed since we dreamed it up 1.5 years ago. Among those reasons most important are 1) me getting laid off at the beginning of the year, 2) a reduction in the amount of vacation time I get with my new job and 3) Melissa working part-time and heading back to school. As it is now, the main highlights include time in Paris and Brussels, a private tour of the beaches of Normandy and the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

When it comes to traveling, we generally try and push ourselves to do and see things we haven’t previously. This really serves no purpose other than to get us out of our comfort zones.  I realized in Japan that some of the best experiences in life are when you don’t feel all cozy and comfy, so it’s something I’d like to continue. At first glance, visiting mainland Europe doesn’t seem that far of a stretch (would you believe I’ve never been?) but there are a few things that make this trip stand out in comparison.

• We will be backpacking. It won’t be backpacking in the sense of traipsing through the wilderness, but we will be changing cities every few days, staying in hostels and carrying everything in a single backpack. With our many travels in Japan, it was clear that normal suitcases were a huge impedance to moving about. I don’t want my stuff to bog me down and backpacks will help combat that. Consider that this is the longest trip we’ve ever been on (by nearly a week) and you have the makings of complications. Of course many people do a lot more with a lot less, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.
• This will be the first trip, other than maybe a long weekend somewhere close, that we will not have a computer. It’s no secret that I not only love technology but like to be prepared, so I’ve always had a computer with me to “research” whatever comes up. Given the lightweight and unplugged nature of the trip, I’ve decided to embrace just how unnecessary they are. We’ll still be reachable by cell phone in case of emergency, but internet access will be reduced to smart phone over wifi… if at all.
• We are going to meet strangers. Over time, we’ve learned the best way to see a place and understand its culture is to hang out with locals. This contributed to the success of trips like Japan and England, so we’re gonna try it again. How do you find locals willing to meet up in a place you’ve never been? I’d previously heard a lot of great things about the travel community site Couch Surfing, and this was the perfect opportunity to make use of it. It could all go very wrong, especially since I’m not the most open person in the world, but we’ll see.
• Not every minute is planned. The things that required pre-booking, like trains, the Normandy Tour and the F1 race were accounted for, but there are large sections of the trip where we have no idea what we’re going to do. My priorities consist of drinking beer in Belgium, eating in France and… well… that’s about it. I just want to relax and recharge so I haven’t spent much time thinking about what happens in-between. Anyone who knows me, knows this is very unlike me.

I am taking two different cameras, both of which shoot HD video, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot of things for you to see when we get back. I have this strange suspicion I’m going to shoot a lot, so I fully expect it take weeks to go through everything. I’m sure I’ll also be posting a clip video, several galleries over at Dirty Martini Photography and maybe even our GPS-mapped track, so I’ll be busy for awhile. I’m not going to think about all of that now but instead focus on packing and Friday’s sunny/73° forecast for Paris. See you in September!