TravelStream™ news feed for member jeremystravels on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jeremystravels en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:18:57 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jeremystravels/1/1257526276/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jeremystravels/1/1257526276/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jeremystravels/1/1257526276/tpod.html Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:18:57 -0500 "Living the Dream!" - Contiki's European Whirl

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Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium

We just drove through Belgium, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to stop at Brugge :(
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Dayton, Ohio, United States

After the delays in Atlanta I made it home by midnight and was finally settled in back at home at 1am.  A long day, but an end to a great weekend.  Unfortunately this means that my weekend road trips are finished for the year.  There will be side trips to Pittsburgh to visit my girlfriend, but no major trips to other cities as of now.  Hopefully I can make another entry into this blog, but otherwise this will be the end until next year when I have a Southern Caribbean Cruise in March and the big adventure will begin in August!
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Atlanta, Georgia, United States

I cannot say how much I hate Atlanta.  If you are flying into Atlanta at night time, there is a high probability that your flight will be delayed.  My brothers flight was delayed leaving West Palm Beach, his flight was delayed arriving in Atlanta, and his flight from Atlanta was delayed to leave.  My flight was also delayed in Atlanta and we were on the runway when we landed for some 20 minutes as well before we could even make it into the terminal.  Yes. Atlanta Sucks.  And there is nothing you can say that will change my mind.
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West Palm Beach, Florida, United States

I arrived in West Palm Beach at around 1pm and was picked up by my parents where we headed out to our amazing condo.  Normally the place is around $1000/wk for a one bedroom condo but we were given a discount for knowing an employee that is apart of the wedding.. $350/wk total.  I can't complain either way since I just bummed the couch but it is quite a steal.  We could see the ocean from our porch, and could be in the water in about 30 seconds [20 of that dealing with the locking gate].  We stopped at the Winn Dixie on the way there to get some lunch which was 2 lbs of steamed shrimp in old bay seasoning for about $16 total where we took it back to the condo and ate while watching the ocean come to the beach from the condo.  Of course, being a scuba diver I had to go into the water and found some amazing fish near some dead coral [rocks now] that included some angel fish, grouper, and a barracuda or two.  It was pretty neat for being able to just swim out 30 ft and see such an array of creatures.  Good thing there were no sharks that day though.In the evening we headed over to my cousins house to meet up with relatives that we had not seen for years.  They had a bridal shower / rehearsal dinner that included some of the extended family and we got to catch up which was pretty nice.  I was expecting it to be hectic, and it was, so we did not stay very long and instead I went back to the condo and passed out pretty early.The next day we got up and watched the sunrise and went out to IHOP where I treated my dad for letting me crash at their condo for free, and I ended up going snorkeling again.  Unfortunately this time some water got into the casing of my underwater camera [Olympus 1030 SW] and damaged the display screen.  I have to send it in for repairs now which will put me out $100 more, this $90 trip was getting more expensive by the moment.   Oh well, such is life, right?After getting cleaned up we went to our favorite family restaurant, Two Georges, and met up with my brother and his wife, and my cousin and his girlfriend and had some of the best seafood I have ever had, anywhere.  We started off with conk fritter appetizers, which was followed up by the worlds best crab soup and an order of a lobster patty melt sandwich.  All of this was washed down by a mai tai, which was not really a mai tai but a concoction of rum, apricot brandy, amaretto, grenadine, and more.  Tasty, but I had no idea what it was.After Two Georges we had to quickly get ready for the wedding and head down to the reception hall.  It was a lot of fun, and was about what I expected it to be, complete with open bar which made my trip turn cash positive again.  All in all it was a good night.  We got back to the room around 11ish and I passed out, this time from drunkeness rather than sleepiness, and called it a day.  The final day was spent just walking around the beach with the family and another visit to Winn Dixie for steamed shrimp and I headed back to the airport at West Palm Beach to head home.
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Atlanta, Georgia, United States

The title of this post is sarcasm.  I really hate all things Atlanta.   I got on my 8am flight and headed down to West Palm Beach, Florida with a layover in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Dayton, Ohio, United States

Made it back home for one week before heading down to Florida for my cousins wedding next weekend!
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

The last day of this road trip was spent in Pittsburgh where my brother and his wife met up with my girlfriend and myself to go to Primanti Brothers and to see Cirque du Soleil's Alegria.  It is funny that I saw two cirque du soleil shows on the same two days this year as I did last year [October 9th and 11th].  The show was pretty good, and much better than Saltimbanco, the other arena touring show.  I have to say that I think my girlfriend is hooked.   I drove the 4 1/2 hour drive home and ended the weekend on a good note.
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Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

The first part of our day was spent in Toronto where we wandered around St Lawrence Market, which brought back memories of our adventures in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia earlier in the year.  St Lawrence Market is setup exactly the same, with food, shopping, and other vendors intermixed in a large warehouse format.  The better part came when we found out that there were free samples from pretty much every vendor.  Of course, I had to stuff myself silly with random mustards, obscure jelly flavors [such as Durian Papaya - delicious], and more.  After wandering around for about an hour we finally decided on having a hawaiiian crepe, dessert crepe covered with maple syrup, and a smoothie for brunch.  Not the most healthy choice, but it was quite delicious.  I was sad to know that the crepery was located in the basement in the far corner, it should really be up front for everyone to see.After lunch we made a quick stop at the weekend farmers market across the street which was a bit of a let down due to it being pretty small.  After we finished our wandering we made our way back to the hotel to check out and head down to Niagara Falls and hit some vineyards along the way.  We checked out shortly before noon and headed towards the highway, which had a long line of traffic with cars stopped.  We thought it was a bad wreck and decided to make our way around on side roads, which also had apparent wrecks.  Everything was at a stand still.   This was at 12pm90 minutes of wandering side streets, we stopped and asked someone how to get on the highway, and were told the highway was closed for construction.  I should put this in context, because this weekend was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada.  WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS WOULD CLOSE A MAIN HIGHWAY AT NOON ON SATURDAY ON A THANKSGIVING WEEKEND?!   After two hours of wandering around side streets we finally made it out far enough to get away from the close lanes [which had since emptied of cars] and made it back on the highway.  Approaching 3pm we could still see Toronto in the distance.  Only in Canada.We stopped at two vineyards on the way home, one of which only specialized in ice wines and sold them at $500 - $250,000 a bottle.  I am not kidding you.  It was very pretentious but the wine was exquisite.   To put it in further context, a 7 wine sampling of a "nominal amount" of approximately 1 oz total for all seven, was $5 CAD.  Not bad, but I will say that I am never going to pay $80 for a 175 mL bottle of ice wine.After tastings we headed down to Niagara Falls and parked at the casino [$10 parking] and looked at the two falls from the Canadian side.  We were originally thinking of maybe doing one of the activities there, like Journey Behind the Falls or Maid of the Mist, but being later in the day and sitting in traffic for hours we decided to just stop and see the falls, which were amazing, and head back home.   We ended up not getting back home until 10pm+  which made for one long day for what should have been a 5 1/2 hour drive without stopping.  Ugh.
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada

We made the grueling 5 1/2 hour drive from Pittsburgh to Toronto very early in the morning so we could have the better part of the day to see the city.  Our main goal was to see the Cirque du Soleil show OVO which just opened and was touring across Canada.  After a few small stops and 5 1/2 hours we made it to our hotel, the Sheraton Centre hotel which was, much like the one in Philly, phenomenal .  Instead of paying the ridiculous valet parking price we parked in the city hall underground parking which came out to be about $24 for the day, which was not bad considering it had its own underground walkway connecting to the hotel itself.  It would have been cheaper had we arrived in the evening to be considered the "weekend" but arriving on a Friday afternoon we had to make due with what we had.We decided to make our way to the arena for the show to try and get an upgraded ticket.  We hailed the a taxi and ended up being stuck in traffic for most of the way.  What should have been a $7 CAD ticket ended up costing closer to $15 due to being stuck at lights the whole way.  Oh well, we made it to the show and found out that it was practically sold out so there would be no upgrade for Cirque Club members that night.   The show itself was amazing, and was as much as you could expect for a Cirque du Soleil in traditional extravagant fashion as well.  If you see OVO touring in a city near you, I highly recommend it.After the show we were going to meet up with some of my Contiki buddies at a pub for late night drinks and dinner, and were running a bit late.  Unfortunately we could not find a taxi at all near by.  I would have thought that since so many taxis were bringing people in they would think to drive by when the show was over, but alas that was not the case.   We walked a third of the way back and spotted a taxi at the side of the road who took us back to our hotel for a quick refresh before heading out to visit some friends at Scotland Yard pub.  It was a small group that met up and we shared some stories from Europe and recent travels which was a good way to catch up.  The downside to the whole meal for two was about $35 US with two beers.  A bit pricey, but, we are in Canada.After catching up with my friends, and making new ones, we called it a night and enjoyed our clear view of the skyline from our hotel room which was mucked up by bad weather earlier in the day.  We could not even see the CN tower in any part of the city, it was that foggy.  After enjoying the view we called it a night as we were driving home the following day, and visiting Niagara Falls!
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Pit stop to pick up my girlfriend before heading to Toronto Canada!
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