Globetrotting

My brief blogging hiatus was due to a two week work trip to Europe. This was my first trip overseas and it was quite interesting, if exhausting at times. I visited nine cities in five different countries, used five airports and seven train stations, drove the Autobahn, and sat in countless taxis, buses, and subways. The cities I visited were, in order:

1. Madrid, Spain
2. Dusseldorf, Germany
3. Cologne, Germany
4. Antwerp, Belgium
5. Brugge, Belgium
6. Paris, France
7. Turin, Italy
8. Bergamo, Italy
9. Milan, Italy

When I wasn’t working (I gave the same presentation 30 times over two weeks) a few thoughts I had while seeing the other side of the world…

• Holy crap, does Europe have a graffiti problem. In Buffalo, we have a lot of graffiti on old, run down buildings, but in Europe it’s everywhere, including on all the beautiful buildings that are hundreds of years old. They should consider that age limit on spray paint sales.
• The Autobahn is not nearly as scary as many Americans think it is. The guiding rule is to keep your ass in the right lane unless passing. If people here followed that rule, there’d be a lot less road rage.
• No matter how congested or crowded a city is, there are always two truths: One – people will always drive their cars, regardless of traffic, gas prices, or parking costs. Two – outside of any city, there are vast amounts open land. The world is not running out of space any time soon.
• There are a heck of a lot of multilingual people in this world. That makes it not so scary to travel to places that speak other languages. Sometimes, you even forget you’re in a different country. Then you look up and see 11th and 12th century buildings. 😉

Photos coming when I sort through the 600 or so that I took!