On The Road

The past month my boss and I have been trying to use up the rest of our vacation before we lose it at the end of the year.  The problem is that Uncle Sherwin just laid off our third key so we have to work open to close while the other one is on vacation and it’s not too much fun.  So I realized a week or so ago that I actually had four days off from Sunday through Wednesday so I decided it was time to go somewhere again.

I checked the flights and I could make it pretty easily to Long Beach to see my brother but then I realized I also had enough time to go hang out with my sister and her family in Maine.  The flights were wide open so I mentioned the trip to Alexis and she asked if Karleigh was coming so I asked my dad for a buddy pass and he said no problem.  It was kinda last second for Karleigh so we weren’t sure if it would work out for her to get time off so that was left in the air for a bit.

On Saturday Karleigh picked me up from work and on the way home as I figured out what time I needed to leave to catch the red-eye to JFK she got a text from her boss saying she could have the time off.  So we quickly figured out a schedule, packed some bags, and went to the airport.

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Ok, part three is finally here.

We took a short flight on US Airways from Philly to Pittsburgh where they tried to get us to pay for everything from the first checked bag to the formerly complimentary glass of water.  Other than that the flight was ok.

We found the car in the long term lot at the airport and headed off to my old house!  We got there and I showed Karleigh around the house with all of my mom’s furniture from around the world and all the trees and greeness everywhere.  It was pretty much lunch time by this point so we headed off to Primanti’s for some tasty ’sammiches’.  Then we headed downtown to check some stuff out.

Luckily we had some really nice weather for our drive and the awesome entrance to the city through the Fort Pitt tunnel and across the Fort Pitt bridge.  We drove through Oakland (where PITT and CMU are) and then across the Hot Metal bridge to the South Side.  We went to the Southside Works to go to H&M and so I could not put enough quarters in the meter and get a parking ticket.  We had a good time at H&M and I got a new suit and then when outside and found my ticket on the windshield.  Ooops.  Oh well, it was only like $11.

We continued our tour of the South Side and went to Station Square where I found an awesome store to get some black and gold stuff with Pirates, Penguins, and Steelers logos for my car.  Then we took the incline up to Mount Washington.

Mount Washington, for those who don’t know, is the hill above the Monongahela River (one of the Three Rivers) that looks over the city of Pittsburgh.  And the incline is an inclined cable railway or funicular that goes up the side of Mt. Washington.  On top there are lookouts that stick out off the edge of the hill that give you an awesome view of the city.  Then we took the incline back down and headed off to my friend Mike’s house.

The next day we went down to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Art (same building actually).  Of course there were a ton of cool paintings and sculptures which I try to check out almost every time I make it home.  We also went to the new Dinosaur Hall which was really cool.  On the way out there was a wall with ribbons stuck in the wall that had wishes on them.  You could take a wish and then write a new one down on paper and stick it back in a hole on the wall so we each took a wish.  Mine says ‘I Wish I Knew’.
Also at some point in the museum there was a dead cat.  I have no idea why or what the theme of that exhibit was but it was hilarious.  Please enjoy –>

We did some other stuff over the next few days that I really don’t remember the exact chronological order to but it was fun.  We got dressed up and went to the Church Brew Works for dinner which is an old church with cool stained glass windows that is now a tasty restaurant.  We also went to the mall by my house and ate breakfast at Eggs ‘n-at.  And one night the remnants of hurricane Ike blew through and knocked out the power and a really big tree in the yard and a piece of the neighbors tree into our yard.  (Which I tried to clean up the next day along with mowing the lawn.)

It was a really good trip to Pittsburgh and a lot of fun to show Karleigh around.  And it was a good trip all over the east coast and fun was had by all.

On Saturday we were off to Luxembourg.  This way I can say that I’ve been to the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).  We were going to try and also make it to Trier, Germany but the train ride to Luxembourg was three hours so we didn’t want to spend the whole day on the train and kept our international travels to a minimum.

A little background on Luxembourg: They have the highest income per capita of any country in the world and they’re all a bunch of nerdy accountants.  (That last part may not be entirely true.)  But you do need to speak Luxembourgish to work there so it kinda makes the rest of the world the ‘out crowd’ when it comes to getting a high paying job in finance in Luxembourg.

When we got there it was definitely time to eat so we finally found the restaurant area and I decided to try something from the ‘Traditional Luxembourg Cuisine’ part of the menu.  It was sausages, pork, bacon, potatoes, and sauerkraut.  The sauerkraut was kind of sweet and very different from anything I’d had before but I liked it.  After that it was off to find these old fortress walls that I saw on the map.
We found the fort with relative ease since that comprises the whole center part of town.  The center of Luxembourg is on top of this hill and the whole place is surrounded by cliffs and high walls.  Seems like it was a pretty well fortified city back in the day.  Most of the day was spent wandering around the fort, the surrounding old towns, and trying to get into these caves that dotted the side of the hill.  When we found the entrance to the caves they were closed.  As we walked into the city center and later back to the train station, we realized most everything in this place closes pretty early.  It was 7:30 and almost everything was closed.  Oh well.

When we got back to Brussels I was definitely craving a Belgian Waffle and Brussels definitley wasn’t all closed.  So we made our way through the crowds and went to my favorite Belgian Waffle place then sat down in the Grand Plaz to people watch and eat my waffle.

As often happens around midnight, we decided to head back to the apartment and call it a night.  Got to get our rest to watch the Red Bull Soap Box Car races tomorrow!!

Since I get to do the schedules at work I decided to give myself a four day weekend by putting my two days off from two weeks right after each other.  Then I decided to tack on a vacation day and take off for Europe one last time before Carter moves home.

At the last second before leaving I realized if it was going to work that I would need to fly JetBlue to JFK then fly to Philadelphia from there instead of going through Phoenix.  So I threw a few things in a bag, hopped in my car, and sped off to the airport for the red-eye flight to NYC.  I got there at 5:30am and made my way to my parent’s apartment in Queens in time to say hello and goodbye to my dad as he left for work.  Then I took a quick nap, got some breakfast and took the bus to La Guardia airport.

From LGA I caught a flight to Philthydelphia and waited for about seven hours for my flight to Brussels.  I wasn’t too sure if I was going to get on that flight so my backup plan was to catch the last flight to Portland, ME to see where Alexis, Ian and Little Jake now call home.  Luckily the stand-by gods smiled upon me yet again and I got a window seat on the Bussels flight.

I actually slept most of the flight there so I wasn’t too wiped out when we landed.  I breezed through Customs and Immigration then caught the train to Brussels where I met up with Carter outside of the Central Station.

After going back to Carter’s apartment and taking a shower to make sure I stayed awake after taking two red-eye flights in a row, we decided to go into the city to see what was going on since it’s some kind of holiday this weekend.   We walked around the city a bit and just checked out a few shops and tried to go back to the military museum that we went to last time I was here but it was closed already.  So we ended up just chilling in the park for a while.

It was getting closer to dinner time, well, American dinner time, and I wanted to try some Mussels in Brussels finally so we went to this area where there are tons of restaurants and went to a place called the Leon where we each got a pot of Mussels.  Quite tasty I must say.

After that we just chilled some more around the city.  We went to a concert thing at the botanical gardens for a bit then we went to an overlook above the old part of the city and took some pictures from up there and down at a skate park.

It was getting late so we finally went back to the apartment where I managed to stay awake for about twenty more minutes before passing out for the night.  It had been a pretty long past day and a half but I made it and it’s always good to be here hanging out.

Well, it stopped snowing cause I left Utah.  After staying put for nearly a month I just happened to get a three day weekend from my boss so I decided to go somewhere. I figured Los Angeles would be the best use of my time since there’s not too much time spent on planes or in airports.  (If it was a four day weekend I was going to try a trip to Belgium.)

I tried to leave on Friday evening at eight o’clock but the stand-by gods frowned upon me and I was the only stand-by left in the boarding lounge as the plane pushed back.  Oh well, that just means my chances would be better the following morning.  So I crashed at Brooks for a quick four hours and headed back to the airport very early on Saturday to catch a six o’clock flight.  This time I made it.

I got in to Long Beach airport, grabbed a cab to the nearest Metro Station and made my way to my brother’s.  I thought I was going to surprise him by showing up at his front door without him giving me the directions on how to get there from the Metro station (thanks to the google maps app on my phone).  I was wrong.  Instead I got to his house and called him for over an hour and a half waiting for him to wake up and let me in.  I tried knocking but no one answered (odd for a house with twelve people living in it).  I wandered around his neighborhood (Silver Lake) for a while and got something to eat at the farmer’s market down the street and continued to call incessantly.  Eventually I gave up and started walking back to the Metro station.  I figured I could go find something more exciting to do somewhere else in the city.  Luckily he called me just before I got to the station so I turned around and went back.

It was clear by this point that it was going to be a lot hotter than Utah on Saturday.  We walked around a bit and got some vegan food but then went back to the shade and shelter of the house after a while.  We kinda lounged around during the hottest part of the day and he showed me the garden behind the house and a vacant lot behind that where there used to be another garden.

In the evening we went to an art exhibit down by where he used to live just off of skid row.  The event was called LA vs. War.  There was pretty cool stuff to see and there was a group silk screening images onto whatever you wanted.  After that we went to a show in a part of L.A. I don’t think I’ve ever been to, called Atwater.  The show was interesting and it was the first time I saw someone rock out on an electric banjo.

After that I was pretty tired and had a nice sized headache so around one I called it a night.

My last trip was the first one that I would say really wasn’t of my choosing.  I went to Dallas, TX for some training for Uncle Sherwin.

Dallas is where the training center is for the Southwest Division of SW so, they sent twenty three assistant managers to sit in a classroom for a week and drink a few cases of Dr. Pepper.

It was actually pretty interesting and I learned some interesting stuff about the company and the way we’re supposed to do our jobs.  For example, I found out it’s a bad idea to put a chair on a pallet, have an employee sit in the chair, then raise that pallet up about twelve feet into the air with the forklift and drive around, having the employee in the air counting product to do inventory.  And less death defying stuff like Sherwin Williams recycles it’s waste water from the manufacturing of paint.  We also got to tour the Garland Emulsion Plant and see the largest paint manufacturing facility in the U.S. which was cool to see.  I can now say I’ve seen 5,000 gallons of paint being mixed at once.  No pictures of that though since we weren’t allowed to take our cameras or cell phones in with us.  One night I also went downtown Dallas cause I figured I can’t say I’ve been to Dallas if I actually spend all my time in Garland and Richardson.

I went downtown on Valentine’s day which happened to be the night that the museum was open late and free.  Bonus.  So that’s about all I did downtown, just check out the museum, which was pretty alright, and ride their light rail to and from the hotel.

All in all it was a pretty good trip and hopefully it made me into some sort of Super Assistant Manager so I can get a big fat bonus at the end of the year.  Probably not though, I think I just learned a whole bunch of things that you can get fired for.

Here’s the training class before we went into the emulsion plant.  Pretty sweet lab coats huh?

So this week marks one year since I moved back to Utah, a feat I said I would never do, but it’s been a good year.  I still managed to travel a lot, got a promotion at work (two really), actually got a girlfriend!, and a lot more.  Here are a bunch of pictures as sort of a summary of the past year in Utah (and travels elsewhere).

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It’s been harder to finish this trip to Portugal post than I thought.  Work kinda fell apart on me while I was gone then my computer has had some hiccups while I did a few upgrades but today, right here, right now, I will finish my posts for my trip to Portugal.

Sagres is about as far West as you can go in Southern Portugal.  If you look at a map of Portugal, it’s the little point that sticks out in the most Southwest point of the country.

On our way there we found a cool little shop that sold pottery and clay tiles which are two things Portugal is famous for.  I was able to get some Christmas gifts there for a pretty reasonable price for my family.  It was a nice little surprise off the side of the road.

Up to this point we had only been hit by waves and and waded into the water a bit so we decided to jump in the ocean just so we could say we did.  So on the tip of Portugal I jumped into the pounding surf and froze.  It was cold enough to make it hard to breathe for a second and then as I dove under the waves I couldn’t hold my breath for too long.  It was fun though.  No pictures since we were both foolish enough to do it.

After that we went to this huge fort sticking out into the ocean.  The walls of the fort were huge but only cut off access from the land.  The sides facing the ocean had no protection but I’m pretty sure the two hundred foot cliffs would stop any real invasion.  (Unless there was a really long rope, then Andre The Giant could carry people up on his back.)  Also, the cannons at this fort along with the cannons on other peninsulas canvased the coast so there was no way for ships to get close.

It was pretty windy and I was still kinda wet but I had to walk the whole way around the place cause it was really cool.  There is a modern lighthouse on the peninsula but you can’t go in it.  Also, in the the middle of the peninsula there is a hole in the ground that goes all the way to the water… it was kinda creepy.  I just couldn’t believe what a severe drop it was all the way to the ocean on all sides.

Back at the fort, there was a little church, there used to be a school of navigation, and there is a huge wind compass (or sun dial, they’re not entirely sure).  The Portuguese were the ones who figured out how to navigate far away from land which is how they became such a naval power.  Columbus learned how to navigate from the Portuguese as well.

We headed down to another beach to catch a few more sunset pictures then headed out to find some food.  We found a little restaurant on a side street that turned out to be the best meal of the trip in my opinion.  We were chilly and got to sit right by the fireplace and had the best fish soup ever.  I tried to get the recipe but with no luck. Then I had seafood lasagna.  It sounded interesting and I always have good luck when I’m that close to the ocean with seafood and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a good dinner.

After dinner we headed back to Lagos for the last night in Portugal. In the morning we headed over to Loule to see a big farmers market that we read about.  It was pretty cool and an easy stop on the way to the airport.  We wandered around the city for a bit afterwards, partly because we were lost and partly cause we were trying to see the whole city really fast.  We found some medieval ruins but it was only part of a castle wall that was left.

We still had time to kill before our flight so we went to the coastal city of Quarteira to get some lunch and one last look at the ocean.  Again, we weren’t disappointed with some big Portuguese sandwiches smothered in gravy.  After that, it was on to the airport, the crazy Ryanair flight back to Brussels and a few hours of sleep before I headed back to the U.S. and all the craziness that had has since unfolded at Sherwin Williams.

Post Script…
We’re thinking maybe Egypt for our next big trip.

Oh, and here’s a picture of our little Mitsubishi Colt that took us everywhere.

What’s that? I should actually finish writing about my trip? Ok.

Before we left for Albufeira we had already found a place to stay in Lagos. The reviews were excellent on this little guest house so I figured it should be a good time. So at the end of the day in Albufeira we got back on the highway and headed West to Lagos.

When we got there we tried finding the guest house on our own with absolutely no luck, but we did get a good idea of the layout of the city. We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions and they could only get us to the general area then they told us to ask for better ones once we got to the neighborhood. We tried that with no success. We drove around and around stopping to ask for directions every few minutes for quite a while. I think we must have asked for directions at least a dozen times till finally we stumbled across the missionaries. Yes, the Mormon missionaries. It was quite funny. I hopped out of the car and in English said, “Hey what’s up guys, do you know where this address is?” handing them a piece of paper. They looked confused so they asked the guy they were talking to if he knew where it was. Then I switched to Portuguese and said, “Everyone keeps saying it’s right around here but we seriously can’t find it.” The missionary had an idea, pointed to some buildings and said that’s probably them (in English). I just said, “Sweet, thanks Elders.” hopped in the car and we drove off. We were laughing at the chance encounter and laughing because they were probably pretty confused at what happened. We never said who we were or why I spoke with such a strange accent. I’m sure they figured out the basics of what happened but it was still funny.

We eventually found the address… but it wasn’t the guest house. It was the owner’s apartment. She was crazy!! I explained that we had a reservation and said ok, then she asked if we were Spanish. I have no idea why she asked this considering Carter is half Chinese and last I checked I wasn’t speaking with a lisp like the Spanish. I told her no we were American but she decided we were Spanish anyway and started speaking Spanish. After a few minutes of this I explained, no really, we’re Americans but I speak Portuguese. So she just switched back to her native tongue.

She showed us how to get to the guest house and said she would meet us there. We made it without getting lost which we were happy about but then the crazy lady showed us around the guest house. I really can’t explain all the crazy stuff she was talking about because everything that came out of her mouth was nuts so it would take too long but just believe me, she was nuts.

Eventually I got the room key off her, she finally left, Carter and I looked at each other and said, we’re finding another place tomorrow morning. So we left that place and wandered the city and the marina that night and left promptly the next morning to find a new place. That’s what was really nice about having a car was that we could just throw all of our stuff into it and not worry about having to carry it around with us while we were looking.

We had breakfast at a place that had the Internet and found a few options, checked them out and ended up at a great hostel where we got a really good deal. We wandered the city a bit more before we got to the hostel but after we stashed our stuff there we headed out to the coast again where there are bunch of trails along the cliffs.

We were out climbing all over these cliffs for probably about six hours. Some of the trails took us right down to the beach and others took us along some very sheer drop offs high above the beaches. It was awesome. I didn’t manage to stay very dry though. Sometimes it was on purpose, sometimes it was to get a good picture and other times it was cause I was an idiot, tripped on my own pant leg and face planted in the sand as a wave came in.

 
The next day we decided to get up early to take pictures of the sunrise. We had no idea what time this would be at so we just got up real early. Turns out it was REAL early. We waited around trying not to freeze for an hour or so, got some pictures, and went back to bed for a bit. When we got up just a few hours later we headed off to Sagres, the furthest West we could go.

We got on the only East-West divided highway in Portugal on Wednesday morning and headed West to the resort town of Albufeira. We were planning on spending the day there before heading further West to another city where we had a hostel reserved.

Albufeira is a little city in the hills above the ocean that must explode in the summer. It was a really nice little town with narrow windy streets. The beaches on the southern coast of Portugal are set in between stretches of high cliffs that drop straight down into the ocean. It makes for a pretty dramatic landscape.

After wandering through the city for a while we headed down to the beach where I bought a cheap pair of sandals cause I figured Doc Marten boots aren’t great for wandering around on the beach. We crossed the wide open sandy part of the beach and headed for the cliffs where we saw a trail leading along the base of them. We bypassed a fence that may have been telling us not to go this direction but it wasn’t really blocking the whole trail so we decided it wasn’t there to stop people.

We climbed around on the rocks for a while taking pictures and avoiding the sea spray. Carter told me to climb out onto a rock so he could take a picture which I quickly decided wasn’t that great of an idea. The rocks were kinda sharp and the one in question was getting hit occasionally by waves. He said he’d go next so I gave in fairly quickly and climbed out to it. It wasn’t bad till a wave caught me by surprise and I got a little bit wet. I was laughing as Carter was still taking pictures. What he was taking pictures of was the swell forming then cresting behind me and smashing all around me. It was pretty funny I’ll admit and definitely worth it.

We pretty much did that for a few hours then climbed up the cliff and ended up back in the city. We wandered along the coast till we found a pretty good place to eat and there were some museums right there too so we stayed in that area for the rest of the afternoon.

By the time the sun was setting we were back down on the beach ready to take some pretty cool pictures. I had climbed up onto some huge rock formation at the base of a cliff and was just messing around up there for a little while then finally we had taken enough pictures and went back to the car and headed off on our biggest adventure yet: Finding a placed to stay that night.