sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I believe it is "Senator Craig."

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

Different kind of facility there, buddy.
But the food at that place is worthy of being it's own place in the city rather than the airport. I'd put it right up there with the Whole Foods bar.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Good job choosing the wine. We flew to France earlier this year and also had complimentary drinks -- unfortunately I chose a Heineken. Less than chilly airline Heineken in a can is terrible. I had some wine on the flight back and felt much better.

GTRicky

What I remembered when I did live in Germany was the autobahn being a blast (going 260kph in a desiel audi) and the food. And every castle is nearly identicle to the next and the turks being complete ********. I spoke German rather well, and it was good enough for me to hook up with chicks and get around town. The only time the Germans were any kind of dicks to me is when I approached them speaking english instead of german. I know everyone over there speaks english (don't let them make you believe otherwise) and they just don't like it when you roll in with english first. Same thing as if a mexican came up to me speaking spanish assuming i spoke it.

Also the prices. Some things are inexpensive such as nice clothes and food. Hell, I still wear my 5€ shoes and my 100€ jacket. Each of those over here in the states would cost WAY more than over there. The cost of living, though, is a different story. a shitty 2bed/2bath town house will run you about 400,000€ and rent just about anywhere cost near to 650-1200€. and the 1200€ rent is still just a slight upgrade from a flat.

And gas is super expensive. 1.15€ per litre?? AWESOME! wait...how many liters get you a gallon? And the exchange rate tossed in? hmm... $6.25 A ******* GALLON???? FFFFUUUUU

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Well, yeah. Just saying that I now no longer have a secret retreat at ATL after the remodel, which bums me out. I did, however, find one at HOU which is nearly as good. It's a tunnel between two concourses, and again, the airport offices are off a corridor to the side. It's pure 1950s architecture, never remodeled, quiet, secluded, and kinda cool.



By this point, I have come across a few who I believe legitimately didn't (or spoke only very poor English). For the most part though, a polite "sprechen sie englisch?" to start has served well. Even at the little restaurant I ate at tonight (in which we were clearly the only Americans present) the waiter was helpful as I struggled through the menu.


Funny you mention that. I walked past a realtors office tonight, and saw a number of houses (what we'd describe as townhomes / condos) in the €80.000 to €150.000 range. Granted, this is a tiny little town in the northwest, but it seems pretty much on par with what I'd expect in a comparably small, quaint town in the US southeast.

€1,30 here.

jacob300zx

Picked up the S2K in Austin tonight. Between Austin and San Antonio they literaly had the entire freeway blocked of for some kind of checks. We saw the traffic and bumped over to the feeder road and bypassed it. Whats up with our country being a police state? Germany (land of the free) sounds awesome Joe!

Reverant

iTrader: (10)

€1,45 for the plain 95 octane here, €1,65-1,80 for the 100-ctane.

Ouch.

GTRicky

1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters


Yea, so imagine filling up with premium fuel. and their octane rating is different from the USA's style. Their 95 is our 83/85 and their 100 is about 95 for us. Seeing 100-octane made me happy till i found that out.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Great News! The new Dacia Sandero is here!




Yeah, it makes me laugh about folks in North America bitching about $3.00/gal. This morning we drove out to Groningen, The Netherlands for coffee, and saw that regular unleaded was about €1,45 - €1,50 there.

Went into a grocery store while there and wandered around for a while. Saw this, which seems generally representative of "American" food here:



(Apparently the pepperoni is a Texas invention?)

You can also buy a complete cheeseburger or hot-dog (bun, meat, cheese, condiment, everything) pre-assembled in an individual plastic box, ready to toss in the microwave and heat up.


Me being artsy:





Does this bicycle really need a lock on it? Honestly, this is what I imagine when I think of Bulgarian technology in the 1950s:





This is the sporting edition. You don't want to know what the base model looks like:





I'm sure that I'm probably the 700.000'th tourist to take this exact picture just this week, but it still gives me a chuckle. I mean, what the hell was the artist thinking?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

lawls of the week.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

photoshop the statue into some sort of chicken
make it his userpic
win.

jayc72

iTrader: (14)

The artist would look at this picture and say "Mission accomplished".

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Next up, in the category of "things which do not translate well from one culture to another", this was the view out my hotel window this morning:

Juffa

Same for our Aussie plastic notes ($5 to $100), different colours as well as different sizes. I can remember my first visit to the US in the early '90s. Looked into my wallet one day, saw a pile of notes. Thought I had plenty of money and then I realised they were all $1 notes....

http://207.226.167.94/images/austral...es-images0.jpg

J.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Wow! That ****** is nice!

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Nice! Wow is that ******!

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The float-out ceremony was on Saturday. Interesting event. Basically, tens of thousands of people showed up to stand around in the rain and cold, covering every square inch of every muddy field for a mile around, to watch a very large boat be drawn backwards out of a very large building. This process took around an hour and a half.



Nearly an hour later:



You can sort of see in the pictures that the area down in the pit is filled with RVs, just like the infield at Daytona the week of the 500. This is a seriously major event, which draws people in from neighboring towns.

And when I say that they watched a boat be pulled backwards by a tug for a distance of just slightly over its length, that really was the whole event. There were fireworks at the event, but nobody broke any champagne bottles on the bow or anything.

KPLAFIN

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like the Germans. What exactly are you doing to the boat again?

GTRicky

That's some boat right there. I'm sure there's pre-installed mermaids on board, too.

Ben

iTrader: (33)

I know you're out expanding your horizons Joe, but I'm pretty sure that's a man.