Fidstars TR - Location Earth
07-26-2013
, 03:54 AM
09-23-2013
, 02:05 PM
So I just come off a tour around Europe. We spent 10 days or so in Amsterdam / Brussels / Paris, before flying to Venice for a road trip, then finishing with a cruise down through Greece and Croatia. We then flew up to London where we are now. The whole trip is way too much to talk about, so this is just the road trip portion.
Road Trip – Europe
We completed the road trip in about 30 days. Nowhere near enough time to cover that sort of area and we definitely bit off more than we could chew. However we made the decision we wanted to see a heap while we were hiring a car, so we knew that we would struggle to do everything we wanted in each location before we even started. It was also pretty exhausting moving every day or every second day. Having said that this is generally how we travel. We go 100 miles an hour for a period, then sit back and relax with some house sits. While we are traveling at 100 miles an hour we decide if we want to come back and stay for longer at a later date. We have done this so far with London, San Fran, Florida, Toronto (still to come) and Belgium (still to come).
Countries included in road trip – Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland
Ranking Order I liked the countries – Austria, Switzerland and then Italy (I’ve excluded Germany; because we were only there for 2 days, so can’t really tell).
The order actually surprised me and it was probably due to the expectations I had before we arrived at each country. I didn’t really have great expectation about Austria, while I was expecting the world out of Italy.
There really wasn’t much about Austria that I didn’t like. It just seemed that you could pull off the highway almost at random and see some cute little town. I also really liked Vienna and it helped we stayed at a very nice hotel. I mean the lobby had a guy playing the piano who somehow managed to sing while smiling. While we didn’t venture too far from the center of town there was heaps to see. I love cities you can walk around. I remember walking for 8 hours in Barcelona (only stopping for food) one day. That was a great day (Barcelona is my fav city in the world).
Even though we did stop in Salzburg there is no footage of me singing “The Hills are alive with the sound of music”, though I did get to do the bus tour and see some singing production they had in town. Yes, I was gay for the day.
Just so you know you need a highway pass to drive around Austria. I got a nice $200 fine for not having one. I didn’t know you needed one! It’s not my fault all the signs are in German!
Switzerland was cool and I definitely enjoyed Interlaken. It’s a very picturesque town with a heap of touristy things to do. We went up to see the Alps (train ride away). For some reason I thought wearing a tee-shirt would be adequate. I was wrong. Walking through an ice tunnel with only a shirt on is not a good idea (unless you are from Canada).
Now Italy. I had such high hopes for you. And don’t get me wrong, I did enjoyed myself. The food was obviously good and it was great to see some of the sites you have seen a million times in pictures. The leaning Tower of Piza, Coliseum and a bunch of churches were cool, but nothing really blew me away. One of the things I like doing is get a bit lost in a place. Walking down random roads, driving into an area that other people don’t go and such. Basically seeing more of the town/city than just the touristy bits. It’s one of the reasons I like Paris, New York and Amsterdam. In most of the cities I just saw a lot of rubbish lying around and a bunch of sad people. The main sites were nice, but everywhere else looked really run down. Also the road conditions were horrible.
Now it wasn’t all miserable. I did like Venice, but so did the 8 million other tourists there. I think I saw more Aussies than Italians. I mean it was over $100 for a gondola ride. **** that! A few of the small towns we stopped by on our drive were really cool though (Orvieto and Spoleto come to mind). I imagine there are a lot of little towns like this around the place. They looked good, but there really wasn’t much to do in them. I imagine it’s where old Italian people come to slowly die. Nice way to go I guess.
And the Amalfi Coast was a good drive. Pity it was impossible to find a parking spot in any of the towns.
Final note: The gelato in Klagenfurt is ridiculously good.
Here are some more random pictures.
The car. My instructions to the car hirer were please give me the least cool car you have. Tick. If you have ever driven in Europe you will know that having a small car is essential if you want to be able to park somewhere.
We were walking along and saw this crowd entering into a room surrounded by people holding flaming torches. We thought about joining them, but we thought there was a 25% chance that it was certain death (and very likely painful), so decided not to.
Alps
Not me
You probably know this one; yes it’s the Statue of Liberty
Photo from Salzburg
This guy still makes me laugh
I always thought I had a normal penis, but after seeing this statue with a dude with two holes in the end of his dick, I’m not sure now. Wonder how he pees straight?
View from hotel in Sorrento
Driving under a waterfall is pretty cool
Road Trip – Europe
We completed the road trip in about 30 days. Nowhere near enough time to cover that sort of area and we definitely bit off more than we could chew. However we made the decision we wanted to see a heap while we were hiring a car, so we knew that we would struggle to do everything we wanted in each location before we even started. It was also pretty exhausting moving every day or every second day. Having said that this is generally how we travel. We go 100 miles an hour for a period, then sit back and relax with some house sits. While we are traveling at 100 miles an hour we decide if we want to come back and stay for longer at a later date. We have done this so far with London, San Fran, Florida, Toronto (still to come) and Belgium (still to come).
Countries included in road trip – Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland
Ranking Order I liked the countries – Austria, Switzerland and then Italy (I’ve excluded Germany; because we were only there for 2 days, so can’t really tell).
The order actually surprised me and it was probably due to the expectations I had before we arrived at each country. I didn’t really have great expectation about Austria, while I was expecting the world out of Italy.
There really wasn’t much about Austria that I didn’t like. It just seemed that you could pull off the highway almost at random and see some cute little town. I also really liked Vienna and it helped we stayed at a very nice hotel. I mean the lobby had a guy playing the piano who somehow managed to sing while smiling. While we didn’t venture too far from the center of town there was heaps to see. I love cities you can walk around. I remember walking for 8 hours in Barcelona (only stopping for food) one day. That was a great day (Barcelona is my fav city in the world).
Even though we did stop in Salzburg there is no footage of me singing “The Hills are alive with the sound of music”, though I did get to do the bus tour and see some singing production they had in town. Yes, I was gay for the day.
Just so you know you need a highway pass to drive around Austria. I got a nice $200 fine for not having one. I didn’t know you needed one! It’s not my fault all the signs are in German!
Switzerland was cool and I definitely enjoyed Interlaken. It’s a very picturesque town with a heap of touristy things to do. We went up to see the Alps (train ride away). For some reason I thought wearing a tee-shirt would be adequate. I was wrong. Walking through an ice tunnel with only a shirt on is not a good idea (unless you are from Canada).
Now Italy. I had such high hopes for you. And don’t get me wrong, I did enjoyed myself. The food was obviously good and it was great to see some of the sites you have seen a million times in pictures. The leaning Tower of Piza, Coliseum and a bunch of churches were cool, but nothing really blew me away. One of the things I like doing is get a bit lost in a place. Walking down random roads, driving into an area that other people don’t go and such. Basically seeing more of the town/city than just the touristy bits. It’s one of the reasons I like Paris, New York and Amsterdam. In most of the cities I just saw a lot of rubbish lying around and a bunch of sad people. The main sites were nice, but everywhere else looked really run down. Also the road conditions were horrible.
Now it wasn’t all miserable. I did like Venice, but so did the 8 million other tourists there. I think I saw more Aussies than Italians. I mean it was over $100 for a gondola ride. **** that! A few of the small towns we stopped by on our drive were really cool though (Orvieto and Spoleto come to mind). I imagine there are a lot of little towns like this around the place. They looked good, but there really wasn’t much to do in them. I imagine it’s where old Italian people come to slowly die. Nice way to go I guess.
And the Amalfi Coast was a good drive. Pity it was impossible to find a parking spot in any of the towns.
Final note: The gelato in Klagenfurt is ridiculously good.
Here are some more random pictures.
The car. My instructions to the car hirer were please give me the least cool car you have. Tick. If you have ever driven in Europe you will know that having a small car is essential if you want to be able to park somewhere.
We were walking along and saw this crowd entering into a room surrounded by people holding flaming torches. We thought about joining them, but we thought there was a 25% chance that it was certain death (and very likely painful), so decided not to.
Alps
Not me
You probably know this one; yes it’s the Statue of Liberty
Photo from Salzburg
This guy still makes me laugh
I always thought I had a normal penis, but after seeing this statue with a dude with two holes in the end of his dick, I’m not sure now. Wonder how he pees straight?
View from hotel in Sorrento
Driving under a waterfall is pretty cool
09-23-2013
, 02:25 PM
10-01-2013
, 07:26 PM
10-01-2013
, 07:59 PM
10-02-2013
, 12:31 PM
10-02-2013
, 12:32 PM
10-02-2013
, 02:51 PM
It's true! 
10-02-2013
, 07:06 PM
10-03-2013
, 04:53 AM
10-18-2013
, 03:24 PM
Post 6,000
I'm being lazy so here's a photo post for Santorini (Greece). The most beautiful manmade place I've been (and I've seen Wafflehouse1's basement).
I'm being lazy so here's a photo post for Santorini (Greece). The most beautiful manmade place I've been (and I've seen Wafflehouse1's basement).
10-18-2013
, 07:38 PM
10-18-2013
, 11:50 PM
11-25-2013
, 04:40 PM
01-14-2014
, 09:28 PM
Las Vegas. You probably know the place. I was lucky enough to spend a week there earlier this year. After being in cold miserable London, I was quiet happy to see some sun and warmish weather (relative).
I do really like Las Vegas. Maybe it’s the women, booze and gambling or maybe it’s the… nah, it’s the women, booze and gambling. It is a city of excess and I still have no idea how people live there full time. I can’t see how you don’t crash and burn and become a homeless bum… oh …. That does happen a lot. Ok, moving on…
We spent the first half of the trip on the strip and the second half in down town. I really like down town. While it obviously doesn’t have the lightshow of the strip, I love the feel of it. You also don’t need 20 minutes to walk from one casino to the other. But probably the main thing I like about downtown is that you don’t have those guys flicking business cards for strippers/escorts. It may be the most annoying sound in the world. Seriously do you need 10 of them on each corner? Would they lose any business if they only employed half the people?
I decided it would be a good idea to get sick in Las Vegas. Just a flu (dam Airplane!), but it wiped me out for the first 4 days or so. In fact in the first four days I played a total of about 4 hours of poker. It was also over new years, so my new years involved having one beer and leaving the strip for the hotel at 12:05am. Party animal!
I started to get a bit better once we got to downtown. We stayed in the penthouse of The Plaza. They have recently done it up and it looked pretty dam good. I was finally well enough to go play some poker and played a couple of MTTs. Because I’m awesome I chopped both. There were less than 20 people in both, the rake was huge and after tipping the dealer it wasn’t hugely profitable. The players were really bad. People limp folding 5bb, people folding a button raise in the big blind when they only have another 2bb behind, people calling pre for half their stack to fold post flop. I can go on, but I’m sure you have all seen it if you have been to Vegas and played a low buy-in MTT.
I was still on cold and flu medicine and I was also having a drink or seven. Cold and Flu and alcohol don’t really mix, and my brain was somewhat foggy. Maybe that’s why my results were good. Obviously wasn’t my skill level.
After that I played a little bit of cash. My Aces got stacked by 47o, so that was pretty cool. After that hand I was happy. I had achieved by main goals of visiting Vegas. I won (chopped) an MTT and had a bad beat story to walk away with. That’s all we need isn’t it?
I also had one of those morality moments at the poker table. Complete degen joins the table. 50+, crappy clothes, ugly looking and smells. Buys in for $60 at a 1 / 2 table. Calls pre 90% of the time. Folds 80% of the flops. You can see it in his eyes when he watches the flop come that he ‘needs’ to win. Like a drug. Of course he busts and rebuys for $60. He eyes every drink girl that goes past. I imagine him going to one of those porn movie places afterwards (if he has any money left). I feel sorry for him. He needs the money to live but he needs to gamble. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t imagine ever playing live poker full time. Anyway that’s enough of being sad.
Other than the gambling side the rest of Las Vegas was awesome. Had way too much food and after being in freezing cold it was good to be able to wear a tee-shirt. One interesting story was that we had dinner in the same restaurant as a scene from the movie Casino was filmed. We supposedly ate at the same table as a dinner scene with Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Photos below of our trip. Now I’m back in the freezing cold (Canada). Yay!
New York New York
These statues are pretty old now and I always wonder if they were molded off real women. I image the women would now come and see them so many years later and go “I remember when my ass looked that good”
Strip at night
Our view from Oscar’s restaurant (Casino movie seats)
Really good steak
Downtown show – Fremont Experience
Venetian at night
Really good steak again
Strip at night
Good desert
I do really like Las Vegas. Maybe it’s the women, booze and gambling or maybe it’s the… nah, it’s the women, booze and gambling. It is a city of excess and I still have no idea how people live there full time. I can’t see how you don’t crash and burn and become a homeless bum… oh …. That does happen a lot. Ok, moving on…
We spent the first half of the trip on the strip and the second half in down town. I really like down town. While it obviously doesn’t have the lightshow of the strip, I love the feel of it. You also don’t need 20 minutes to walk from one casino to the other. But probably the main thing I like about downtown is that you don’t have those guys flicking business cards for strippers/escorts. It may be the most annoying sound in the world. Seriously do you need 10 of them on each corner? Would they lose any business if they only employed half the people?
I decided it would be a good idea to get sick in Las Vegas. Just a flu (dam Airplane!), but it wiped me out for the first 4 days or so. In fact in the first four days I played a total of about 4 hours of poker. It was also over new years, so my new years involved having one beer and leaving the strip for the hotel at 12:05am. Party animal!
I started to get a bit better once we got to downtown. We stayed in the penthouse of The Plaza. They have recently done it up and it looked pretty dam good. I was finally well enough to go play some poker and played a couple of MTTs. Because I’m awesome I chopped both. There were less than 20 people in both, the rake was huge and after tipping the dealer it wasn’t hugely profitable. The players were really bad. People limp folding 5bb, people folding a button raise in the big blind when they only have another 2bb behind, people calling pre for half their stack to fold post flop. I can go on, but I’m sure you have all seen it if you have been to Vegas and played a low buy-in MTT.
I was still on cold and flu medicine and I was also having a drink or seven. Cold and Flu and alcohol don’t really mix, and my brain was somewhat foggy. Maybe that’s why my results were good. Obviously wasn’t my skill level.
After that I played a little bit of cash. My Aces got stacked by 47o, so that was pretty cool. After that hand I was happy. I had achieved by main goals of visiting Vegas. I won (chopped) an MTT and had a bad beat story to walk away with. That’s all we need isn’t it?
I also had one of those morality moments at the poker table. Complete degen joins the table. 50+, crappy clothes, ugly looking and smells. Buys in for $60 at a 1 / 2 table. Calls pre 90% of the time. Folds 80% of the flops. You can see it in his eyes when he watches the flop come that he ‘needs’ to win. Like a drug. Of course he busts and rebuys for $60. He eyes every drink girl that goes past. I imagine him going to one of those porn movie places afterwards (if he has any money left). I feel sorry for him. He needs the money to live but he needs to gamble. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t imagine ever playing live poker full time. Anyway that’s enough of being sad.
Other than the gambling side the rest of Las Vegas was awesome. Had way too much food and after being in freezing cold it was good to be able to wear a tee-shirt. One interesting story was that we had dinner in the same restaurant as a scene from the movie Casino was filmed. We supposedly ate at the same table as a dinner scene with Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Photos below of our trip. Now I’m back in the freezing cold (Canada). Yay!
New York New York
These statues are pretty old now and I always wonder if they were molded off real women. I image the women would now come and see them so many years later and go “I remember when my ass looked that good”
Strip at night
Our view from Oscar’s restaurant (Casino movie seats)
Really good steak
Downtown show – Fremont Experience
Venetian at night
Really good steak again
Strip at night
Good desert
01-14-2014
, 10:04 PM
01-15-2014
, 02:50 AM
