Useless Information II

With the popular trend of sequels in the movie industry now days, I thought a sequel would be a good idea since I am know way too much useless information. Hopefully it is more enjoyable than most movie sequels, but won’t be as good as the first:

On the first day of summer in Iceland, the Iceland’s general rule is if the morning of this day is freezing and warms up above freezing during the day. It will be a warm summer season.
- Since the first day of summer this year, it has been surprisingly nice (better than normal).

During the French Revolution, the cathedral of Notre Dame was vandalized and most artifacts were stolen or destroyed. Since this time the cathedral in such disarray. Renovation of the cathedral was not even considered until after the book Hunchback of Notre Dame became popular.

Amsterdam’s coat of arms has three X’s, which people believe it represents protection from plagues, fire, and flood.
- With the Red Light District so well known, it is kind of funny that the Amsterdam’s coat of arms includes XXX. Maybe it’s just me.

During our trip I heard on multiple occasions that Amsterdam is also called the “Venice of the North” and Amsterdam has more canals (length) than its counterpart.
- I was curious about this and decided to look further into this. After looking at Wikipedia Encyclopedia, did not link this nickname to Amsterdam. There were comparisons during a general search on web, but I could not find any information about greater amount of canals. Of course I didn’t spend too much time, but I believe this is a self proclaimed title and statement.

Up to the end of 18th century was very prosperous for the Dutch, mainly due to there world wide trading network. According to one of the tours, their fall was due to the conflict with British for the Dutch support for the Americans during the American Revolution. Resulting in British control over Dutch colonies
- I was curious about this statement, so I read more about the subject. Come to find out the Dutch were fighting on and off with England since mid-1600s. During the American Revolution was the fourth war between them and England. In addition to the decline, there was a regime change and Dutch elite merchants started using London as a base of operation. England did take control of majority of the Dutch colonies during this period.
- Sure blame it on Americans when there is so much more to the story.

Trip Review – Part Deux

Now the second installment of the trip review.

As you could probably tell from a previous post, I was not too impressed with the rest of Iceland and I’m grateful we only spent a few days. I believe that main reason from the lack of interest in Iceland is due to living in this country way too long.

After Reykjavik, we spent the next leg of our trip to VIEUX (OLD) GAY PARIE. Prior to leaving on this trip, many co-workers had informed me that the French are rude, Paris is dirty, and they would never go back. So after hearing all this information, along working with a few French individuals, I did not have too high of expectations. But surprisingly in Paris, everyone that we met was very friendly (except one, the bracelet guy) than I thought it would be and for the size of the city I thought is was fairly clean.

Of course I have a theory for the friendly welcome and the cleanliness, which is that our visit was early in the tourist season so the individuals were not yet annoyed with tourists. This is just a theory, but I can imagine working in the city center in August, when it is hot and you helping your 200th customer of the day during the end of tourist season. I would be a little crappy.

All theories aside, we really enjoyed the Paris. We spent 5 days on the run, trying to see everything on our wish list. The first couple of days were mostly spent in the Louvre and the d’Orsay (pictured below) museums. Both were amazing with so much to see.

Without going into a great detail, the rest of time was spent seeing the major sites of Paris, to name a few of the sites were the cathedral of Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and Moulin Rouge. Outside of Paris, we took a tour of the Palace of Versailles. This is the one place that I did not enjoy too much, which was due to so many people in such small areas and tour rushed us through so quickly. Where as the other sites had more room for so many people and we were able to go at our own pace.

While we were trying to see much as possible in a short time, I would say overall we had a great time and we accomplish our site seeing goals only missing a couple of secondary sites.

Bracelet

Shortly after we arrived in Paris and our hotel, we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. This was probably not the best idea, at least for me since I felt like the walking dead after traveling all day. As we were walking along enjoying the scenery, a man approached us wanting to make a braided bracelet for me. We tried to continue with out stopping, but eventually he got us to stop and started making the bracelet on my wrist. I think if we weren’t so tired, we would have been able to avoid him completely. When he started, Shell told him that we just arrived and did not have any money. But he continued on, a few minutes later he finished and asked for money. We told him again that we did not have any Euros and he started arguing about how we should pay him. I started to get really annoyed so I pulled 500 Icelandic Krona ($7.00) since this is all I had. He thought the money was fake and wanted something else in the form of payment. Finally I had to tell him to take the damn money or take the bracelet back, which he did not fully accept the money until I opened up my wallet showing him that it was empty.

Just to let everyone know that previously, I tried to exchange a 500 Krona bill in the US and they would not accept that small of amount. I think it was just that particular exchange counter, but it gives me hope that this bracelet man would not be able to exchange the money I gave him due the fact that I didn’t want the piece of crap in the first place.

Francois

During one of walks around Paris, a man came up to us and started talking to us in French. Since I had no clue what he was saying, I tried to say no parlez-vous francais. But what came out was “no parlez-vous Francois”. This statement is not entirely true since I do talk to this co-worker named Francois. Even though I didn’t say the phrase correctly, he did get the idea that I was the wrong person to ask.

Trip Review

If you don’t know already know Shell and I spent a couple of weeks seeing Reykjavik, Paris, and Amsterdam (including a few excursions outside of the cities). We had a great time, but sadly it had to come to an end and I had to return to work. For the first week after my return there was many inquires about my trip from my coworkers. Needless to say I was burnt out talking about it, but now that the reviews have stopped, I’m some what ready to review the trip.

Our trip started in Reykjavik and to resume from a previous post “Bored”, I was eager to see more of Iceland. Over the past year, a question that keeps running through my mind, “is there more to Iceland than what I have seen?” Well the answer is YES, but not much. There are a few cool sites. But after spending 4 days in Reykjavik, my main conclusion is that many days is way too long. Mainly due to the fact that we were able to see most of the landmarks, a couple of museums, did some shopping, and went on a tour outside the city in span of 2 days.

I was going to continue with the rest of our trip, but after spending some time trying to recover a pervious post, I am done for today. In addition, I tired of talking about Iceland.

Amsterdam and Paris - To be continued at a later time

Previous Post

Today I was looking at comments from a couple of people and noticed an error in a post. I tried to edit the post, which ended up loosing it the entirely.

"D'oh!"

Luckily, I hit the back button and was at least able to copy what I previously posted. So here it is again:

PREVIOUSLY POSTED on April 21, 2007:

It is that Time Again

Well this time has come again in Iceland, which is also a national holiday. The “First Day of Summer” on April 19th. You may be asking should it be spring. But the answer would be NO!!! There is no such thing as spring and fall here in Iceland, there is just two seasons winter and summer. This year we started the first day of summer with a very cold morning, then a sunny day with some snow flurries. In my personal opinion there is only one season, WINTER

Looks like I will have to live with my errors in the future.

Useless Information

I always feel I remember way too much useless information (crap) that will in no way better myself or ever be beneficial, except writing this post. Well after this last vaction I thought I would share some of my useless knowledge:

When Hitler visited the Eiffel Tower the elevator wasn’t working, but shortly after he left, the problem was quickly resolved with a turn of screw driver.
– Talk about a way to get back at a person that is responsible for conquering you country, make him walk a lot of stairs. At least someone probably felt better after this event

A French inventor of a new parachute in the early 1900s, decided to show everyone how well it worked by testing it off the Eiffel Tower. Well the parachute did not open and according the doctors the scare from the fall killed him before hitting the ground.
– Talk about useless again, but I can’t forget it. It must be the results from my fear of falling or maybe due to the fact that the story was told with such enthusiasm.
– I would think if you invented an item like a parachute you would do more testing first, before taking a personal plunge

Louie XV (could be wrong on the number) and his wife had so many children that at one point she required him to get a mistress, so she could get some rest.
– Kind of amusing, but useless

Relating to my “Jonnie Would Never Lie” post, they do call a quarter pound with cheese at McDonalds a Royal with cheese in Paris. But in Amsterdam it is called a quarter pound with cheese.
– If I remember correctly John is talking about his trip to Amsterdam. That bastard did lie. Boy, don’t I feel like an ass.

Again relating to the previous post, at Burger King a whopper is called a whopper no matter where you are.
– Just is case you were wondering

Johnny Wouldn't Lie

If you do not remember the movie Pulp Fiction, this entry will not mean as much.

During the movie John Travolta is talking to Samuel L. Jackson about Amsterdam. The conversation leads to little differences. The example he gives, since Europe does not use the metric system and for this reason McDonalds does not call their sandwich a Quarter Pound with Cheese. They call it a royal (roy-AL) with cheese. I never really thought about this subject too much, but in the back of mind I thought this was some made up crap. Well after visiting a McDonalds in Paris, they do call it a royal with cheese. This is one of the useless facts, which I seem to be full of lately (more to come later).

Then in the conversation mentioned above Samuel L. Jackson asks, what do they call a whopper? The reply was “I don’t know I didn't go into Burger King”. Well now I am in Amsterdam with a Burger King near our hotel. And since I have been away from home for quite awhile, I am fairly positive a visit will happen before I leave.