A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

Today, we needed to get back to Munich. Since, it takes only a little more than four hours by train, we reserved seats for the 1:16 pm trip. That meant we had enough time to slowly pack up our bags and head downtown. Unlike yesterday, we had picked up stuff for breakfast and ate before leaving. We stuffed the bags into a train station locker and walked back down towards the lake. We were able to stroll back in time for a quick lunch.

On the train, we enjoyed to scenery. Some of the cheese we saw for sale must've come from the gray cows munching grass. In our train car there were a group of young Swiss guys heading to the last weekend of Octoberfest. They certainly didn't find any reason to start the party in Germany. By the time we arrived in Munich at a bit after 5:00 pm, they staggered out of the station singing and shouting.

Labels: Eurotrip 2007, Munich, train

I was born a bit too late. In fact, the tracks near my house were pulled up when I was a youngster. Walking along the old railroad tracks is a memory of my youth. I'm sure the right of way went back to the landowners after the metal bars and wooden ties were removed. It's pretty amazing how level, fairly staight transportation corridors used to criss-cross this continent! I can sort of understand a friend's fascination with that mode of travel.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because of an appreciation of one of my favourite movies. I watched it last night on a borrowed DVD. I'm not sure I know when I first saw this one.

Murder on the Orient Express was released in 1974. I'm positive I never saw it in a theatre as I was a freshman in high school. I may have first viewed this classic on video tape in Saudi Arabia. I used to buy illegal tapes made from 12-inch laser discs. So perhaps, I first watched this film in the mid-1980's. It was international just as I was becoming so.

Of course, I've always been appreciative of Agatha Christie's pen. Afterall, I was once Christopher Wren in a high school play.

This movie amazes me, still. There cannot be a better filmed segment where a train leaves the station as it does from Istanbul. I love the concept of returning to a time when there were no cell phones and Net connections. The acting is superb, but if you see the names of the cast you'll have little doubt too.

Labels: movies, train

Today, after getting up from our basement suite at the hotel, we packed and went to the train station. We bought a locker for the bags. Then, we did a final walk around the river front of Frankfurt.

For a large majority of day we followed the Rhine river on our way to Luxembourg. It was a very beautiful ride. I have always thought in my travels how everybody thinks of their location as nice, beautiful, or even as "God's country". In actuality, lots of geographically-separated areas share common appearances. I saw the rolling hills of Vermont today. I saw meadows that could've been in the American midwest. I saw vast areas that reminded me of the Okanagan region of BC and Washington State. The common castle on top of the hills reminded me I was on a different place on the globe. That, along with the buildings of the towns and the languages being spoken on the train.

We got to Luxembourg in plenty of time to check in and walk around the city. This is smaller that other places we've stayed. It's cute.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, road trip, train

We figured that we'd done Brussels and it was time to move on. We got up, ate breakfast, and walked down the hill to the North Station. We had looked at a map and decided we were ahead of our own schedule which exists only in our heads. We didn't need to run to Luxembourg. Therefore, the map showed that Frankfurt, Germany wasn't too far away.

If you've got the cash, travel by train is a snap. We had to go into Cologne, Germany to catch an ICE train to Frankfurt. It's probably the fastest I've ever travelled on land. It's too bad that rail doesn't make sense in North America. You'd think, now that air travel is such a burden due to security that some routes would work. How about a Montreal --> Boston --> Hartford --> NYC --> Washington DC high-speed line?

We got into Frankfurt in the late afternoon. Wouldn't you know there's an automotive exhibition going on. Hotel rooms are more than double normal prices. We're paying more than I care to convert to Canadian dollars. Plastic will hold everything until we can sort out back in Vancouver at the end of the month. Just gimme another German beer.

Labels: Brussels, Eurotrip 2005, train

These entries aren't too insightful. It's more difficult than I thought to distill the events of a trip while it is going on. Maybe the paper journal I kept in Sri Lanka last year worked more efficiently. I don't know.

Today we left the Netherlands. We went to Amsterdam's Central Station and bought tickets to Brussels, Belgium. On the map it looked so far, but in a train marked as International, it didn't take long. We disembarked in less than three hours. I love flying along on rail. It's a real shame that rail doesn't seem to work in North America.

We came to this city without any reservations or plans. Wouldn't you know there is another international exposition that is filling all the hotel rooms. Well, not exactly all as we managed to get one for tonight. I don't know if we'll be able to extend here or have to look elsewhere.

My feet are tired as we walked around Grand Place which is very far from where we're staying. It was very cute and almost magical in a Disney sort of way. Food and most things seem cheaper here than in Holland. We ate in one of many Turkish restaurants for lunch. They gave so much food we just did sandwiches for dinner.

Labels: Brussels, Eurotrip 2005, train

Tonight's the second evening that I'm writing and saving as a text file. As soon as we moved to the upgraded room, I lost the free internet connection. I'm still getting several but they are secure.

Last night we finished Amsterdam by walking around most of it. The famous 'red light' district was pretty in a neon glow.

Today, we got up very, very late. We didn't get down to the breakfast until 10:15. After that, we walked to the Rembrandt museum. Although interesting, I just think a few lucky artists got good PR. Some didn't even manage to achieve fame in their own life. It might also be that those who create a large enough body of work cannot be forgotten. The modern equivalent might be the Beatles, or perhaps Madonna. In order to be a deva, one just needs to weather enough years.

Jay called a pen-pal that he's had for over 15 years. The guy lived in northern Holland, so we took a train up for a visit. The distances are short here and the rail system very good. We flew past many cows, sheep, geese, and canals. It was a very nice visit an only an hour each way.

We didn't finish until almost 10:00. Since we want to get an earlier start tomorrow, we'll not be doing anything tonight. We will head south on rail tomorrow and end up somewhere.

Labels: Amsterdam, Eurotrip 2005, train

The title here reminds me that my quick wit has always been obvious. Modesty is one of my many other great virtues. During class, my seventh grade English teacher was going into some detail about a family member who worked for the railroad. I interrupted the lesson to state that while his relative was minding trains, he was in the occupation of training minds.

Rather, I actually intended for the title to point out how I have been stuck discussing images of late. It is very true; therefore, I'll wrap up the discussion with one last bit of news. I have decided that this blog isn't enough to keep me busy. Now, you can check a daily photo at the other, oft-mentioned site. My first of the series appeared yesterday.

I promise there'll be no more talk of flickr from tomorrow ...

Labels: Flickr, train

The breadth of the Internet continues to rapidly expand as historical text and photos are added to online collections.

Places from my pre-Net past seem to be slowly coming online. This morning, I was thinking about the town of my childhood. It's a place I've not visited since the summer of 2002 when I returned for my 25th high school reunion. Yet, I can still remember marching in the town's bicentennial parade as a Cub Scout. The east coast of North America has twice as much recorded history as life out west.

I was trying to locate specific information dealing with the history of Sunapee, New Hampshire. The town boasts a lake which was a tourist destination from the late 1800's. Well-heeled New Yorkers and Bostonians used to come up by train and then shuttle around the 9-mile lake in steamships. The era extended well into the 1930's until the Great Depression hastened the end of the big hotels.

The accompanying top photo was from a postcard of the Ben Mere. This property is in the premier location perfectly aligned for a view of Sunapee Harbor. Today, as you can see, the land has green grass, a bandstand, and parking lots.

I am trying to find out when the old, Ben Mere was torn down. Additionally, I'd be interested in learning any details about it. This blog gets quite a lot of traffic from Internet searches, so I'm hoping that someone will write to me about this topic. I think it is important to have some of this data online as well as in the Abbott Library!

Labels: Internet, New Hampshire, Sunapee, train

Here's a wrap up to the present topic. This is the Skytrain Bridge which spans the Fraser River in New Westminster. The Expo Line runs to Surrey and crosses on this purpose-built bridge. You will note the train running beneath the closest arch.

Labels: Fraser River, Surrey, train, transit