Irony

So after all the hassles I had with getting the new iPhone because, according to Rogers, I didn't qualify for a hardware upgrade... about a week after I get the new phone I get a letter in the mail from Rogers saying that they appreciate my business and because I am such a great and loyal customer they would like to offer me a free upgrade to a Blackberry. Say what????

New Phone

Yeah yeah, I know its been forever since I've blogged. And yes I know I still have to finish blogging about my trip this summer but don't worry, its on my TODO list for the Christmas break so that means that it is almost guarenteed to be done, right? Umm... ok well, hopefully anyways! 

This post, however, is about my new phone... the iPhone. I went through a ton of hassles to get it... apparently being a loyal Rogers customer - cable, cell, internet and home phone - for 8 years isn't enough to get a new phone at the same price as a new customer. But after a few calls and arguments (and cancelling my cable but that's another story) I am the proud owner of an iPhone. 

It took a couple of weeks but the novelty has finally worn off and I'm not checking my email or the latest sports scores every 5 minutes "because I can". I have to say that overall I'm really happy with the phone itself. It is pretty slick and I love the interface. Given that I spent so much money on it, I gave it a case (Incase Slider) and cover (Power Support Anti-Glare Film) to protect it from the elements. (read: me being clumsy)

I've downloaded a ton of apps but mostly stuck with the free stuff for now. Here is a list of a few of the things which I have downloaded:

• Games: Sol Free, Bee Cells Lite, Galcon Lite, Subway Lite, Tangram Pro, Labyrinth LE
  
• Utils: Shazam, What's On?, Weather Eye, To Do's, Facebook, WikiTap, Now Playing
  

I also have a number of other reference-type utility programs as well.

There are also two negative things about the phone which I should mention. The first, of course, is the battery life. I'm not a big phone-talker but I still have to charge the phone about every 3 days or so. The battery isn't great and if you do much internet surfing or watching videos then it really sucks the batteries.

The other problem has to do with the clock. Weird stuff. In the settings I have it so that it automatically sets the time on the phone. This works great when you look at the time on the main display but when you go into your mail (I have it set to sync with my Yahoo mail), the Facebook app, the TV listings app, etc the time is way off.... 6 hours behind I believe. Even when you go into the World Clock and add one for Ottawa, it is still 6 hours behind. Huh?  When I go into the settings and set the time manually all of the apps are ok. Strange.

I've got to do some more searching on the web to see if anyone else has had this problem...

Photos - Normandy

When I headed out on the road my own I hopped in the car and headed up to Normandy to see the sites. My first night I stayed in Dieppe and ended up getting a hotel room with a nice view of the harbour. Here are a couple photos of the day and night views from my window.

After spending the night in Dieppe, I spent the next day traveling around visiting the D-Day beaches and the war memorials. First stop was the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery in Cintheaux. It was a nice sunny day and I arrived around 10am and stayed for about an hour or hour and a half. It was really quiet... the only other person there was a guy doing the landscaping and at one point a German couple stopped by for 5 minutes.

After that I went to Juno Beach and the American Memorial and cemetery at Omaha Beach. It was crazy busy there.... tons of American tourists and tour buses everywhere. Quite the difference from the Canadian Memorial. There are almost 9,400 burials there and the grounds were immaculate. Pretty amazing to see. I believe that this was also the place where they filmed the cemetery scene from Saving Private Ryan.







My final stop along the north shore was Mont St Michel.... which I believe is the number one (although I would have thought number 2 after the Effiel Tower) tourist spot in France. I arrived nice and early in the morning and decided to park in the town and walk the 3km to the island. It was a nice walk and I took some nice photos along the way. When I got there... it was insane. Mont St Michel is a walled monastery so there are no cars allowed which is good because the streets are TINY. And there are thousand of people there walking around. And of course people are insisting on dragging their huge suitcases on wheels behind them. Yeah, you better believe I didn't stick around there long. :-)

Photos - Orleans, France

After arriving in Paris, I rented a car at the airport and, with my trusty GPS handy, I headed south to the city of Orleans to meet up with Pascal and his family. As soon as I arrived we headed downtown to check things out. The buildings and streets are just so different than those found in North America.

Pascal and I quickly found a sidewalk cafe and hurriedly ordered a beer. Phew, got that out of the way... didn't want to be in France without having a beer on a patio. Pascal is looking very pensive in this photo but trust me, we weren't talking about work.

We walked around a bit more and went down by the river and checked out some more cool buildings. And of course the cathedral, because every town has to have a cathedral. (and a bakery)

Back in town

Well, after all the traveling the past three and a half weeks, I am back in Ottawa and back to sleeping in my own bed and not living out of a suitcase. The plan is to head back to work and the gym tomorrow morning but I admit right now that seems pretty adventurous. Over the next little while I will sort through my photos and update my blog entries and add more posts so stay tuned. Although the trip is over the stories are not...

Toll-free?

One thing about getting a hotel room from a place where you have rented before, is that they recognize and remember you. So I arrived back in Paris tonight and the girl at the desk said welcome back. Then she told me they forgot to charge me for my phone calls. No problem, since I had only called a couple of local numbers and then Air Canada's toll-free number to change my flights back to Ottawa.

Well, I got the bill and apparently the calls weren't exactly toll-free since they were to North America. (I tried calling the France number but it was closed or something... instructions only in French even after choosing the English option) So that really sucks. And it double sucks because the bill was twice as much as it could have been because I was on hold for 20 minutes with Air Canada before they cut me off and I had to call back and talk to the agent again. Argh.

Its a small world after all...

Ok, whenever I travel I seem to have these small world experiences. Here are a couple examples...

Newfoundland 2003 - While vacationing in Newfoundland with Brian, Richard, and Carolyn we happened to be at Cape Spear (farthest eastern point) and just kind of hanging out watching the whales in the ocean. Then suddenly behind me I hear "those Senators really sucked this year". And while I had to agree, I wondered who it was. I turned around and it was the couple who had season tickets right next to me at the Corel Centre in Ottawa. Small world!

New Zealand 2001 - Jeff and I landed in NZ and rented a car and just drove around to random places. We ended up in a small town called National Park and when we got there the guy asked us if we wanted to go on "the walk". Sure, why not. Turns out it was the Tongariro Crossing and also called the best one day walk in NZ by many. Good call. (trivia fact: one of the mountains was used as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies) On the way down the side of the mountain, a couple stopped us and started talking... they saw the MEC backpacks and knew we were from Canada. Turns out they were teachers in Singapore but they went to Teacher's College in Truro, NS with a ton of my friends from high school. Small world!

Lagos, Portugal 2008 - One night we were walking around after dinner and we walked by a bar. People who work there are always outside trying to talk to tourists to get them to come into the bar. We said we didn't want to go in and the guy recognized our accents (or non-accents?) and we started talking. Turns out he grew up in Port Williams, NS and knows a bunch of the same people that I know. Small world!

One night in Paris

Ok, I am back in Paris now after spending the week in Portugal. The weather and beaches there were awesome and I had a great time. And not to brag, but I probably have the best farmer's tan you have ever seen. :-)

Back to Ottawa tomorrow morning. And then sleep sleep sleep....

Olympics

So being in a foreign county while the Olympics are on is interesting. Lots of coverage of the French team, in French of course. In a couple of hotels got access to the EuroSport TV channel, but it was in German. At my hotel in Paris I am watching the English feed from England. Not a lot of coverage (hardly any) of the Canadian athletes but at least I can understand what they are saying.

But one thing I have got to wonder... what is up with this steeplechase thing? Isn't that an event for horses? They first mentioned it on the tv and I thought that my definition was wrong but oh yes, there were people jumping over hurdles into water. Does anyone else think that is weird?

Bones

I am still in Paris and today I went to see the Catacombs of Paris. It was really weird. Picture being under the city walking around in a confined space and the walls are all made from the bones of people. Yeah, it is as creepy as it sounds. Got a few photos but we weren't supposed to use the flash so I'm not sure how they turned out.

On the way out the guy asked me to open my bag and I said to him "you mean people actually steal bones?". Yeah, creepy.

CDG -> FAO?

I guess I am really getting caught up in the vacation thing... I have decided to cut short my visit to Paris and fly to Portugal for the rest of the week. Nothing like sitting on a beach reading a book to relax at the end of your vacation...

More Photos

Just passed 1600 photos this morning. When I get back I am going to have a party and invite you all and make you sit through a slide show of every last one...

Paris

Ok, made it to Paris. Hopped on the TGV (high speed train) from Tours and got here just over an hour later. Found the right subway and got off at the right spot. Even found the hotel ok... imagine that.

Met an interesting character on the subway. About 3 stops from my hotel a guy got on and pushed people away from the poles at the end of the car and then put up a sheet with clothespins and hauled out a radio. Then cheesey music started playing and, you guessed it, he started doing a puppet show for the people on the subway! I was standing right next to him and got hit in the head a couple of times with the puppets; (his version of audience participation I guess).

Today did the Effiel Tower and all that fun stuff. Man there are a lot of tourists and the lines are long to get into things!

Long time no see....

Well, it has been a while since my last blog entry and no I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I just have been too busy to get to a computer. We've been on the bike tour and it has been fantastic. Cycling through the sunflower fields in France, going to the chateaus, going to vineyards... everything has been exactly as advertised. I don't have time to write now, but I will write more when I get to Paris tomorrow or on the weekend. Right now we are hanging out on a terrace and there is an open bottle of wine and some bread and cheese which need attention....

French Lesson 3

lapin - rabbit
le pain - bread

Which would you rather have for breakfast?

French on Holidays

In the Rough Guide that I have, they say a few things about travelling in the summer in France. One of the things that they mention is that a lot of French people head to the coast for their holidays. Originally I had stuck to the interior of the country but when I headed out on my own I went for the coast. Wow. I guess they were right. Some of the towns were ok but some of them were insane. For instance...

They say that the Effiel Tower is the number one tourist attraction in France. Number two is a little place called Mont St Michel. It is neat because it is a small walled island with an abbey on it, etc etc. I decided to check it out and got there at 10am. Traffic was a little backed up so I parked in town and walked the 3km over the causeway to the island. Good choice because it allowed me to take some great photos. When I left town, the traffic coming into town was stop-and-go for 6km! And then there was the 3km to the island on top of that. Crazy.

Photos Photos Everywhere

So in just over a week I took 871 photos. Yeah, I'm a little crazy.

Time flies... sometimes slowly

It is hard to believe that my first week away is over. Although on the other hand sometimes it feels that I have been gone for a month! In my week on my own I travelled all over Normandy and Brittany. Put about 2000km on the car I think. Saw a few war memorials and some of the D-Day beaches. Saw a bunch of great castles. Had some cool hotels right in the heart of downtown overlooking small pedestrian-only cobblestone streets. It has been cool.

Now I am back in the city of Tours. This afternoon I return the car and tomorrow the week-long cycling tour starts. Let the pain begin!

I remember when Jeff and I went hiking in New Zealand up this crazy mountain (turned out to be next to Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies...cool) and it just about killed us. The quote of the week was "I don't care how much time you put in at the gym in the mornings... nothing quite prepares you for climbing up a mountain.". Tomorrow we see if all those RPM classes have prepared me for the cycling trip...

Touch typing

You wouldn't believe how long it is taking me to type these short messages. Since I work on computers all day, I'm a relatively fast typer and I don't look at the keyboard. All that changes when they move the keys around on you! haha

I figured out a way to beat the system though as far as typing certain characters. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to type an @ symbol. But copy/paste still work so I just found that character on a page and copied it. Take that you crazy keyboard!

Facebook in France

Everywhere I see someone on the computer here, they are using Facebook. There was an elderly British guy in a put the other day complaining that the computer didn't work and when it finally was ok, he was checking his Facebook page.

Myself, on the other hand, can't figure out this bloody keyboard so I won't be FB'ing from here. In fact, anything which requires the 'at' symbol is out of my scope. The other day it took me 10min to figure out how to do it and that was with help from another guy. And he didn't speak English so you can imagine how that conversation went...

French Lesson 2

I like apple juice with breakfast rather than orange juice (which seems to be standard). So the other day I asked for "jus au pomme". The guy looked at me like I had 3 heads and I repeated myself and he said something in French which I didn't understand so I stuck with orange juice.

I went away from the meal thinking that I had mistakenly asked for potatoe juice or something silly like that. But it turns out (based on other menus, etc) that here apple juice is really alcoholic apple cider. So yeah, I guess that isn't something that I should be asking for in the morning.

French Lesson 1

pour voler - to rob/steal
pour conduire - to drive

Try not to get them confused when you are trying to describe what you do to your car.

Vitré

That is the name of the town I stayed in last night. Got only one paragraph in the Rough Guide but was a neat medival town with, of course, a castle. Got a good 24 hour parking spot close to the tourist office and walking distance to the hotel so you can't beat that.

While at dinner I was trying to decide whether to start heading back to Tours (where the bike tour starts) or whether to go back up to the North Coast of Britanny to check out some of the cool rock formations. Well, I got up early and grabbed so,e quick breakfast at the bakery across the street from the hotel (oh yeah, that's cool) and hit the highway for the North. Currently I am at the tourist office in a small town called Plougrescant.

I think tonight I will stay near Vennes and then start making my way to Tours for Friday night. But we'll see... plans might change depending on what interesting things I run across along the way!

Where's Waldo?

Ok, 5 min left on my time at this cafe and this bloody keyboard is driving me nuts. All the keys are not where they used to be. So...

- after Orleans went to Pascal's grandmother's place
- then to Tours
- then to Normandy...stayed in Dieppe
- in Saint Vaast du Hogue tonight
- St Malo tomorrow

until next time....

Je cherche pour une aussi comme ca

Ok salesgirl at Bestbuy in Ottawa...you get the last laugh. I guess I should have paid the 79 dollars for the extra battery for my camera. I have been looking for one around here but they have to be ordered in. Oh well, no big deal. I will just charge my battery every night and try to convince myself that I do not have to take 100 photos of every castle. :-)

House Hunting

I have spent a couple of days looking at some of the chateaus around the Loire valley and they are amazing. I have decided that I need a moat for my house. Pictures to follow when I get home...

What is p2?

Most people know that Pascal and I work on the Eclipse p2 project. What does p2 stand for? Could it be Party Pascal? We went to a club on our last night in Orleans and man does he like to dance! It was pretty dead when we first got there but we were early...12:45. ha! I guess that is how they like to do it in France!

Sorry Kim....no photos. :-)

4

4. It is the number of seasons in the year. The number of quarters in a football game. And now the number of police vans I cut off in a round-about. I do not know who they were chasing but he probably got away. I have never seen a policeman stick his head out the window and shake his fist at someone... until now. Hey, was that the middle finger? Needless to say, I did not spend much time in Roen...

Je ne sais quoi...

Ah, my French teachers from high school would be proud. Or not. Either way things are slowly coming back to me. I have a basic vocabulary but it takes me a while to put together sentences and sometimes I forget key words. But I'll get by.

I just realized that I haven't really written much about "touristy" things so here you go. Yesterday I arrived and after I got cleaned up Pascal and I hoped in the car and went to the park and ride and grabbed the Tram downtown. Then we made a beeline for the nearest cafe patio. haha Phew, wasn't sure if I would be able to get to a cafe before I left so it was good to get it over with on the first day. ;-)

After a cool refreshing beverage we walked around the streets and looked into a few shops. We walked down to the waterfront and then up to a cool cathedral. Then we sat on benches in the sun by a fountain. And decided we better hit another cafe and grab some ice cream before we fell asleep. hehe

I tell you, these vacations are pretty hard on me. But you will be happy to know that I had a good 2 hour nap today. Tomorrow we leave Orleans for his grandmother's place about 50km away. This also means from now on I will only have internet access when I stop by an internet cafe. OMG... no internet? How will I survive? Hopefully the naps will make up for it...

Accepted!

Visa... accepted at millions of locations around the world. Well, except for the train station in Orleans, France apparently. And just my Visa. But it is fine now. I guess there must have been something wrong with their machines or something but it looks like everything is ok with the credit card situation. Pascal and I went to the bank this morning and talked to the guy there and he suggested that I put the card in the ATM to see if it would be recognized and it was all good. Then later on we went to a store and I used it to buy something and it worked, so I can breathe easy again.... I don't have to live off the handleful of Euros I grabbed from the bank before I left Canada.

Speaking of stores, we went to Auchan this morning. Wow. It is like Loblaw's plus Wal-Mart and throw in a little Future Shop there too. Pretty crazy. I've got a couple of photos of the cheese and yogurt aisles. Yes, that is "aisles".... plural.

And now to continue with perhaps the most important aspect of all my vacations... an afternoon nap. :-)

Rejected!

Ah... so THAT's what it is like to have your Visa card rejected when you are at a store on vacation. Will have to investigate further since it worked ok at the rental car place...

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The plane is courtesy of Air Canada, the train is the TGV (later on in the trip), and the car is from Hertz.

The flight from Toronto was good. As many people know, I can sleep through anything. Even my record for being able to stay awake during movies is bad. So I should be able to sleep on the plane, right? Well, not so much this time. My own fault though for talking too much to the person next to me on the plane. It was ok for practicing my French though. Well, not so much practicing as embarrassing myself. :-)

Ended up getting a Toyota Prius for a rental car. I'm going green, baby! Really nice car actually. And the people at the Hertz desk were nice to me. Perhaps that was because I looked like a saint compared to the loud American next to me.... "what do you mean you don't have my Mercedes? why even bother taking a reservation then?". haha

Another thing, I will never rent another car and not have a GPS. I was completely lost in Paris but the nice voice on the speaker just guided me through and I wasn't worried at all. I wonder how long it takes before you stop responding to the voice though... "Turn right in 200 meters. Thanks!" "Take your next left. Will do!".

Off to explore the city of Orleans with Pascal...

Overpacking

Ok, I'm finished packing and I completely over-packed. So I took everything out of my bag, got rid of a few things, and did it again. And then again. Then I got a different carry-on and moved things around. As long as my checked bag isn't over the weight limit then I guess it's all good. I don't expect to have to carry all my bags around at the same time very often. And to think at one point I had thought about trying to get by with just a carry-on? ha! Although it would have been entertaining to watch me pack. :-)

Ready to go?

France, 2008. Only about 24 hours before I am taking off to the airport to begin the trip. Ready to go? Sure, why not. I've got my plane tickets booked and a Visa in my wallet so anything else is just gravy...

The plan for the trip is to spend a couple of days visiting Pascal and his family in Orleans and then the rest of the week traveling around Normandy, then spend a week on a cycling trip through the Loire Valley, then off to Paris for a week of sight-seeing.

Who knows what adventures are ahead... but I know that Pascal has already freaked me out about driving in France. Luckily I was able to borrow Ken's trusty GPS with France maps so that will help me get from point A to point B.