Posts tagged "travel" - nolan caudill's internet house

A few Copenhagen spots

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 09:53:43 +0000

This past July, we spent a few days in Copenhagen. A coworker (Fatih!) asked for a few tips, and since I wrote them up in Slack, I figured I’d copy and past them here for more permanence.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art: It’s about an hour train ride north of the city but well worth it. Beautiful grounds, nice collection of modern art. Great food too.

Tivoli Gardens: Our hotel opened up into the park and while we didn’t ride any of the rides, just walking around was really nice. We grabbed a hot dog and a beer one afternoon for a late lunch and that was really pleasant.

Reffen: We biked out here to a giant permanent street food area on the water. Great place to sample all sorts of different cuisines, and then grab a drink and sit by the water. Younger crowd but it was a very fun vibe.

La Banchina: Daytime spot that is a little bakery that sells bread and natural wines and champagne. The cool thing about this place is they have a swimming spot behind it so people are swimming in the ocean while you sit and enjoy your bread.

Barr (restaurant): Probably the best meal we had in Copenhagen. We did the wine and beer pairings, and the service was outstanding.

And you must try smørrebrød somewhere — we went to Møntergade downtown, and it was a slightly classier lunch spot (lots of business people in there while we were). The waiter was also very welcoming and was happy to explain things to us, give suggestions, and answer questions.

A Tahoe Trip

Tue, 31 Dec 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Meghan and I got back from Lake Tahoe this afternoon. We shared a house in Incline Village, Nevada with her parents and three brothers who had flown out from Tennessee. It was a relaxing week of eating, drinking, skiing, reading, and catching up with the in-laws.

A Train Adventure in Italy

Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:00:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, my wife and I went on a two week vacation to Europe for our 5th wedding anniversary, splitting our time between Paris, Rome, and Cinque Terre. The first leg of our trip was in Paris where we spent a few days exploring the city. From there the plan was to take the TGV to Milan so we could see the Alps on our way to Vernazza. Our destination after Paris was Milan–specifically the Porta Garibaldi station. This station is the main hub for the high-speed, long-distance trains like TGV. To get to Vernazza, once in Milan we had to transfer to another station, Milano Centrale. These two stations are less than a mile apart but with our luggage and general unfamiliarity with all things Italy, we gave ourselves over an hour to get from one station to the other. In the worst case, we could grab a cab. (Below is a map of Milan with P. Garibaldi on the west and Centrale under the marker.)

[View Larger Map](https://www.google.com/maps?sll=45.48503159999998,9.187584699999995&sspn=0.005129953512941263,0.01465567713196794&saddr=milano+centrale&t=m&daddr=Garibaldi,+20124+Milan,+Italy&ie=UTF8&geocode=FWoRtgIdgHOMACkl-YzD2saGRzEFzT7ytNWq2A%3BFegLtgIdATGMACn3DjX2MsGGRzHwjGG8CT-7xA&ll=45.485079,9.195514&spn=0.010531,0.018239&z=15&source=embed) In my research of planning this train ride, I discovered that you could buy full trips in advance, so I did. I had tickets that would take us from Paris to Milan, Milan to Sestri Levante, and from there onto Vernazza. I was confident, prepared, and had no idea I had already messed up. The morning of the trip, we walked the mile from our apartment in the Bastille to Gare de Lyon. Gare de Lyon is a huge transit switching station, serving TGV, RER, as well as the Paris metro. If you are a train in Paris, this is your Champs-Élysées. [![Gare de Lyon](/images/flickr/9227521380_e1fab6d368_c.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolancaudill/9227521380/ "Gare de Lyon by Nolan Caudill, on Flickr") Our TGV train left on time and we were soon zooming through the French countryside. We sat in front of an older Australian couple, who both seemed to have generic digestive issues, belching loudly and passing gas, much to the dismay of the coutured French woman across the aisle from us, who would occasionally spritz her Chanel No. 5 in their direction which they, of course, didn't notice. The trip proceeded without event until we reached a small town at the foot of the mountains. Most of the stops we made were less than five minutes. This one dragged on for about ten minutes and there was a sense in the air that something wasn't right. After about 15 minutes, a young, dark-haired girl walked into our car, crying and being escorted by one of the train attendants. They were speaking French but I got the sense she was looking for someone or something was wrong with her ticket. She eventually made her way out to the train platform and we left. We trudged slowly up, and often through, the Alps. Eventually, one of the tunnels we went through popped us out into Italy. Upon exit of the tunnel, the train stopped. And we stayed stopped. After about 20 minutes sitting less than a half a mile inside the Italian border, the conductor finally broke silence and announced that there was a medical emergency with one of our fellow travelers and we were waiting for an *ambulanza*. We sat for another 10-15 minutes while the medical staff attended to the sick person. After that was dealt with, the train started moving. The conductor said, through the PA that "we were delayed 16 minutes." That wasn't too bad. We still had about an hour to switch train stations. Turns out "sixteen" and "sixty" sound approximately the same when said through a train's PA system, spoken by a French train conductor whose second language was Italian and was giving a valiant attempt at English. I realized my mishearing after our arrival time came--and went--and we were in the middle of a giant field with no Milan in sight. [![Italian countryside_46](//farm2.staticflickr.com/1022/534715919_742d0f8bbb_o.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/12492744@N00/534715919/ "Italian countryside_46 by prof50000, on Flickr") *Not Milan. Photo courtesy of prof50000 on Flickr.* We arrived at Milano Porta Garibaldi with about 20 minutes to spare before our Milano Centrale train left. I switched to Optimistic Mode (aka: Denial Mode) and laced up my shoes, imbued a sense of urgency to my wife, and then sprinted through a foreign station in a foreign land to a foreign taxi stand. If stars aligned, and Lady Travel Luck smiled on us, we'd be resting comfortably in a Trenitalia train cruising towards our coastal town apartment in just a few minutes. But, there were no cabs. There were signs outside the door pointing towards where taxis normally should be but now pointed to an empty stretch of asphalt. We waited for a few more minutes but I knew our window had closed and it was time to figure out Plan B. My concern now switched to not just finding a new set of tickets into Vernazza but to find a way to get there that day. Vernazza, being a small town off the main line, didn't have regular train service after 8pm and it stopped earlier than most stations. In my original booking, I knew there were only two or three trains after ours. Time was ticking. My first priority was to buy tickets from where we were to where we wanted to be as quickly as possible and then see about getting a refund later on. I went to one of the self-serve kiosks, and after assistance from a 7 year-old girl and a college-aged art student who knew a little English, I gave another 80 euros to the Italian train system. Now that I had tickets that ensured that we wouldn't be sleeping in Milan, I queued up to speak to one of the station's service agents about a refund for the missed train tickets. The line moved slowly as there were two agents, one of which seemed to know half-a-dozen languages and enjoyed to talk and the other that spoke what I would call "Gruff Train Agent Italian." I managed to get the latter. I gave him both our original tickets and the ones I had just purchased, in hopes that it was evident what went down. He focused primarily on the new ones and indicated that I had plenty of time to catch that train. I kept signaling through the glass towards the original tickets but to no avail. I looked longingly at the multilingual agent and then shuffled back to my frazzled wife, beaten by the Italian train system. Our new tickets left from that station and took us to yet another Milan train station. At this station, we found our platform with plenty of time to spare. We just had to stand there and our train would arrive. Or so I thought. Literally two minutes before our train was to arrive, an announcement--in Italian--was made and everyone surrounding us on the platform quickly went to the stairs, went under the tracks, and went to the platform over. Our assumption was that our train had been switched to another platform. So we followed the crowd. This was a mistake. At the new platform, I looked at the sign that indicated the train number. The new sign didn't match what was on our ticket but the old one still did. The train at the new platform pulled up and everyone around us got on. I overrode deep instinct and decided to not follow the herd of fellow Homo Sapiens. We sprinted back, burdened by our luggage, to the original platform. A train arrived, its number matching the number on the sign matching the number on the ticket and we boarded. I was 90% sure we were on the right train. On this particular train, the cars were split up into cabins that had 3 seats across from 3 seats. We made our way to our cabin and found our seats. The only issue was that there were two business men in expensive suits already situated comfortably in our seats. I was now 35% sure we were on the right train. I had been generally confused about transit things for hours, was drenched in sweat from lugging around a large suitcase in the heat, and assumed that the comfortable-looking business people were in the right and we were on a train to somewhere that was not Vernazza. In desperation, I showed the two men our tickets. They sighed heavily and then an intricate social dance ensued. One man stood up and leaned over to the woman across the aisle from him that from my vantage point had nothing to do with our seats or our situation. She packed her belongings, and she and the other man left the cabin. The first man then took the seat of the woman, leaving Meghan and me two now-empty seats. Since this leg of the trip was about 3 hours, I had plenty of time to contemplate what had transpired. In Italy, you can buy two kinds of tickets. The first is what we originally had: specific seats on a specific train on a specific date. The second is what everyone else in the country seemed to have: permission to ride a specific route within the next 3 months. With the latter, you grabbed a seat and if a reserved ticketholder came by, you moved to the next empty seat. My guess is that the man that took the woman's seat had a reserved seat, had let her sit there, and once we interjected our American confusion into the whole thing, he sat in his assigned seat, bumping her to the next cabin. Now riding calmly, I read my Kindle and stared out the window at the gorgeous seaside towns, even striking up a conversation with a young woman who was an economics major in Milan who gave us advice of things to do in Vernazza. Things were going well. At one point, with my Kindle in my lap, I leaned over to say something to Meghan. My Kindle slid off my lap and into the crack between the seats and fell under my seat, out of reach. The 5 other people in the cabin--my wife included--wanted to see what the silly tourist was going to do next. I surprised them all: I gathered myself and then did absolutely nothing. About an hour later, after a couple of people from our cabin had disembarked in Genoa, I had room to attempt to rescue my Kindle. I crouched down in this cramped cabin and began to fight with the seat. By everyone's intense interest, I could tell even the regular Trenitalia travelers had no idea how the seats worked. After fiddling for a couple of minutes, I discovered the seats moved in a very non-intuitive way, giving me just enough room to slide my sweaty arm under the seat to a point where I could reach my Kindle. I pulled it out and held it up with a dramatic, "Ta-da!" Everyone was very impressed, I imagined. We reached Sestri Levante after dark. We disembarked and I sprinted to the ticket punch machine to validate our tickets to Vernazza. (These were the second kind of tickets I mentioned earlier, where you don't have a reserved seat. Before you ride though, you use a self-serve ticket punch machine to mark the ticket on the date of travel.) I punched the ticket, went to the video screen to figure out which platform we needed to be on. Vernazza wasn't on the screen, and our train was supposed to arrive in less than 5 minutes. "Oh no," I thought, "Not again." I ran back towards Meghan, prepared to just hop on whatever train came next and let come what may. I found her talking to a group of people that were obviously tourists, sporting sunburns and speaking English. Turns out that they not only spoke English, they were American. And not only that, but they were from the same small city in North Carolina that we lived in before moving to San Francisco. Best of all, though: they knew which platform the train to Vernazza would come into. We followed them to the platform, chatted a bit more, and once our train arrived, we boarded and collapsed into our seats. [![Waiting for the Train at Vernazza](/images/flickr/9224743937_debf2a0656_c.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolancaudill/9224743937/ "Waiting for the Train at Vernazza by Nolan Caudill, on Flickr") After all that transit excitement, we spent three wonderful days exploring Cinque Terre and didn't even bother looking into buying tickets for Rome until the morning we left.

What I learned from all this is that Italian trains are much closer to having schedules like buses and subways than airplanes. The system is built around things happening that change your plans. I learned not to expect to be in any station at any given time and instead buy my tickets for the next leg on the spot. So when in Italy do as the Italians do: Relax and make your away across the country, one station at a time.

A Little Trip to the Big Island

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:00:00 +0000

I finally developed about 9 rolls of film from the trip to Hawaii Meghan and I took back in September. I’ve included a few of my favorites and the rest are here.

They Used to Pour Fire off a Mountaintop

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

I was on a wiki walk when I came across this fascinating, but long gone, summertime event that used to happen inside Yosemite. So, they used to pour still-burning embers off the top of Glacier Point at nightfall every day during the summer to make, what they called, a “firefall.” This image is from Flickr user Cliff Stone (his real name!) taken in the summer of 1962 before the event was banned. The firefall began when people down in the valley would see the embers from the nightly bonfire from the Glacier Point Mountain House kicked off the cliff’s face and then people would start specifically asking for it to happen, as seeing a river of fire coming down the face of cliff was quite the spectacle. There were various attempts to stop the firefall between its inception in 1872 until its demise in 1968, mainly citing the crushing traffic of the sightseers and the fact that it was a man-made event in a setting that the rangers wanted to be celebrated for its natural beauty. Even President John F. Kennedy saw it one night on a visit to the park while in office, but as he had to finish a phone call, they delayed it from its usual time of 9pm to 9:30pm. The ritual usually kicked off at 9pm with a call-and-response, with someone in the valley yelling, “Let the fire fall!” with the response from the top of the mountain with, “The fire falls!” There are so many things I enjoy about this. Don’t get me wrong, if they tried to start this again, I’d be first in line to protest, but in retrospect of it actually happening, it’s fascinating. I can almost see the kitschy 1950s postcard saying “Come see the great Yosemite Firefall!” and the hordes of middle America in their station wagons parked on the road at nightfall. And it’s so audacious to think that that they used to allow a hotel to dump burning embers off the top of a mountain, especially when park rangers will definitely ticket you in most national parks for having even small campfires. Now, people come to see a natural version of this, when the late winter February sun strikes Horsetail Falls just right, and sets the flowing water seemingly aflame. I’d like to see this one day and, in a small way, I’m sad I’ll never get to hear the people yelling and then pouring fire off the high peak, purely for amusement.

Photos from our Trip to Wine Country

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Meghan and I went to Napa Valley with her parents this Monday and Tuesday, staying at a vineyard and visiting several wineries for special tastings.

It was one of those special trips where we received VIP status everywhere we went, which I’m not used to, but it was fun. The trip also culminated with dinner at the French Laundry last night which was incredible.

I’m going to try to write a few more words about the trip, but today was a hard hit back to the reality of the work week, with meetings, meetings, and meetings, so I’m hitting the sack early tonight. I just wanted to get these photos up before I did.

These are all from my Ricoh GR III and I haven’t shot with a digital camera (besides my phone) in several months so it was interesting trying to tell my eyes and fingers to do the right thing. This was also the first time I’ve ever shot in RAW, so I also had to do some minimal post-processing.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615

Concert and the long trip home...

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

The Ryan Adams & The Cardinals concert last night was great. I’ve heard so many different stories of how Ryan Adams is on stage that I wasn’t sure what to expect. The reports say that he is either bubbly and friendly or aloof and rude. It seemed that we got him on a good night as he was cracking jokes between songs and doing some friendly bantering with some of the more vocal members of the audience.

The setlist was pretty much what I was expected drawing from the albums put out with the Cardinals. He played the singles from the newest album, Easy Tiger, joking with us that this is what we came to hear. He also hit most of the highlights from Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights. He played a nice and loud version of “I See Monsters” from Love Is Hell even dipped into some older, solo stuff with “The Rescue Blues” and “Dear Chicago.” Overall, I really enjoyed the song selection and the band is as tight as the live tapes have shown.

His style of playing has definitely evolved over the years introducing more extended jams and noise exploration. Several pieces of his playing in these jams sounded like he was trying to channel early 70’s Jerry Garcia. I’m not quite sure that the extra playing was always necessary and one audience member seemed to agree as he yelled out “Just sing!” after one of these interludes. There was nothing really wrong the jams it just seemed they didn’t seem to “fit” at times. The best jams are the one’s that grow from the original theme of the song, but with some of the songs that these pieces in them, it felt almost forced at times. One notable exception was “What Sin?” in the encore where the band did an awesome job with and the dynamics and everything seemed focused with a goal in mind.

One negative about the experience was the other concert-goers. I’ve never been at a show before where people seemed so unmotivated to get or stay in their seats. The show was officially supposed to start at 8:00 but everyone knew it would be close to 8:30-8:45 as shows almost never start on time. He started playing around 8:45 so everyone should have had plenty of time to get in their seats before it started but not a chance. It was only about half full when the show started and it wasn’t because people were running late, it was because people were pounding $6 Bud Lights in the lobby. There’s nothing wrong with that (besides the fact that people were paying per the bottle what a 6-pack costs of this watery beer) but did these people come to get drunk on cheap-but-expensive beer or watch a show?

During the show, there was constant movement of people going and coming in and out of the auditorium, getting more beer, taking phone calls, or smoking cigarettes. Seriously, just watch the show.

Overall, Meghan and I both really enjoyed the show and it was well worth the trip down. I’m in love with Charleston and both of us had a great weekend. I hope to get some pictures up soon of some of the highlights.

Pictures are up on Meghan’s flickr.

Notes from Charleston

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Charleston is a GREAT city.

While Meghan and I were walking along the little roads and alleys along Bay Street, I kept muttering to myself that this is one of the best places I’ve ever been. Every door we passed was either an art gallery, some snug bar, an upscale restaurant, or played some role in the early days of the country itself.

For example, we passed this tiny building that stood out due to its pastel hue, a bright pink. It was an art gallery. I got home and read that this little building is probably the oldest tavern in the country, being built in the 1690s. You can buy a painting in the same building that the Low Country elite socialized in over 300 years ago. That’s history. And conveniently enough it is called the Pink House.

Tonight we at at Slightly North of Broad (or SNOB for short) and I was thoroughly impressed. I had the grilled pork tenderloin over chutney with smoked apples with a glass of sangria and Meghan had the barbeque tuna. It was easily one of the best meals I’ve had. The service was spot-on and the atmosphere was great. The entire time there was a good experience.

Tomorrow, we are going to sleep in a little and then hit the town and do a little shopping and a lot of wandering around. We’re debating about watching the UNC game or not, but we’ll just see how that goes. We could probably find a sports bar, but we are firmly in Gamecock country so that could be interesting. Then tomorrow evening is the Ryan Adams concert which I’m fairly pumped about.

For now, time for bed.

Charleston

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow, Meghan and I are heading out first thing in the morning to go to Charleston for the weekend. We first starting planning the trip around the Ryan Adams concert on Saturday, but it is more a chance to get away. It’s been a pretty busy past few weeks for both of us, so it is going to be nice to get away and reset.

Plus I get to use my new GPS!