Last Post

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Here is the long-awaited final post, for anybody who might still be checking. Like the last post from our 2007 London-Africa excursion, it consists of photos and captions. We took about 7,600 pictures in all, and Keith has sorted through each one -- aside from the pictures we have already posted, these are some of our favorites.

In these four pictures, we have: Keith and the girls, browsing at a store in London; Stephansdom, the center of Vienna; Keith and the girls, lost in the gardens at Schoenbrunn; and the girls in front of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna.

Here we have: a group of our students at the Gasthaus, near the Schwarzwaldeckhaus (it was quite a hike to get here!); one final picture of the Schwarzwaldeckhaus, with the students hanging out the windows; Keith and the girls smelling grapes at our Croatian hotel; and the girls in Jelacic Square in Zagreb.

Top left: Melk Abbey, as seen from the Danube River in the town of Melk (Austria); top right: the library in Melk Abbey; bottom left: a VW bus in Budapest; and bottom right: the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest.

These four pictures are: the girls on a bridge beside the Alpsee, in Füssen (Germany); the Neuschwanstein Castle in Füssen; the Kölner Dom in Cologne; and Annika marching in Malmö, Sweden.

Here we have: Bryggen Street, in Bergen, Norway; the girls on the Floybanen in Bergen; Keith and Barbara inside the Roman Colosseum; and Keith and Caroline at Trevi Fountain (Rome).

These pictures show: Caroline, on her way up to the top of the dome at St. Peter's Basilica; a hallway in the Vatican Museum; the view outside the girls' hotel room in Venice; and gondolas in Venice.

These pictures: Keith and Allyson, posing in San Marino; Allyson ponders some munitions in San Marino; the former path of the Berlin Wall; and Annika poses with a portion of the Berlin Wall.

Keith stands in front of the famous door in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses; a canal scene in the beautiful city of Brugge, Belgium; the girls pose in front of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam; and the girls stand beneath the pyramid at the Louvre in Paris.

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These four pictures: a mill in Bayeaux, in Normandy; Hueys on Omaha Beach, Normandy; the Eiffel Tower at night; and Caroline and Allyson making their 15-second visit to Liechtenstein.

This final picture shows everybody in our group (except for one student), standing in front of the Schloss in Vienna.
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Thanks to everybody who has visited this blog -- we are home, now, but we are enjoying the memories you see.

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Hard Rock Cafe

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You hear a lot, these days, about “globalization” – some people say it is evil, and others believe it is good.
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We do not pretend to understand the finer points of the issue, but one thing is certain: it is unambiguously excellent to have a Hard Rock Cafe in every major city. Here are four impressive reasons:
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• In cities that are otherwise uninteresting, the HRCs give tourists something to see.
• HRC started in London, and cannot be blamed for American economic imperialism.
• HRC T-shirts are universally recognized as icons of sophistication.
• At HRC, they put ice in their drinks.
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Cheered by these proofs of benevolence, the Hueys have made a sincere effort to visit as many of these restaurants as possible. Keith, Allyson, and Caroline began this tradition while in Rio (back in 2006), and last year we made a pilgrimage to the original site in London.
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During the past three months, however, we have visited numerous new locations. We did not eat in most of them, because that would be too costly – but we always got a picture! We also got a few T-shirts, and we look fabulous when we wear them. You will be impressed to know that we declined to buy Budapest HRC shirts, because they don’t actually have a restaurant in Budapest.

The biggest location was the one in Amsterdam (above left), but we moved on because we were pretty anxious to get back to our hotel. In four locations, we decided to sit down and eat: in Berlin, we had an exceptionally odd waiter who kept rubbing our backs and saying “oi!” In Rome, it was a meal shared with a small crowd of students; in Copenhagen, it was the perfect end to a long day of walking; and in Paris, it turned out to be one of the cheapest meals in town.
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Berlin and Rome.
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Copenhagen and Paris.
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Two of the locations were closed: in Zagreb, Croatia, the interior was completely trashed, and we decided they must be remodeling. In Venice, Italy, they weren’t planning to open till Christmas, and we decided not to wait (from what we hear, now, the place is currently submerged beneath two feet of water).
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Zagreb and Venice.
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In Cologne, Germany, we looked at the prices, gagged softly, and left; in Oslo, Norway, we found ourselves wishing we could pay the prices they had posted in Cologne!
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Cologne and Oslo.
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Two of the trips were shortened because we had to catch a train: in Gothenburg, Sweden, we barely had time to snap the picture, and in Munich we had to keep moving (it was too early for lunch, anyway). In the pictures you can see that the girls are actually wearing their backpacks.
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We only have one more HRC to visit this year, and it is (ironically) a location that we have never seen before: 45 Monroe Street, in Detroit. Who knows? It might be our favorite one of all!
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Trains, U-Bahns, Trams, and Buses

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At midnight on Saturday, our Eurail passes expired. It was a dramatic moment: after two months, these golden documents have turned to paper. But they have lots of stories to tell!
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This fall, we used trains to reach the vast majority of eighteen countries. We sometimes paid a nominal reservation charge, but our passes allowed us to travel, without extra expense, more than sixty times! A few trips were as short as fifteen minutes, and others were as long as ten hours. For a fee that costs considerably less than most hotels, we were able to sleep on “overnight” trains, and to awake, the next morning, in a new city. We had to bring our own food, but the accommodations were consistently pleasant, and the restrooms were free! The Eurail network is truly amazing – nearly every town is connected.
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What Caroline saw, as she looked out her window in Austria.
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We also discovered that every major city has a rail-based transportation system. The next time you see a picture of London, Paris, or Rome, you should try to envision the tunnels that run deep beneath the ground, with hundreds of thousands of commuters. Station entrances can be found all over these cities, and they lead you down into a totally different world. The stations themselves can be pretty elaborate mazes of hallways, escalators, and shopping malls. They even have subway musicians, and you can throw them a Euro (or – you can be like Keith, and avert your eyes).
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What Caroline saw, as she looked out her window in Switzerland.

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Aside from the subways, there are trams that run through the streets and there are extensive systems of bus routes. Nearly every address is accessible. One ticket will usually suffice for all of these – as long as you carry a valid transport card, you should be all set to go. On the other hand, if you don’t have a valid card, then you need to be wary about the random “ticket-checkers,” because the fines can be pretty stiff (just ask a few of our students)!

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What Caroline saw, as she looked out her window in Normandy.

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Of course, there are drawbacks to this kind of transportation: the tunnels can be trashy and noisy, and the rides can be pretty crowded. For instance, Roman subways have seats, but you’re lucky if you can find a place to stand! And – these systems were obviously expensive to build, and they surely cost a lot to maintain.
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Nonetheless, we will truly miss public transport when we get back to Michigan – it will be a sad moment, the next time we buy gasoline or take our van to the shop! Our Vienna transport cards are valid until next Sunday, and it will be a sentimental journey, when we take our last ride on the “43.”
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