Citizen of the World

Here's a 5-minute video (that I hope can be viewed!!) I put together of pictures from Disney World, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Disneyland, and California Adventure of dads at the parks. Unfortunately, the music I chose has a copyright, and apparently the only place this can be viewed (per YouTube) is in Canada! LOL

Hopefully, this works!

We finished the first round of pictures. Check them out!! These are pictures and videos of us on our trip out to and arrival in Huntington Beach, CA, and then our day at Disneyland/California Adventure. It was a lot of fun.

Problem with Disneyland was it was built for 30K people, but they allow 80K+ people into the park daily. That makes park-goers pretty irritable, which makes the cast members irritable. No one smiled. No one laughed. No one was happy - AT THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!! allegedly...

One cast member all day asked us how our day was going. We mentioned the rude, unfriendly, and unhappy people all over the park. THIS CAST member said, "Yeah... we've kind of given up. If my manager treats me a this level (marking off his chest height), then I'll treat him or her just above that. If a customer treats me at this level,(marking off his waist height), then I treat them just about here (marking off his belly button level). People aren't happy anymore and we're kinda tired of it here."

WE would NEVER that sort of thing coming from a CAST MEMBER at Disney World in FL. NEVER. They would say something like, "Oh, that's a shame; I can't believe people would be like that here! This is the most wonderful place to be! Here's an extra sticker for you. Have a Magical Day!" And we'd walk away with a smile on our faces.

Not in Disneyland. This was a conversation I had with a rude female cast member at a concession stand:

Me: "Hello. Could I please have a small cup of water?"
CM: "Why do you want water?" (stoic, standing behind the register, and not moving)
Me: "I'd like to clean off our table over there for the kids (pointing at the filthy table)."
CM: "Someone should be cleaning those tables." (still not moving from behind her register)
Me: "I agree; someone other than me should clean the table. No one is around for me to ask to clean the table."
CM: "Someone should clean your tables, sir." (still not moving or looking like she wanted to help me in any way)
Me: "Could I please have a cup of water?"
CM: BIG SIGH. Shuffle shuffle shuffle. She got a little cup and filled it up half way. She didn't look at me when she handed it to me. In fact, she looked away from me as she pushed it halfway across the counter.
Me: "Thank you." And I smiled at her, hoping for a glimmer of happiness or some emotion.
CM: Silence.

That would NEVER have happened in Disney World. I mentioned this interaction to Matt's sister, who's been to Disney World literally 30+ times with her family as a kid and with her family with her kids. She was appalled and relayed similar experiences. But nothing topped our two spectacularly unfriendly interactions with cast members that day.

I just wish we could have gotten to California Adventure a little earlier than we had. I would like to have seen more of that park. Seems like it was built more for older people (outside of Bug's Land).

North Carolinians (at least from my part of NC) find it interesting and sometimes funny that out-of-state tourists think of the Outer-banks, they think of pretty much Duck, Manteo, and Kill Devil Hills (the Wright Brothers). Growing up in Pitt County, we were only 90 minutes from the southern Outer-banks (SOBX). We kids went to Cape Hatteras (the furthest north we went), Bath, Southport, New Bern, and Ocracoke (ferry) on field trips and to camps. We never got up to Duck and that area.

My family and I tend to go to the SOBX - the Crystal Coast around Morehead and Beaufort. There's lots of shopping, fun things to do, and decent restaurants. The island with Atlantic Beach is called Salter Path. Toward the northern section of the island is Fort Macon (from the Civil War era) and the national seashore park (there used to be a gay / nude beach there in the 80s, but I'm not sure now). In the middle of the island is the Marine Resource Center, which is REALLY cool. The MRC is also newly redone. It's an aquarium and nature facility with walkways into the marshes and loads of visible wildlife.

The summer months are typical beach months - hot and humid. Later in September and then in October are really cool (literally) times to be on the Outer-banks. Stuff that you'd normally wanna do around the northern NC Outer-banks would probably be closed - the outdoor theaters, water parks, etc. But there are great places to eat pretty much everywhere, which I don't think ever close. Our destination this week is the Southern Outer-banks (Morehead & Beaufort, NC) and it should be a really fun time.

A kitty cat strolled into our motel room in Huntington Beach along the Pacific Coast Highway. We're home now and I'm working through our photos to post them up (1/3 done!). Enjoy this snippet of things we experienced whilst on the Left Coast.

Next week, we're heading to L.A. for six (6) days. In preparation for every trip we take, we do research on the area for events, restaurants, sights, history, etc. I'd never done that much research into L.A. before because everyone tends to know the big things: Hollywood, Beverly Hills (Rodeo Drive), Disneyland, Santa Monica, Malibu, Sunset Blvd., and even Ventura Blvd for America fans. There are many other places I'm sure I could mention, but those areas for the most part are the "go-to" places.

Plus, I've been to L.A. probably 10 times since I was 4 years old. The primary reason for trips out there was eventually work, but started off because of family; I have an uncle and cousins out there north of L.A. in the Santa Clarita Valley - beautiful area and many stars live up there. Sadly, we're not in touch with those relatives much, so we most likely won't make it up there to see them. Guaranteed, if they were in the NYC area, they wouldn't look ME up, so what's the point?

The last time I was in L.A. was for work when I was with a software company. It was a really good trip and I enjoyed every minute of it - yes, even the work because it had become second nature. This time around, it'll be a little different because Matt's never been to L.A. or southern California. In fact, neither has his sister, who worked in the TV industry all her professional life. She's never even been to the West Coast!! So, this'll all be new for her, too. It'll be exciting to see their excitement.

During my research, I remembered that there are islands off the coast of L.A. There are more than 8, but there are about 8-10 prominent ones. I started looking at them on Google maps and then looking for pictures and Wikis of them. Sure enough, there's a TON of information about them. The group is called the Channel Islands, and there's a whole Wikipedia entry on the Islands of California. Makes them sound exotic, right?

A few of them are inhabited - the westernmost city of LA County is Avalon, which is on one of the islands. For the better part of a century, various Californians have tried unsuccessfully and successfully to build up Avalon as a tourist destination with resorts and marinas - even a casino.

The other islands are populated by overseers of the natural resource area or national park. One or two of the islands are allocated for US Navy operations. One island that is 83 square miles has 2 permanent residents on it. Wonder what it takes to be one of those residents. Is it punishment or reward?

Outside of the hubbub of a city like LA, I find it interesting that there are places so quiet, desolate, or removed, that even though they're part of LA County, they're worlds apart from what everyone sees on TV.

I'll be posting more updates of things we might be doing in L.A. Top of our list, however, is to meet up with martini_tim and bigsabu!! That'll definitely be a highlight of our trip!!

Last weekend, we were in New Hope, PA, and then later in Flemington, NJ. We saw LOTS of cool, old cars (and some motorcycles - for boomerz1, and I immediately thought of curtimack and dan4behr. Enjoy fellas!!

I don't know what all of these cars are, but we ran into the beginnings or the end of a Mustang/Ford car show, which seemed to range from very old cars to very new ones. WHY do people bring their new models to a car show, especially if you can find THAT car in a dealership? They buy the car last week and this week they're showing it off at a car show. Seems a little presumptuous or just unexciting. But I'm not that much of a car enthusiast, either.

Here's an opening car shot (with Matt) from a different photo album I'm posting today:




The other cars are posted here.

Love the town, but New Hope, PA, is slowly becoming a den of yuppies from what I've heard. We haven't been there in years. Especially, since the best nightclub EVER "was inundated with smoke damage to the point that it was unusable ever again and had to be torn down." But, but, we all thought that part of the structure was under historical preservation...

When I came out, the Cartwheel (the best nightclub EVER) and the Raven (just down the street) were the places my best friend, Joey, and I went almost every Friday and Saturday nights. When we were exceptionally bored on a Monday or it was a holiday weekend (like Memorial Day), we'd head there for the Monday Night Drag Contests. We did actually like the contests and enjoyed seeing who was eliminated week to week till one of them was crowned with some shiny, plastic piece of crap.

Friends who visited me from all over were often treated to a day in New Hope or Lambertville (across the Delaware River in NJ). We'd get into town for a wonderful cup of coffee and a muffin, then take off walking slowly around the towns. Crossing the bridge, we'd anticipate the other town and the stores along the main roads.

Lambertville has an annual Shad Festival in April, and New Hope has an Art Festival in May or June. Sometime during the summer, they'll have other street fairs and antique shows or flea markets. Winter is the time for the annual Lambertville Winter Festival with ice sculptures all over the place. Fun towns, for sure. Lots of things to do back when I still lived in Trenton. That was about six years ago and we haven't been to those towns in about four.

So, today, we're heading to New Hope - four of us - meeting up with friends of friends for brunch and shopping. People around NJ, PA, and NY (even down to DE) are calling it "No Hope" because once the straight yuppies take it back from the artsy and gay folk, there's no hope for the town. It'll get dirty and run-down again. Then, one day, in a generation or two, the gays will return to gentrify the town once again and make it "Sparkle, Neelie! Sparkle!"

THIS is perfect! My sister sent it to me and this is pretty much all I think about when we're traveling...

Without a car, Mont-Saint-Michel seems virtually impossible to reach. Jennifer (the Colby student I met on the train from Strasbourg) and I wanted to go there especially. It's a fascinating Medieval town on an island off the coast of France in a place that most would consider completely uninhabitable and barren. Of course, leave it to monks to consider a place like this habitable enough to build upon, but secluded enough to where vows of silence or celibacy would be easier to adhere. The result? An amazing feat of architecture that is completely awesome and overwhelming to experience first-hand.

This was Friday, our last day in Caen. We had spent good days in Caen and the surrounding area and gotten to know the town pretty well. This Friday was a day or so after our American Disco experience, which turned out to be a lot of good fun. We started out this Friday with a late breakfast. Around 11:00, Jennifer decided she wanted to go back to the youth hostel and take a nap. She said she would meet me at the train station at 2:00 to go to Pontorson, France, and then hitchhike to Mont-Saint-Michel.

I walked around Caen to some places I hadn't been, such as one of the churches. Jenn and I had not been to this particular church, Eglise Saint-Etienne (Church of St. Stephen), better known as the 'Abbaye aux Hommes' (Abbey to the Men). I found a back entrance to the church and entered. At that point, I didn’t know the name of the church, its significance, or the location of the door I opened in proximity to the rest of the church.

Starting to walk into the church, I spent a couple of minutes letting my eyes adjust to the lesser light inside. I was looking upward to the ceiling, when I tripped on something on the ground. To my left, a little stifled laughter peeled through the silence. A male voice said in German to the laughing voice, "Was macht er da? Hat er sich schon vor Mittag besoffen?” (“What's he doing? Is he already drunk before noon?").

"Naja, was ist so lustig?” I retorted. (“Well, what’s so funny?”) "Ich bin fast runtergefallen.” (I almost fell!), I said toward the shadowed voices.

“Du hast ja auf den Grab von Wilhelm der Eroberer gestolpert! Schön mal aufpassen, wo du tretst.” (“You stumbled on William the Conqueror’s grave. Watch where you’re going!”) the other male voice replied.

And there it was: At 20 years old, I had stumbled upon the grave of William the Conqueror! Literally. I can never live that down. I didn’t really care that the Germans had spoken to me with the informal address (“Du”), but looking back, they were probably shocked that I spoke German and were equally as embarrassed that I had understood what they said as I had been to stumble on William’s grave.

So, I rushed around the church, embarrassed, for about an hour, checked my watch, and took off to the train station by about 1:30. I grabbed some radishes along the way at the market and rinsed them at the station.

I sat at the station on the platform eating my radishes waiting for Jennifer. We didn’t have cell phones back then and the youth hostel was quite a distance away. I had gotten there in time to be able to see her from all angles getting onto the train. No sign of Jennifer. It was 1:58, and I thought, “Well, here goes! Hopefully, she’s on the train and we just missed each other – somehow. I’ll see her when we get off the train in Pontorson.” And I boarded the train.

My seat area neighbors were two beautiful little children speaking a mixture of English and French to their mother across the aisle, who in turn spoke to them just in French, having understood the English bits. She and I struck up a conversation, which revealed that her ‘usband was American and she was French; they were bringing up their kids bilingual. I was immediately jealous of the little kids having such an opportunity.

When we reached Pontorson, I bid the kids and their mom farewell and got off the train. I waited a few minutes before starting to find my way to a good hitchhiking spot. No sign of Jennifer – at all. None. A station attendant told me which road went to Mont-Saint-Michel and I started walking and thumbing. Within a kilometer, a woman picked me up. A woman! A woman picked up a young American man on the side of a road, heading toward Mont-Saint-Michel, which isn’t really close to anything. I couldn't believe it, but didn't pass up the opportunity.

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As it turned out, the driver had been a tour guide for Mont-Saint-Michel and made it a practice to pick up hitchhikers heading that way. It gave her a chance to share her knowledge with folks and “play her part” in sharing her area’s history with travelers. We had a great 10-minute conversation about the highlights of the place and the transportation back. Having lucked out so well with my very first solo hitchhiking experience, I thought that I would hedge my bets again on the way back to pick up the train to Caen.

Mont-Saint-Michel is breathtaking. It is an awe-inspiring work of architecture, art, music, dedication, meditation, and, well, I could go on and on. It’s also indescribable. At that point in my life, I had not seen anything more intriguing or so quickly been enamored of a place as Mont-Saint-Michel. I could have spent a week there and not been bored. I still dream of returning some day and spending a lot more time there.

On the way down and out of the city walls, locals told me that all the buses had already left for town. I started walking and thumbing and it started drizzling. It would normally seem as though no one would pick up a stranger, normally, let alone a wet one. But within about 10 minutes, a family of French Canadians picked me up in their minivan and took me straight back to the train station. They were excited that I was American, but didn’t speak much English.

I ended my day waiting for the train in the station restaurant with a bunch of Canadians on their way to Rennes – the opposite direction on the train from Caen. I had to get back to Caen to spend the night, take the train back to Paris, pick up my bags, and register for classes. Dinner and drinks were over and the Canadians hopped on their train to Rennes. I sat myself outside on the platform waiting for my train, which was supposed to come an hour later at 9:00. Or so I thought.

June of 1989 was a month that was wrapped up in travel throughout Germany and France. I was heading to start my summer French course in Paris at the beginning of July, but I first wanted to experience a little more of France than I had in 1987 during my German course in the Black Forest.

In my 20s, I stayed in youth hostels throughout Europe while dreaming of an America where that kind of accommodation was more prevalent and safer. Still hasn't happened. I took the train most everywhere. In France, I discovered hitchhiking and the 80s were still a pretty safe time to hitchhike. Strasbourg was one of my train stops into France from Germany. I stayed for a couple of days and got on the train for Paris. I thought that I would simply head on to Paris and get my bearings in the city. Fate had a different plan.

I sat down on the train next to another American. Slowly becoming an early 20s Gen-X Eurotrash snob, I spoke to her in German first, then in well-planned French. To my "surprise", she was an American studying Political Science and Journalism at Colby University, but traveling around Europe for the summer on her divorced dad's dime. We ended up having a great conversation on the way to Paris. She, Jennifer, convinced me to come with her to Caen, France, and spend the week there before heading to Paris for school.

I had never heard of Caen (Normandy), except from having found it on the map when trying to find Cannes (Provence on the French Riviera) the first time. Jennifer and I stopped off in Paris to change trains to Caen, which proved not to be an easy task. I also took the opportunity to dump my extra bags in a locker for the week - knowing that I'd have to pick them up from the station porters later.

We got to Caen Monday afternoon late. The manager (1/2 American, 1/2 French) of the youth hostel gave her and me the apartment at the end of the hallway with a little kitchenette! By Tuesday we'd met another American and a Brit at the hostel. During the day, I had found out about a disco we should visit called, appropriately, "The American Disco".

We got to the disco and were all wearing sneakers. I had left my better shoes in my suitcase in Paris and the others, well, they simply didn't have anything else. We were all students after all. We had to knock on the door to get in. The bouncer looked me up and down and said we couldn't come in and, after glancing around our foursome, slammed the door in our faces. Undeterred, I knocked on the door again and asked why we couldn't come in. He said, looking me up and down, "Vous portez les chaussures de mauvaise!" ("You're wearing the wrong shoes!") and went to slam the door.

I exclaimed, "Nous sommes Americains!" casually forgetting that one Brit was in our midst.

He replied exuberantly, "Pour-quoi tu ne m'as pas dit ça que la première fois?" ("Why didn't you say that the first time?") and let us in. He happily ran around the place telling everyone that we were Americans (not realizing that one of us was British). Everyone, and I mean everyone in the place was excited to hear we were there. People came over to us and bought us drinks. They got us on the dance floor to awful disco music trying tragically to teach us the Hustle. The evening turned out great and they showed us that not all French hate Americans. The people in Caen's American Disco explained that only the Parisians really hate Americans, but also that the Parisians hate everyone - even themselves. We found out that in Normandy, in particular, Americans are highly revered from our storming the beaches to save France from Nazi occupation.

We eventually made it to Omaha and Utah beaches, Jennifer and I, to see the remnants of the floating docks. There were great museums that depicted what Americans did during WWII to secure the beaches. It was deeply moving to know that my forefathers (my own father included - who thankfully didn't die) offered their lives to our country to save France and eventually Europe from such evil domination.

Granted, a free ticket into the disco wasn't really the resounding, "Thanks for saving our country!" anyone would necessarily expect, but at least our sneakers didn't fully stop our entrance, either. Having WWII discussions over French beer on a Tuesday night in an "American Disco" in northern France and speaking a mixture of Franglais was interesting. Meanwhile the Brit kept trying unsuccessfully to explain that he wasn't American.