Mark in Ottawa
10-08-2017, 03:57
We have just returned from a three week trip to Europe, starting in Amsterdam and ending in Rome after a 16 day cruise that went to the UK, Spain, Portugal, Corsica (France), and Italy. The trip was a total surprise, arranged and paid for by my wife as a birthday present.
One of the many excursions that she set up was a visit to the Bovington Tank Museum in southern England, near the town of Portland where our ship docked. The only word to describe the museum is overwhelming. There are several hundred tanks starting with the original ones from the WWI and including half a dozen German Tiger tanks, one of which is said to be the only operational one in the world. The only criticism that I can offer about the excursion was that we only had two hours in the museum and really needed about twice that. Surprisingly my wife who has no military background at all, fully agreed and was upset that there were whole sections that we didn't get to see including their restoration building. If you are in the vicinity, it really is worth a visit. See http://virtual.tankmuseum.org/.
Now for a few unrelated and possibly politically incorrect comments and anecdotes:
- Amsterdam has the most six foot tall good looking blonde women that I have ever seen in one place
- Italians really are some of the most pleasant and helpful people in the world, and this includes teenagers. We used the subway and the bus system several times in Rome and found that the young people always insisted that I take their seat when they saw that I was using a cane (hopefully this will end when i get a new knee in a couple of weeks)
- Food in Italy is extremely good; you can't get a bad meal there. Pizza in Italy is not at all the same as in North America. Typically it has a very thin crust and contains only a limited number of toppings; cheese and some tomato sauce and perhaps one or at most two other topping. Pepperoni pizza is considered to be an Amercian joke by Italians since in Italy, pepperoni means (sweet) pepper and not sausage
- The chaos in Spain's Catalonia region, which included Barcelona seems to be driven and supported mostly by very young people. We were on a bus in Barcelona that went through Catalonya Square in the midst of a peaceful demonstration of several thousand people. Most of the demonstrators wore the flag of Catalonia on their backs like a Superman cape and virtually all of them looked like they were university students. Apparently most older residents do not support separation from Spain and did not take part in the un-official referendum that was held the other day. Rumours have it that the State president intends to declare separation from Spain on Monday and I expect that he and all of his cabinet will then be arrested and charged with treason. I also suspect that they are going to do this in order to get arrested and become martyrs to promote the cause.
- Rome has the best looking women anywhere. Forget Paris or New York. Rome wins!
- There is so much beautiful architecture in Europe that it becomes commonplace. Buildings that in Ottawa would be considered an architectural gem are so common in places like Rome that they are ignored.
- I don't know how people can afford to live there. Gasoline is almost twice the price as it is in Canada and our gas is more expensive than it is in the USA. You have to take out a mortgage if you stay in a good central hotel in a major city and want to go to a decent restaurant. I would be embarrassed to tell you the daily rate of our hotel in Rome but it was the most that I have ever spent
- The Europeans seem to take terrorism more calmly than we do. The other night we came out of a restaurant to find the street corner cordoned off by tape (starting about 30 feet from the restaurant door) and five police cars blocking the immediate area. The restaurant manager said it was the result of a suspicious bag. The surprising thing was that the police let people stand near the tape and did not evacuate an open air restaurant just a few feet from the bag. In North America, the whole area would have been cleared. The clerk at our hotel described it as psychological terrorism and implied that it happened often.
One of the many excursions that she set up was a visit to the Bovington Tank Museum in southern England, near the town of Portland where our ship docked. The only word to describe the museum is overwhelming. There are several hundred tanks starting with the original ones from the WWI and including half a dozen German Tiger tanks, one of which is said to be the only operational one in the world. The only criticism that I can offer about the excursion was that we only had two hours in the museum and really needed about twice that. Surprisingly my wife who has no military background at all, fully agreed and was upset that there were whole sections that we didn't get to see including their restoration building. If you are in the vicinity, it really is worth a visit. See http://virtual.tankmuseum.org/.
Now for a few unrelated and possibly politically incorrect comments and anecdotes:
- Amsterdam has the most six foot tall good looking blonde women that I have ever seen in one place
- Italians really are some of the most pleasant and helpful people in the world, and this includes teenagers. We used the subway and the bus system several times in Rome and found that the young people always insisted that I take their seat when they saw that I was using a cane (hopefully this will end when i get a new knee in a couple of weeks)
- Food in Italy is extremely good; you can't get a bad meal there. Pizza in Italy is not at all the same as in North America. Typically it has a very thin crust and contains only a limited number of toppings; cheese and some tomato sauce and perhaps one or at most two other topping. Pepperoni pizza is considered to be an Amercian joke by Italians since in Italy, pepperoni means (sweet) pepper and not sausage
- The chaos in Spain's Catalonia region, which included Barcelona seems to be driven and supported mostly by very young people. We were on a bus in Barcelona that went through Catalonya Square in the midst of a peaceful demonstration of several thousand people. Most of the demonstrators wore the flag of Catalonia on their backs like a Superman cape and virtually all of them looked like they were university students. Apparently most older residents do not support separation from Spain and did not take part in the un-official referendum that was held the other day. Rumours have it that the State president intends to declare separation from Spain on Monday and I expect that he and all of his cabinet will then be arrested and charged with treason. I also suspect that they are going to do this in order to get arrested and become martyrs to promote the cause.
- Rome has the best looking women anywhere. Forget Paris or New York. Rome wins!
- There is so much beautiful architecture in Europe that it becomes commonplace. Buildings that in Ottawa would be considered an architectural gem are so common in places like Rome that they are ignored.
- I don't know how people can afford to live there. Gasoline is almost twice the price as it is in Canada and our gas is more expensive than it is in the USA. You have to take out a mortgage if you stay in a good central hotel in a major city and want to go to a decent restaurant. I would be embarrassed to tell you the daily rate of our hotel in Rome but it was the most that I have ever spent
- The Europeans seem to take terrorism more calmly than we do. The other night we came out of a restaurant to find the street corner cordoned off by tape (starting about 30 feet from the restaurant door) and five police cars blocking the immediate area. The restaurant manager said it was the result of a suspicious bag. The surprising thing was that the police let people stand near the tape and did not evacuate an open air restaurant just a few feet from the bag. In North America, the whole area would have been cleared. The clerk at our hotel described it as psychological terrorism and implied that it happened often.