London and Dublin

Canterbury Cathedral

Friday, another easy flight into London City Airport. The city seems crowded and congested after serene Switzerland. After a cranky afternoon getting our Marriott room straightened out, we went out to fabulous weather and did a marathon walk through St James Park and down along the Thames, then up to Charring Cross for fish and chips.

Saturday we hopped a train for Canterbury. The train and the town were full of rotten teenagers with spikey hair and bad attitudes but we toured the spectacular Cathedral and walked around town. It’s totally tourist, with every shop and café themed around the olden days and Canterbury Tales. Full of local riff-raff. Then back to Victoria Station in London, where we raced back to our hotel and free glasses of wine.

Sunday we discovered a new area for us- Spitalfields and Brick Lane. It’s on the East End and full of Bangldeshis, Bohemian types and big street markets. Thousands out on the streets! It was very festive and fun. Stayed all day, toured a church, saw an old pub that Jack the Ripper met one of his victims in.

Monday, we opted NOT to take a train to Stratford but just stay in the city and roam around. So we walked across Hyde Park to the new Whole Foods, had pastries there, then went on to another new area for us- Holland Park. It’s lovely, there’s an actual park that is just beautiful and the residential area around it is wonderful. We decided that’s where we’d be living if we lived in London (and were billionaires).

Tuesday we flew to Dublin, where we met Hector's colleague, Terry, a fun Irish guy. He took us around to see Trinity University, The Guinness Museum, and then we had dinner at an historic Irish Pub named Johnny Fox's. We stayed at the beautiful Shelbourne Hotel in downtown Dublin. Back to London next day.

Thursday and Friday we just walked a lot, up and down the Thames Walk, toured fabulous Buckingham Palace, and had a final dinner with Marc and Al, who had just returned from Spain, where they are hoping to buy a home. They showed us pictures of a picturesque hillside estate in Southern Spain and now I just hate them. On the other hand, they said we could come stay in the guest house so maybe I don't after all.

Zurich

Zurich Old Town

Lucerne

Quick/easy/cheap flight on Airberlin to Zurich. The Marriott here is a bit old and run down but the spread in the Exec Lounge is to die for. Huge breakfast and huge evening snacks with free liquor and cappuccinos all day! There are lots of well dressed business people staying here. We walked around the historic district of Zurich the first day, which didn’t take long. Everything here is placed along the River Limmat that runs down into Lake Zurich. It’s really quite pretty.

Next day we took a bus tour with 5 other couples (Italian, Argentinean, Canadian, American) to Appenzell, where they make famous cheese and the natives are little ruddy-faced hobbits. The tour guide says they are the joke of Switzerland. But the area is gorgeous, all rolling hills and little Swiss cottages with dairy cows. The town itself is very quaint, chock full of tourists and all the little hobbit people snuffling around. Later we toured a rather dull chocolate factory and then drove back through the gorgeous countryside to Zurich.

Thursday, we decided at the spur of the moment to take the train to Lucerne, about 2 hours away. It’s beautiful too, right on the shores of Lake Lucerne with grand 19th century hotels and casinos lining the shore. Lucerne has more of a historic district than Zurich, which means there’s a lot to see, but also lots of tourists as well. Everywhere we’ve been, we’ve seen mostly European tourists. I guess the Americans are back in school and too broke to travel. We are definitely being frugal this trip.

Berlin

At the Reichstag

Holocaust Memorial

What a comfortable flight! San Diego to JFK, then to Brussels, (very nice, efficient airport) then on to Berlin. Comfortable bed-like seats on the overseas leg. American has spruced up their big planes. Immigration at Brussels Airport was so easy and friendly, very different than the assholes at U.S. immigration. Our Berlin Marriott was brand new and very nice, and the executive lounge was so well stocked and staffed that we didn’t even mind that we got a tiny room. So, our plan for this whole trip is to have 2 meals a day for free at the lounges. They do serve a full, delicious breakfast here, and then for dinner heavy hors d’oevres with our (free) cocktails! Take that, inflated euro!

First jet-lagged day in Berlin we did the double-decker city tour and strolled around nearby sites: Bradenburg Gate and The Holocaust Memorial. Out Marriott is right on the Tiergarten (big Central Park-style garden) so we went through there too but not sure how safe it is at night. Then, Sunday we walked hours up Unter der Linden street to Alexanderplatz to see all the old historic buildings. This part of the city was all East Berlin at one time and a lot of the tourist focus is on the history of the Nazis and the Wall, of course. There are still portions standing as a memorial.

Monday we went the other direction toward Charlottenburg. Visited the zoo, designed like a beautiful Hansel and Gretel fantasy and walked around the main shopping district. Then we went to the Reichstag, which was once the big Parliament building until it was burned during the War, now it is rebuilt as a combination of old remains and brand new modern design. It’s fantastic. Berlin is really clean and well-designed, so much was destroyed that they had to come up with new ideas to rebuild around all the old stuff so it’s a great combination of new and old.

Panama

Plaza Bolivar, Casco Viejo

Hector with Panama City in background

In Panama City now, on a work trip with Hector. Since it's summer, it's considerably more humid than when we were here in February. Every day it rains a bit in the afternoon. They've taken to referring to their seasons as the "Dry Season" and the "Green Season", which sounds a bit less wet, I suppose. Even with the humidity I like it here a lot. The people are very easy going.

Our Marriott is big and bustling, it has a nice gym, a lovely pool and, best yet, a casino. We went for dinner last night over to the old colonial part of the city, Casco Viejo, where things were pretty quiet. When we were here in February, they were filming a James Bond movie in some abandoned buildings down here. Panama is standing in for Bolivia, I believe, which is making the Panamanians irate. We caught no glimpse of Daniel, although we decided we might as well say we did. Who's to know?

We had planned to come home Thursday but decided to postpone a day so we could return through Dallas and avoid any weather delays that might stick us in Miami. That will give us a full day to goof off-- we want to go back to visit the Panama Canal.

Yesterday I took a taxi back to the hotel from a nearby shoppping mall around noon. The traffic was just horrendous- things would just stop dead for 10 minutes at a time and my driver was cursing at everybody and honking nonstop. The trip should have taken 10 minutes but took 40 and the poor old man was red and sweating, it had just stopped raining and I thought he was about to explode. At last we pulled up at the hotel and he turned around and looked at me like he was going to either kill me or start crying. I asked him how much and he said, "two dollars".