Has it really been almost 2 years already? I really need to get a grip on my blogging, then.
I always had planned to finish off my vacation story before blogging about anything else, but I just never found the time to actually finish it off. More than anything, it has more to do with the fact that when I created my simple blogging system, I never expected to post as many photos as I have so far, which means that I never built in any image uploading/posting functions into it, or even a gallery function of any kind. The blogging system inputs pure HTML code and replaces only line breaks with the appropriate HTML codes for line breaks. Nothing else.
This means that if I want to insert any images, I have to resize them down to a more useful size (both as a thumb and as a “full” image”), then watermark them with my logo (to avoid too much stealing), then upload them via FTP, and finally insert the HTML code for displaying the image. For one or two images, that’s usually fine, but with vacation photos, this time numbering up to 55 photos, this steals a lot of time beforehand.
And if you look at the image gallery below…. yes! All that is hand-coded by me (using a text editor and a lot of copy+paste) to make it look like it does. And even then, I don’t always get it as good as I really want.
This also means that I’m putting off things like this until I finally cave in and get my ass in gear, to phrase it like that (American censors, go home). That’s exactly what happened to me today. I just couldn’t take it anymore, I had to get it out of the way.
I do have a more advanced content management system (or CMS) in the planning stages (some of the architecture behind it is more or less decided on), but since this is also something I need to do on the side of my day job, it could take weeks, months or even years to complete, although I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I know, I could probably go for something open-source and already out there (like WordPress or something like that), but I really just want something to call my own.
There’s not so much going on in my life of late (other than a slowly downturning slope economically the last couple of months, but I expect that to turn upwards in the next week or so – which has nothing to do with the next part).
On the positive side of my life right now, I’ve been working with a very sweet girl/woman called Kicesie (which, btw, is pronounced Kice-see, in case you’re wondering) along with a team of administrators and moderators to create a forum for her upcoming website (to be launched Soon™). I can’t go into more details right now, I can only say that it’s been fun so far, and it’s going to be fun seeing it take off once the website launch is in place. To say the least, we’re all excited. I’ll leave the full details up to Kicesie when the grand opening is closing in.
Anyway, to conclude where I left off about my vacation back in 2006, the trip continued on to an overnight in Leipzig (for July 10-11) the day after my last post, but not after spending a few extra unnecessary hours in Prague. Not by choice, mind you, but because we had managed to lock one of our room keys inside our apartment while checking out. We had two room keys, and had already gotten all of our luggage into the car. The keys were of the security lock type (T-shaped at the end), and the door auto-locks when it’s shut. One of the keys had been left inside the lock on the inside after everyone had left the room, and in the worst possible position as well; ninety degrees across the keyhole, and not alongside the keyhole, enough so there was no way to wriggle the key out of the lock on the other side. This also meant that it was impossible to push the remaining key in to the lock from the outside, and without both room keys, we couldn’t just check out of the room either. This also meant calling in a local locksmith to get the key out and get in to the apartment. Me and my mom stayed in the car, waiting for it all to pass, and I can tell you it was a very long wait. Just another dent in our vacation plans, I suppose (the first being a speeding ticket on the first leg of our trip). Anyway, after some hours of waiting and some more miserable hours driving, we finally arrived in Leipzig, where we got to this amazing luxury hotel called Hotel Fürstenhof. I tell ya, that is actually the first time I’ve experienced a hotel to look exactly as the pictures have promised. I’m also guessing that we came in during a low season, since we were told at the reception desk that they had upgraded our rooms. We were left speechless. If you ever come across a good deal on a hotel reservation site (like booking.com or hotels.com), I can absolutely recommend this hotel. At the time, I had paid about NOK 700 for each room, which is probably less than for a random “regular standard” hotel in Norway (or anywhere in Western Europe, for that matter). The only downside was that we were only staying for 1 night, since we had already a hotel waiting and paid for further down the road for the next night.
The next overnight stop was Schwerin (July 11-12, still in Germany), which was back to a “normal” hotel standard. The whole trip there was sorta pressing, and my mom had a small headache most of the way. Just after we had checked in and loaded our suitcases into our rooms, we heard several thunders, followed by a few hours of heavy, straight-down rain – which would rather explain that pressing feeling we had on our way over.
The next day, after a quick stop in Flensburg for our annual hoarding of alcohol and wine (way cheaper down there, as opposed to the heavily taxed alcoholic wine and liquor back home), we crossed the border into Denmark, drove all the way through this time, and ended up in Malmö just across the Swedish border for another overnight (July 12-13). The hotel we had prepaid for there was rather awful, though. I mean, we entered the reception desk on the ground floor, and after being handed the our keys, we were told the rooms started at the 3rd floor (!). For my mom, who’s highly claustrophobic, it meant she couldn’t just use the elevator, but had to get a set of keys to the “emergency stairs”. When we finally got to our rooms, which appeared to be a five minute walk between (roughly a 2 minute walk in each direction from the elevator), we found the room standard was pretty low as well. Judging by the looks of the rooms, I wouldn’t have classified it more than 2 stars, even though it officially had 3 stars. You can imagine we were pretty pissed. We decided to leave this hotel to find a different hotel instead, and after driving around for an hour or so, we ended up at The Mayfair Hotel (previously known as Hotell Tunneln). The rooms we had were at an OK standard, given that we were just spending a single night (I’m guessing we just took the cheapest rooms available, just to have somewhere to sleep).
The next stop we had planned was in Hamar, but our car engine was pretty much coughing and running at low power all the way to the Swedish border. You can imagine how tense it felt, considering how much we had in the trunk (alcohol over the limit), fearing that we wouldn’t make it across before the car broke down (considering that road assistance is free in Norway with our car owner’s association membership, but only once inside the Norwegian borders – outside Norway, it’s cheap, but still a price to pay). We barely made it across the Svinesund crossing station, though, stopping at the first gas station possible. Luckily, there was a new motel located off the main road called Svinesundsparken Motell, which was just across from the Shell station we had stopped at. After a station attendant and a car mechanic had looked at the car engine, it became clear that repairs needed to be done (I don’t remember the exact component that needed to be replaced, though). Considering the time was already around 4pm, we had no choice but to leave the car overnight. The car mechanic said he would come get the car at around 8am the next day (July 14, a Friday, no less), so we spent the night, got our car fixed, and were back on the road home.
And that, more or less, concludes the story of my summer vacation in 2006.
Eh, what the hell, I’ll throw in the photos I took on that vacation as well…
Photos (okay, so it became quite a few after all, though not as many as I should have taken):
A room at Langeskov
Rush hour on the German highways
Rush hour on the German highways
Rush hour on the German highways
Riverside pizza restaurant in Karlovy Vary (band and outside porch)
Riverside pizza restaurant in Karlovy Vary (entrance to the inside)
View of Grandhotel Pupp (from one of the river bridges)
View to the street (from the same river bridge) – my parents in the shot
My mom next to one of the large doors in Karlovy Vary
The Old Town of Prague
Evening view of some palace (I don’t remember which), still in Prague
Evening view of the Charles Bridge
Street performers near the Charles Bridge
Evening view from the Charles Bridge
Evening view of the Charles Bridge
Evening street view in the general direction of the small apartment hotel we stayed at in Prague
Walking around the Old Town of Prague…
Walking around the Old Town of Prague…
The Old Town Square of Prague
“House at the Minute” (Haus Minuta) – apparently, Franz Kafka’s childhood home from 1889-1896
Walking around the Old Town Square of Prague…
View towards the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square
Looking around the Old Town Square of Prague…
A closer view of the Astronomical Clock
An even closer view of the Astronomical Clock
Looking around the Old Town Square of Prague…
An even closer view of the Astronomical Clock
An even closer view of the Astronomical Clock
An even closer view of the Astronomical Clock (yes, it’s quite detailed)
A closer view of the Astronomical Clock
A close view of the Astronomical Clock
Looking at the Astronomical Clock at different angles
Looking at the Astronomical Clock at different angles
A sightseeing veteran car
Sure, we’ll take a sightseeing trip around Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague:
Sightseeing drive in Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague:
Sightseeing drive in Prague: The “cockpit”
Sightseeing drive in Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague: Hey look, an angel
Sightseeing drive in Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague
Sightseeing drive in Prague
The sightseeing veteran cars
The sightseeing veteran cars
The sightseeing veteran cars
The city hall, taken while waiting for the locksmith
My hotel room in Leipzig
My hotel room in Leipzig (towards the desk with my laptop already set up)
The bathroom of my room in Leipzig (yeah, I always take a picture of that for some reason)
Full view of the bed; items on the bed: sunglasses, room key card, towels in a bag and a bag with chips and soda bottles
A beautiful church we passed by on our way from Leipzig to Schwerin
A beautiful church we passed by on our way from Leipzig to Schwerin