Louisiana and the Modern American Experience

No, this entry isn’t about a trip to the United States. Rather this is about my visit to the land of the $10 beers and $40 for a “standard” meal.

(But before I start explaining myself: sorry for not posting for so long. I’ve been traveling every weekend, for the past six weekends. I do have a ton of material, but almost no time to edit and post my entries. But most of the stuff is written down, so they’ll eventually make their way here.)

So where on Earth does wining and dining cost so much money? Given the pathetic fall of the dollar, it seems it could be anywhere. But we’re talking about Louisiana now… the one in Humlebæk, Denmark, of course.

Mostar and Kravica

So what happens when you’ve seen all there’s to see in Dubrovnik? Well, there’s Split to the North, but just that’s a bigger city version of Dubrovnik. There’s Montenegro to the South. But along the coast, (and also the most accessible part from Dubrovnik) the weather would still be the same. So that only leaves heading over the hills into Bosnia and Herzegovina. Car rental time!

Visting Dubrovnik

Just a few months ago, when a former coworker suggested visiting the Dalmatian coast, my response was WTF? Though nearly ten years have passed since the peace process started for former Yugoslavia, my mind still had all the negative associations of a war torn region (along with the horrors of ethnic cleansing.)

But little did I know how the locals have quickly recovered from the shells that landed in this ancient town. (No its not that old, but from an American perspective, it certainly is rather long lived.) Rival to Venice in past times, the city has a charming old, walled town where every building (and road) is made of stone and topped with a particular reddish tile. The place brought back memories of Old Jerusalem, albeit much smaller and placed on the coast; maybe even the Central Coast of California. Imagine a Hearst Castle built along the sea with a working port and town that needed defense (from elements other than questionable journalism ethics or the unwashed masses).

Getting a Haircut

Haircuts. For the most part, guys don’t really think much about this matter. For years, I lived off the $10 haircut from the “local minority owned business” or when to the local Supercuts. (Yeah, their call in service is actually valuable to me.) Just a part of the monthly routine like paying the bills.

But when you’re in a foreign country, it takes a couple more brain cells to consider the matter. Not only do you have find the businesses, do some comparison shopping, but explaining how you like your hair cut isn’t that easy when you don’t speak the local language. Yes, it’s true that most Dutch speak excellent English, but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t the occasional confusion. An the cost of confusion in haircut direction is a bit high. One can end up with a very unflattering appearance for quite some time.

For all this anxiety though, I forgot one of the most basic questions when it comes to patronizing a Dutch business: opening hours. I left my apartment at 4:15pm thinking that I could get a haircut easily. Wow, was I so wrong.

It’s not Silicon Valley…

…but come on.

I’ve finally had it with Vista’s slowness on my computer. I’ve already disabled Aero and still I spend many seconds waiting for the computer to become responsive. Maybe 2GB isn’t enough memory. Time for an upgrade. Nothing fancy, all I need is a simple 2GB 200-pin SODIMM of DDR2 667.

So I head into the center of town in search of a supplier. A rather sizable Good Guys/Circuit City type place didn’t stock any SODIMMs greater than 512MB. Fortunately I stumble across another store. Though its much smaller, it has a rather eclectic collection of computer hardware. Some of the stuff seems like it would be a worthy of a hobbyist type store back in the states (fancy heat sinks, fanless video cards, etc). I’m thinking that I could probably get it here (though it might cost an incredible amount of money).

Finding a Gym in Rotterdam

Today is a milestone! I’ve finally make it to the gym five times in the last six days since arriving in Rotterdam. Getting to this point took a lot more work that I expected.