On the Road with Rob and Jerry

I recently found myself in New Orleans for a pharmacy conference. While the conference was a bust, the city turned out to be a neat place to visit. For the first time ever while traveling for work my wife, Lori was able to join me, which made the trip all that much better. 

New Orleans is a lively place full of history and people with a lot of pride in their city. If you're looking for a place to have a good time at all hours of the day, then New Orleans is the place for you. I'm not the partying type, but I still managed to find things to do. Just walking up and down Bourbon Street watching all the weirdos was enough to hold my attention.

My days were spent on the conference floor, but the evenings were relatively free for Lori and me to explore the city. We stayed at the Queen and Crescent hotel, which was only a couple of blocks from Bourbon Street and the rest of the French Quarter, so that's where we spent most of our evenings. The hotel wasn't anything to brag about, but it worked for what I needed, i.e. a place to sleep for a few hours each night. 

The French Quarter is interesting place, and is where Lori and I spent most of our free time. It has a neat feel to it; lots of older buildings with brick architecture along with plenty of places to eat. Every time we asked someone where to eat they would point us in the direction of the French Quarter. We took their recommendations to heart and found some great food. 

The Food

I didn't have a bad meal the entire time I was in New Orleans. I ate red beans and rice with Andouille for the first time ever, had some awesome beef dishes, ate some unique deserts and my wife was in heaven with all the seafood dishes that were readily available in every restaurant we tried.

Some of the places I ate include:

Mother's Restaurant: Mother's was just around the corner from my hotel right in the path of my walk to the conference. While Mother's is nothing to look at, the food reminded me of my childhood; it was that good. Homemade jelly and biscuits, freshly baked ham, grits with everything and so on. I ate there three out of the five mornings I was in New Orleans, and I was never disappointed. The other thing worth mentioning at Mother's was the coffee. The coffee was strong enough to curl your toes, but it was good. Apparently restaurants in New Orleans like to put chicory in their coffee. I have no idea what the chicory is supposed to do, but it certainly adds to the flavor.

Cafe Du Monde: Cafe Du Monde is a historic place in New Orleans. They're open 24 hours a day, serve good coffee and Beignets (French donuts) covered with tons of powdered sugar and always have a line out the door to get in. My wife and I braved this place on a Saturday night. The Beignets were awesome and the coffee was great. In fact I liked the coffee so much that I bought some to bring home along with my souvenir mug. I must admit, the coffee is good when I make it here at home, but it was much better sitting at Cafe Du Monde eating Beignets with my wife. 

Red Fish Grill: The Red Fish Grill may have been the best food I had while in New Orleans, and that's saying something. My wife had the Red Fish and I had beef tenderloin. We also had some deep fried clams, which was interesting. I don't like clams, but I liked these things. If I had to describe them I'd say it was like eating a squishy buffalo wing. And to top it all off, we had their "world famous" chocolate bread pudding. It goes without saying that it was incredible. 

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The eating establishments mentioned above were the best places we ate, but a few other places I had a meal included Luke's, Walk-On's and The Palace Cafe.

Walk-On's is a sports bar down near the Superdome; good sandwiches along with about 40 big screens all playing sports. How could you go wrong?

Luke's was decent food. I had their "famous top ten burger". I've had better burgers, but I don't think I've ever had better fries. No kidding, they were that good. 

The food at The Palace Cafe was good, but pricey. It was easily the most expensive meal I had while in New Orleans. I'd certainly eat there again if given the opportunity.

Night Life

As I said previously, if you like to party, then New Orleans in the place for you. Bourbon Street wakes up around 10:00pm at night and gets livelier until the wee hours of the morning. My wife and I ended up on Bourbon Street almost every night. It's where everyone wants to be, so we were always with a group of friends. 

Bourbon Street is crowded with all kinds of people, both young and old, all just wanting to have fun. There's live music to meet anyone's taste as well as a host of establishments that serve every kind of booze and food imaginable. I heard cover bands for Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses and so on. In addition there were bars playing country music, jazz and just about everything else you can imagine. It was cool.

With that said, "the place to be" had to be Pat O'Brien's. Lori and I ended up in there a couple of times. It was always packed. The signature drink of O'Brien's is The Hurricaine, and everyone in the place had one in their hand. Me? Nah, not my style. I'm a Diet Pepsi guy myself, although I had to settle for Diet Coke at O'Brien's.

O'Brien's was also the location of the dueling pianos. My wife and I sat listening to the two piano players go back and forth one morning until 2:00 am. It was fantastic. People in the audience would write their request on a napkin, pass it to the pianist along with $5 and that was it, off they'd go. I would do that again. 

Other Tourist Stuff

Lori had a lot of free time during the day while I was at the conference. She went on two tours during our stay: a plantation tour and a general tour for points of interest in the city. She enjoyed both activities. I only wish I could have gone. 

NFL Football: Some friends of my company CEO had extra tickets to the Saints game on Sunday, December 4th against the Lions and they were kind enough to give two tickets to me and Lori. It was my first trip inside the Superdome. What an experience.

It was hands down the most exciting thing I did in New Orleans. I had a great time. The seats were in a prime location at the 40-yard line only a few rows up from the field. I could make out the faces of the players on the side lines. Yes, I was that close. The game was exciting as the Saints rolled the Lions 31-17, and the game was never that close.

Every time the Saints would score the stadium would rock out to "Halftime" by the Ying Yang Twins. It's a catchy toon.

The people of New Orleans love their Saints and the Superdome is a rocking place, especially when the Saints are winning. I would recommend that anyone visiting New Orleans during football season try to squeeze in a Saints game. You won't regret it. 

I had such a great time at the game that I'm thinking of rooting for the Saints from this point forward as long as they're not playing against the Cardinals or the Bears. I might even buy myself a Brees jersey; easily the most popular jersey in New Orleans by a long shot. 

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Summary

Overall I think New Orleans was awesome. I'd love to go back. There were a ton of things that I wanted to do, but didn't have time for. Like a river boat cruise, or a plantation tour, or a tour of the areas hardest hit by Katrina. I wanted to go look at the dyke system around the city, and so on.

Something to consider is whether or not the city is family friendly or not. I believe it is given the right approach. Obviously you'd want to keep the kids off Bourbon Street, but other than that I think my family and I could easily fill a week with great stuff to do in New Orleans. 

 

I arrived in Germany a couple of days ago from Paris by way of train to Cologne. I am here for Medica, The World Forum for Medicine being held in Düsseldorf. But that's a post for another time.  

The German countryside is can be quite beautiful. About halfway between Paris and Cologne I started to see sprawling countryside out my train seat window. There were rolling hills with green grass, lots of trees and an occasional grouping of houses. As I approached the city the landscape changed and became more industrial with lots of cement, building, roads, etc. Pretty much what you'd expect from any large city. 

I arrived at Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) where I hopped a secondary train to get to my hotel.

General info

As I mentioned above the Medica Conference is actually in Düsseldorf, but the hotels were sold out so we had to stay in Cologne at the Mercure Hotel. It's a decent hotel that backs up to the Rhine River, but there isn't much to see. The weather is kind of gray and gloomy; normal for this time of year I'm told. Anyway, it's not exactly a short hop to the conference from my hotel. In fact, I have to take a short walk from my hotel to the train station (about 10 minutes), where I then take two trains to the Düsseldorf Central Station (Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof) where I finally catch a subway to the Messe Center where the conference is held.

The first time I did the trip it took me two and half hours. Now that I've done it five times I've shortened it to two hours. The person from my company that booked the hotel must be laughing their butt off about now. Ok, you got me. Very funny; four hours a day in freezing weather moving to and from a conference. 

Onward and forward I suppose. The area around the hotel is what I would consider a stereotypical German village; in my mind anyway. Even though Cologne is a fairly large city with over a million people, I've been told by the locals that most of the areas like this one were small suburbs that have been brought into the city limits over the years. So what you get are small pockets of villages spread throughout the city. 

The small areas of Cologne like this one basically roll up the sidewalks at 6:00pm, which I'm told is normal. Forget to eat something? Ha, jokes on you. Actually there are a couple of places open until 7:00pm. However, I was told those places "are not run by German people". 

The main area of the city is a lot like many large cities in the United States. In fact, with the exception of a few minor differences, it would be hard for anyone to tell the difference in my opinion.

With that said, there are a couple of significant differences and one of those happens to be incredibly old, beautiful cathedrals like the one below. This particular image of the Cologne Cathedral happens to be a stock photo, but I have pictures that I will post later.

The Cologne Cathedral is just outside the Cologne Central Station, so I made it a point to stop and look around. It is absolutely incredible to see something like this up close. The scale of the cathedral is impossible to describe. You have to see it in person to unserstand what I'm talking about. Photos simply don't do it juste. I'm not exactly a world traveler, but in my life I've seen few things to compare to this magnificent building.   

The People

So far the People in Germany have been great. When they hear that I'm a stupid American tourist, they try their best to help, even when they have limited English. As with Amsterdam, I've found that many Germans speak at least a little English, which has been more helpful than you can imagine. It's been a much better experience than the one I had in Paris. 

It may sound strange, but I prefer listening to the German language when compared to French. French sounds so snotty, while German sounds very "working class" to me. I can relate to that.

Something else I found amusing was listening to little kids, i.e. 4-5 years old, speaking German. It sounds funny hearing such a harsh language coming from such small, squeaky voice. I enjoyed listening to it. It brought back memories of when my little ones used to sound like that. 

Transportation

The public transportation system in Germany is every bit as good as the one I used in Paris in my opinion; perhaps better. The stations and subways are clean and relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it. The people are helpful and the main stations have lots of places to eat and shop. Even though it's taking me a while to get to and from the conference, having the main train stations have made things easier. 

Food

The food in Germany has been a saving grace for me. Meat and fried potatoes. It doesn't matter what kind of meat you like because they have it all; beef, chicken, pork, fish. This is the kind of food I grew up eating, and I haven't had a bad meal yet. Of course I had to try "schnitzel", which reminded me of a pork chop that's been breaded and deep fried...mmmmm. The Germans sure know how to eat.

Most of the places I've eaten are what I would consider a pub (image below), which are quite common in the areas I've been. But that doesn't change the fact that they serve good food. I've also been told that the beer is pretty good as well. Apparently the Germans like their beer. They find it quite odd that I order Coke Light with my meals. They look at me with what could be best described as a cross between amusement and disgust. Fortunately the guys I've been with have put away enough for all of us. 

What about the cost? Similar to the United States in most regards. The cost of food in Germany was quite reasonable. My average meal ranged anywhere from 15-20 Euros; much better than France. 

Summary

Overall I've found Germany to my liking. I would like to visit Germany again, but next time as a tourist. I can see having a great family vactiaon in this part of the world. There are plenty of things to keep you busy as well as enough history to make it worthwhile. Maybe someday I'll have an opportunity to come back. Until then I'll simply say that it was a great place to visit. 

Oh, when I asked some locals what city would be best to visit, I was told Munich. 

I’m sitting on another “high speed” train headed from Paris to Cologne Germany as I compose this post. I’ll have to wait to post it as my wireless is sketchy at the moment. I’m in “Comfort 2”, which is general seating and the wireless isn’t free like it was in “Comfort 1” on the ride from Amsterdam to Paris. I find this a little odd as I am literally sitting 50 feet from where I was last time I was on one of these trains. Oh well.

Paris was nice.The weather was clear, but cold. The high for Tuesday was 37 degrees Fahrenheit. I certainly didn’t pack for that type of weather and basically froze my butt of the entire time I was in the city. 

The city feels historic; read that as old, which gives it a certain charm. The people however, are not nearly as polite as those in Amsterdam. They’re quite rude in fact. And you can forget about them trying to speak English with you. It’s a good thing that pointing works for most things, i.e. point at a menu selection or point at a location on the map. I managed to get by for a day and a half by trying not to speak to anyone. It worked ok, but I wouldn't recommend it long term.  

I stayed at Radisson Blu Le Metroplitan Hotel which is just a short walk away from the Eiffel Tower. They ran out of “regular” rooms so I ended up with a suite. It was pretty nice. I would say it was slightly larger than an average hotel room in the U.S., but significantly larger than the normal rooms in this particular hotel (the guy I was traveling with, Darcy got a normal room and it was tiny compared to mine). I would stay there again in a heartbeat, but you can be sure it won't be on my own dime. The room was 304 Euros per night (that's about $410 U.S.). Yikes! Fortunately I go where my company sends me, and this time they sent me to a really nice hotel. 

The food in Paris is definitely something that would take some getting used to; lots of bread and cheese. Coffee is totally different as well. When I think of coffee I think of drip coffee. What they serve is what I would call espresso. I couldn't find a regular Cup O’ Joe to save my life. Artificial sweetener was also extremely hard to find. It's pretty much sugar or nothing. [Note to self: throw a bunch of Splenda in my travel bag]. I started drinking my "coffee" with milk just to make it palatable. And how about some good old fashioned Diet Pepsi? Forget about it. I struck out again. I couldn’t find one anywhere. Ended up drinking Coke Light with meals. Throw that in with the French "coffee", bread and cheese and needless to say, my normal eating habits went totally out the window. 

I did get a little free time in the afternoon on Tuesday. I used the time to check out the Eiffel Tower. Since it was a short walk from the hotel, and the chances of me ever getting back to Paris are pretty slim, I figured it was something I had to do. The Tower itself is impressive. It’s quite elegant as is the surrounding area. Darcy and I decided to take a ride to the top so we purchased a couple of tickets (13.40 Euros each) and jumped on the elevator. I’m not fond of heights and quickly realized I had to stop at the second observation deck. Darcy continued to the top. From where I was you could see for miles. The city is much larger than I had anticipated and quite breathtaking.

After the trip to the Eiffel Tower I had dinner at Le Malakoff at 6 Place Du Tropcaero, a small streetside cafe on the way back to the hotel. I had a sandwich, a bowl of soup and a Coke Light. It wasn't bad, but it was expensive; about 23.00 Euros ($32 U.S.). They’re quite proud of their food in Paris.

I ended up back at the hotel around 7:30pm. Did a little work, answered some emails and was in bed by 10:00pm. I was up at 5:00am and headed for the subway. Paris has a robust public transit system, i.e. trains and subways, but the subway is like every other one I've ever been on; ugly, dirty and inhospitable. Two subway trains later we were at the train station where we had a little breakfast at a coffee shop and hopped on the train for Cologne. 

Overall Paris was a nice place to visit. Besides the language barrier, the look and feel of Paris could be any large city in the United States. Would I vacation here? Yep. I would love to bring my family to Paris for a vacation, and I think they would enjoy it too.

Tell you about Germany later. 

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I just arrived in Paris after spending a day in Amsterdam. I'm here on business, which makes it bittersweet. On one hand I get to see Amsterdam and Paris (and later Dusseldorf Germany), but on the other hand I'm here without my wife and daughters and that kind of sucks. Communication with them has been a real pain in the rear because I don't have an international phone. So far I've been limited to email when I can find wireless, and we all know how some people respond to email. I've tried to Skype with them a couple of times, but the time difference is murder (3:00PM in California now - the kids are just getting out of school and it's midnight here).

Anyway, Amsterdam was a dirty city with a weird vibe to it. Everyone smokes and you better watch your butt or your likely to get run down by a bicycle, which appears to be a popular form of transportation. I walked through the Red Light District just to say I've seen it. It was disturbing and depressing. It's sad to see that kind of thing in my opinion. Overall I didn't like Amsterdam. You can have it. 

I stayed at the Inntel Hotel Amsterdam Centre. Nice hotel. Small room, but it was clean, had a TV and free Wi-Fi. And the price was right; about 115 Euros a night. I'd stay there again if I ever had to come back to Amsterdam. The food wasn't what I'm used to, but it wasn't bad. Everyone wants to have beans with their breakfast. What's up with that. What can I say, when in Rome. 

Finding Diet Pepsi has turned out to be difficult and very expensive. They don't serve soft drinks on tap, so I've had to purchase all my softdrinks in bottles and cans. The bottles are 200mL, which is less than an 8 oz. can in the U.S., and cost 2.60 Euros. That's just over $3.50 U.S. a pop. I had 8 of them today. You do the math on that travel expense. By the way, it's not called Diet Pepsi in Europe. It's called Pepsi Light. 

The people are friendly enough and apparently all speak pretty good English. I feel like an idiot because I speak exactly one language; English. Kudos to everyone that helped me out. 

The train system is crazy good. I used it for a business meeting. I went to see a guy at a company about a thing (non-disclosure - bummer because it was pretty stinking awesome). I also used the train to get to Paris tonight; just arrived about an hour ago. I was quite comfortable on the 2 and a half hour ride from Amsterdam to Paris. They had food and drinks on the train along with free Wi-Fi, which I used for the entire 2 and a half hours. 

That's it for now. Tell you about Paris later. 

I recently took a trip to Chicago for a conference. Even though my brother didn't tag along I thought I'd mention some of the things I found interesting along the way.

The conference was the Sixteenth Annual ASHP Conference for Leaders in Health-System Pharmacy. It was held at The Westin O'Hare. The hotel was nice as hotels go, but overall it was overpriced. In addition the staff was a tad bit snotty. I've had better severice in hotels less than half the price.

Want to get something to eat in the hotel? Forget about it. They had a single restaurant. Because I was on foot I had breakfast there all three mornings I was in the hotel. The breakfast buffet will set you back $24 plus tip. That's a lot of scratch for some scrambled eggs, a couple pieces of bacon and a little coffee, i.e. my normal breakfast routine.

Fortunately there were some restaurants within walking distance. In addition, a friend and colleague of mine, Bob, happens to live in the Chicago area. He was gracious enough to take me to dinner twice during my stay. Those were certainly the highlights of my time in Chicago.

Restaurants worth mentioning:

Pizzaria Due - All I can say is wow. If you've never had an authentic style Chicago pizza, you're missing out. It was like nothing I've ever had. Is it better than the pizza I get in California? Impossible to say because it's so different. Bob calls California pizza "cheese and crackers", and I can see why. The pizza at Pizzaria Due was a solid two inches thick. It's a must if you end up in Chicago. Oh, and be ready for a wait. The place is insanely popular. 

Yep, we're on the road again. Just like Willie Nelson. Today's episode was recorded on the way home from San Francisco, yes again.

I think Jerry does a great job keeping me under control, but I pretty much rant and rave about Lodsys and their treatment of the iOS development community. I think there's a lot more to be said.

This time around we recorded audio only. I think that's the route we'll go from now on.

In this episode. (Approximate running time: 20 minutes)

1. Rant about Lodsys

OTRRJ.Episode2.VillainousLodsys.m4a

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P.S. - You can make this one a drinking game. Every time you hear villainous have a shot. Not really.

A little background is necessary, I think? Jerry and I have talked about doing a podcast off and on for at least a couple of years. We have great conversations every time we get together. So, on a whim, I whipped out my iPhone, started up the Super-8 movie app and started recording our conversation. This is the result, On the Road with Rob and Jerry.

I don't think we'll do very many of these, but who knows, I certainly don't, but I can tell you this, we will try to record our conversations whenever we get the chance, while we're on the road of course.

We'll need to get a better setup together. If anyone happens to watch this, or visits this page, please leave suggestions for an iPhone and Android Podcast setup. I'd like to go to a pure audio podcast, unless folks like the video?

In this episode. (Approximate running time: 12 minutes)

1. We talk about the status of Hashtag Fresno
2. Following on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/HashtagFresno
3. Code of Conduct - PDF
4. Pricing
   1. Individual Monthly: $29
   2. Individual Yearly: $299
   3. Cool Company Monthly: $299
   4. Cool Company Yearly: $2,900
5. Twitter Account - @Hashtag_Fresno

Enjoy, we had a great time recording it. It's raw and uncut. Please, be nice.

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