The front left tire on my car makes a funny screaching noise when I make left turns. I had forgotten about that. I had also forgotten about about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ baby. And the fact that it’s not normal for men to wear capri pants.

It’s good to be back home in America, sort of. We arrived in sunny Newark yesterday afternoon after about 12 hours of traversing across the Atlantic. I’m wide awake now (it’s 6 am) but Jamie is still sleeping. Jet lag does weird things to her. She may just sleep until Thursday.

So in all, we visited eight countries on the trip — nine if you count our two hour stopover in the Netherlands. Jamie says that doesn’t count. I say it does, but with an asterisk. Heck, I walked through customs and they stamped my passport and said something to me in Dutch (I think it translated to “Welcome to the Netherlands. Go home and tell your friends that you’ve been here.”). That’s good enough for me. That brings my grand total of visited countries to 11 (including US and Canada). Sadly (for me) Jamie has also been to Austrailia, so she is proud to say she has been to 12. That’s OK. I just need to get to Mexico when she’s not looking. Then we’re tied.

So what will I do now that I’m back home in the US? Well, I have some contract web development work lined up with NJ.com, a company I worked for back in 1999. So that’ll keep me busy for a few weeks — and help to pay some bills. But not busy enough that I won’t have time to learn to play the banjo. That’s my goal for this fall: To acquire and start learning how to play this beautiful instrument. Why banjo? Well, I’ve seen a bit of the world and I’ve come to the conclusion that it needs more banjo. Sure, you know someone who plays the guitar, but how many banjo players do you know? Exactly. I’m just doing my part, here.

Tomorrow we return to the US of A. Crazy how this month flew by; it seems like just yesterday that we were sliding down sidewalks in Portugal. Now it’s time to go home and figure out how to pay the bills.

Anyway, Denmark has been great fun. This place has a great vibe. I don’t know if it’s caused by the hundreds of bags of Matador Mix lining the walls of the grocery stores … or the fact that they get to use an ‘a’ and ‘e’ squished together as an actual letter (æ). Whatever it is, it makes the country a rather enjoyable and relaxing place to visit. Copenhagen is a busy city, but it’s small enough that it’s managable and stress-free (at least for a visitor like me). You can get anywhere you need to go on a bicycle. And it appears to be the preferred mode of transportation. I’ve never seen this in any other city I’ve visited. With the exception of a drive to Hillerød to visit a castle, it seems like everything we’ve done has been five or ten minutes away.

Even Sweden is close. We took a train over the Oresund Bridge to spend the afternoon in Malmo with Annette. Malmo (they pronounce it Mal-muh) sort of like Copenhagen without bike lanes. Apparently it’s a bit cheaper too, so we stocked up on some licorice. I nearly had to take a knee when i tasted the salt licorice from a street vendor. It was stupid good.

So I should wrap things up here. It’s been fun posting items on this blog and keeping in touch with you all. Maybe I’ll keep this blog alive and chronicle my future travels between Montclair and Clifton and Bloomfield. Or not.

Take care and we’ll seeya in NJ sometime soon.

So what’s a trip without some Top 3 rankings? I’d do Top 10, or even Top 5 rankings, but we didn’t visit that many countries … and who would want to read it anyway? Maybe I’ll add some more later, but for now, here goes:

Best adult beverages:

1. Sagres Bohemia (Lisbon)
2. Carling Extra Cold (London)
3. Carlsberg Special (Copenhagen)

Best transportation:

1. Germany trains (ICE is their national network of trains)
2. London buses (they’re everywhere — with little waiting time)
3. Lisbon trolleys (hop on/hop off … SF style)

Best caffeine:

1. Barcelona (every cup was perfect)
2. Lisbon (dark and strong — like me)
3. Copenhagen (ahh, homemade)

Best cuisine:

1. Spain (tapas at midnight is a beautiful thing)
2. Germany (meat, potatoes, goodness)
3. Portugal (they put a fried egg on every dish — can’t go wrong)

Best desserts:

1. Denmark (come now…)
2. Portugal (tarts from Belem, pastries)
3. France (apple tarte tartin, etc … just don’t eat it on the Metro)

Worst odor on a human being:

1. Paris (Metro + hot day + Parisian = stank)
2. Barcelona (it’s hot there, but no excuse)
3. Lisbon (not toooo bad, but needed a third)

Worst odor not on a human being:

1. Cheese in France
2. Garbage day in Barcelona
3. The bottom of my backpack

Jamie’s favorite cities:

1. Paris
2. Brugge
3. Copenhagen

Tom’s favorite cities:

1. Lisbon
2. Brugge
3. London

Worst attempt at blending in with the locals:

1. Josh calling a waitress in Spain ‘Senor’
2. Jamie speaking English with accent to hide fact that she’s American
3. Tom blended in very well

Most English speakers:

1. Denmark
2. England
3. Germany

Best names heard along the way:

1. Flip
2. Gert
3. Bent

Here’s are some shots from England, Brugge, Berlin, Wittenburg and København.

We’ve arrived in Denmark, the last leg of the journey. We spent about eight hours traveling by train from Berlin through Hamburg to Copenhagen. At one point (at the very northernmost tip of Germany) the train actually rolled onto a ship and was ferried across the Baltic Sea. We were able to get off the train and walk around on the ship for the 45-minute crossing. Pretty crazy.

It’s nice to see family and stay in some comfortable surroundings. We had dinner (and licorice) (and Carlsberg) at Sonja and Stefan’s (cousins) house last night. I’m at my Aunt Inger’s place now, typing away on a keyboard that has fun characters like: æ, ø, å, £. So it’s all gøød. We’ll be going to Annette’s (cousin) church this morning and plan on going to Tivoli tonight. I’ll try and get some photos up later.

We arrived in Berlin yesterday and there was no room for us in the inn. Every hotel, hostel, b&b and closet in the city was booked for a music festival and the Berlin marathon which takes place this weekend. After searching the web for an hour (and fighting off panic), we were able to find three beds in a hostel in Wittenburg, which is about 30 minutes away from Berlin by train. We didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty much our only option.

When we got to Wittenburg, we discovered that the address of our hostel matched that of the Castle Church that Martin Luther used to speak in. Turns out, the hostel is IN the church’s living quarters. Not only did Martin Luther speak here, he nailed his 95 Theses on the door of THIS very building. He’s also buried here.

The bell tower of the church is right outside our window. The words “A Mighty Fortress is our God” is written on the very top of the tower in German. That phrase always sends shivers down my spine and seeing it on the tower (even in German) is quite moving.

The living quarters are pretty modest and seem to attract church groups. Right now there are about 75 or so little German kids staying here. We ended up eating breakfast (bread, cheese and processed meats) at the same time as these kids. They sang a song in German before the meal and continued to throw glances our way every now and then. A bizarre experience.

The town of Wittenburg is a little like Brugge in Belgium: beautiful (and old) buildings untouched by war, lots of cafes, shops, etc. These towns are a real nice change of pace from cities like Berlin and London.

We’ve had a few good conversations with travelers on ‘Reformation tours’, Apparently they (mostly older people) travel through Germany and Switzerland and hit all the historical Reformation stuff. These people must be fun at parties. We sat next to a couple of Americans at a cafe who lead Christian historical tours in different parts of the world. Strange.

We’re hoping to get back to Berlin tomorrow and then visit a concentration camp outside of the city. Then we head to Denmark on Saturday to stay with family. It’ll be nice to see some familiar faces. We’ve been talking nonstop about Tank Zollers and were able to connect to thekidstable.us to see the photos. We can’t wait to see this kid in person!

OK, talk to you from the motherland.

We’re back on mainland Europe after taking the Eurostar from London to Brussels. The trip was less than two hours. Outstanding.

We had about nine hours to kill in Belgium before our night train to Berlin so we spent the afternoon in a small village called Brugge (pronounced Broo-sh). It’s about 50 miles or so north of Brussels and is quite possibly the most beautiful village I have ever visited. It’s a medieval city that was spared during the wars — so the buildings, castles and narrow alleys have all been preserved. There are also canals flowing through the city, so it also has a bit of an Amsterdam feel.

I kid you not, I think there was smoke coming out of my camera. Each street was nicer than the next. Really impressive place. (So impressive that Jamie asked if we could move there. That’s huge, you know.) It was a totally unexpected sidetrip (someone in Josh’s hostel in London recommended it) and it turned out to be our favorite city so far.

Anyway, after a nice hot meal (it’s nippy in these parts now) of Flemish chicken stew and a couple local brews, we took the train back to Brussels and waited (a long time) for our night train. We attempted to walk around the neighborhood outside the train station, but it was a bit sketchy. A few too many shifty Belgians out there.

So Jamie and I have a cabin to ourselves (it’s an empty train) so it should be a comfy ride. There’s a sign at the end of our car warning us to keep track of which car we’re in. Apparently certain cars will stay in Hamburg while others will go on to Berlin. Hopefully we’re in the Berlin cars. If not, Hamburg it is. It’s all German to me.

We should pull into Berlin at 8am. I’m going to sit back and let Josh be our tour guide, since he speaks the language and has been there several times. Shoot, I hope he’s not in the Hamburg cars. Let me go check ….

More later from Berleeeen.

So we saw royalty today in London. Really, we did. Josh, Jamie and I were strolling through Kensington Park this afternoon when a helicopter hovered over our heads and landed a little ways away in a field (near Princess Diana’s old residence). We wandered over there and saw the Royal seal on the helicopter … and a bunch of London policemen sealing off the area. The pilot came out of the chopper and stood there for a while, apparently waiting to pick someone up.

Jamie, Josh and I proceeded to discuss what we would do if it were the queen. Do you bow? Call her ‘Your highness?’ I dunno. Well, it turned out to be Princess Anne. I’ve never heard of Princess Anne, but she’s a princess and flies around Londontowne in a helicopter, so that’s good enough for me. I took some photos, so I’ll get them on Flickr soon enough.

Anyway, the weather in London has been great. 70s and sunny. We took advantage of the great weather by watching THREE football (soccer) matches in pubs on Sunday. (I love my wife.) We watched Chelsea-Liverpool, Manchester United-Arsenel and then Barcelona-Racing at night. Brilliant day of footie, but LOTS of second hand smoke. Rich, if you’re reading this, Carling Extra Cold is the best beer I’ve had so far on this trip. And Jen (Zollers), we’ve hit Wagamama TWICE so far.

London, kind of like Paris, has been pretty low key. Just hanging around, eating good food, etc. We’re off to Brussels tomorrow. Don’t know much about the city so maybe I’ll read the guidebook a bit tonight. We’ll post more later. Cheers, mate.

We’re about to enter the channel tunnel on a Eurostar train — on our way from Paris to London. The tunnel stretches across the English channel and should take about 20 minutes to cross. Pretty amazing.

Paris was great. (It’s Jamie’s favorite city thus far.) I had been there once before but was excited about being there with Jamie. The city has a great feeling with all the cafes, narrow streets, French people, etc. We were a bit shell shocked by the prices ($7 US for a cup of coffee) but it was a memorable experience nonetheless. We didn’t exactly embrace the French menu, but instead took advantage of some ethnic stuff we haven’t seen at home.

On Thursday, we got Labanese take out and a bottle of wine and went down to the Sienne for a picnic with Josh and Evy (a friend Josh met in Rome). Evy’s a Norwegian studying and living in Paris, so it was fun to hang with a local. We sat on the side of the river and watched the river cruise boats pass by before heading off to a cafe for $14 drinks.

We ended up eating on the banks of the Sienne again last night, but with Turkish takeout and some Kronenborg. Jamie and I stumbled upon a harvest festival on the river, where we were able to sample some wines and desserts.

In all, it was a pretty relaxing four days. We avoided a lot of the touristy stuff (we only saw the Eiffel Tower from a distance) and basically just hung out a lot. We’re pretty sick of eating out, so it was nice to just get some takeout and eat it outside somewhere.

We had hoped to meet up with Doug (my brother in law) this weekend in Paris, but we ended up arriving there a lot earlier in the week. Oh well. Maybe we’ll meet him at Au Bon Pain in the mall when we get home.

Well, we just emerged from the tunnel on the English side. It’ll be nice to speak our own language (sort of) for a little while. Looking forward to dark beers, football and bad exchange rates.

More later …

OK, that last post was from an internet cafe. I was hoping to upload some photos to Flickr but couldn’t get it working. So I figured I’d return to the Palm handheld with the good old American keyboard.

So we’re staying in a hostel just up the street from Notre Dame in the Latin Quarter. It’s actually pretty laid back here — I suppose most people are back in school/work and only the slackers are out vacationing. The last time I was in Paris (in 2000) it was pretty crowded and hot. So it’s nice to be here later in the season.

Anyway, Jamie and I have a double room with a shared toilet down the hall. I take her to the nicest places. The shower in the room is just that: a shower in the room, tucked away in the corner. No shower curtain either, so water collects on the floor all over the room. Basically, this is a shower room with a bed, rather than a bedroom with a shower. But hey, at least it keeps the floor clean.

The cool thing about European hotel rooms is that nearly every room has an impressive balcony. Our room is pretty plain, but there are French doors (just ‘doors’ here) that open onto a pretty large balcony that overlooks the flying buttresses of Notre Dame. (Yeah, I know.)

We’ve also noticed the major price difference between Southern and Northern Europe. Drinks in cafes costs about $5 here. They were only $1 or $2 in Spain/Portugal. I think they charge extra here for ambiance/people watching. You could easily sit there and nurse that coffee for 2 hours and watch people pass by, so I guess it’s worth it.

Food is definitely an experience here — not simply nourishment. You can’t get coffee to go. You’re expected to go in and sit down. And you literally have to hunt down a waiter for a check. They expect you to sit and talk and enjoy. It’s kind of refreshing.

Jamie’s been a little sick the past couple of days (so maybe send up a prayer for her) but other than that it’s been a pleasant and relaxing experience here. The French people we’ve met have been extremely friendly and helpful. We’re hoping to relax a bit this AM and then go explore a bit more this afternoon and tonight.

Miss you all and we’re looking forward to seeing you all. It’s been real fun reading your comments!