It’s T-1 (day) until the trip starts! And as I sit writing this in a warm hotel room, it’s raining outside, the window is shivering in the windy, and wouldn’t be described as nice. I’m definitely thinking twice about my decision to camp...

The drive up to Astoria was beautiful. I-5 was much prettier then I remembered it. At least once we got north of the Central Valley and into the Shasta wilderness area. The sun was out, the weather was beautiful, and we made excellent time. We arrived at our destination for that night pretty tired, but got dinner at “Stacy’s Covered Bridge”, (which was awesome! And recommended by the people at the hotel) then went to bed.

Apparently I’m a sucker for advertising!

The next day we finished the drive to Astoria, in the rain. And that would continue all day. (It’s still raining now) We visited lots of state parks along the coast.

Ecola State Park - It’s wicked windy, and still raining. However, the beach was beautiful!

After Ecola State Park, we visited Fort Stevens State Park, which was full of bunkers that dated back to the Civil War! We would’ve had an awesome game of hide and seek if we had more people.

Dad in front of an old shipwreck at Fort Stevens.

The Jetty that guards the entrance to the Columbia River

A gun installed at Fort Stevens for WWII

Fun fact, Fort Stevens was attacked during WWII by a Japanese submarine. Later, after the war, the captain was asked about the attack. He said had he known the guns located at the fort, he would not have attacked. However, during the attack the Fort did not have permission to return fire.

After exploring Fort Stevens State Park, Dad and I went to church. It was a very nice mass. The church was beautiful, with the side facing the Columbia river being almost all glass. At the end of mass, the priest asked if there were any visitors in attendance and both my dad and I introduced ourselves. Then, to my embarrassment, my dad told the congregation that I was biking back to SF and asked the congregation to pray for me. On the way out of church it was still raining, and Dad made a comment about the rain. The man behind us commented “what ugly weather, just glad we’re not biking to San Francisco. Smart Aleck.

After church we went to dinner at The Buoy Beer Company. Food, pretty good, decent beer, good service, but the best was the view. The restaurant was in an old cannery right on the Columbia River. We got to watch some ships go by and see some others parked waiting for a pilot.

We’re back in the hotel, watching TV and resting. Dad leaves tomorrow at 5 or 6 am, and I’ll get going around 8 or 9. I look forward to it! But hoping for better weather!!

New vest given to me by some loving (concerned) parents.

The days are speeding closer and closer to my bike trip! As a final pre-trip, to make sure all my gear is in working order and I’m in good enough shape to do this, I biked out to “Coast Camp” in Point Reyes. I had a gigantic burrito along the way, got my butt kicked by the final climb, and ended up cooking in the rain, but as I write this in the warmth of my tent, listening to the call of birds and the roar of the ocean, I think I’m ready for the trip, and happy with the day.

The day started the previous night, getting all my gear packed. I was easily able to fit all my gear into two panniers and one dry bag, so I took the front rack off my bike. (#ultralight #itsalifestyle) Thanks to Mike (DSR) Cristian, I opted for a rear rack instead of a front rack, after reading lots of reviews of people online about what they prefer.

The morning of the trip to Point Reyes I did what everyone does before a bike trip, get a haircut. (A lesson learned from last trip.) I think my hair is the shortest it’s ever been (the hairdresser used a two on the side, but he’s pretty opinionated about my hair, so I trust him just to make it look good.) Post haircut I loaded up the bike, and headed off!

(Me post haircut, and as always no idea what to do with my hands.)

You’ll notice from the picture above that the panniers are definitely not full. I have a two man tent in there, sleeping bag + pad, biking clothes, warm layers, evening attire (aka clean clothes to sleep in, or go into town in) stove + cook gear, food, head lamp, water, and some miscellaneous gear. I’m not sure why I needed all 4 panniers when we went to Europe, but maybe I just have better gear now?

I took the Golden Gate Bridge out of the city, and got my picture taken in front of my bike by a nice French guy. He asked “Where did you come from?” and I had to sheepishly point at the city and say “there.” He followed up with “Where are you going too?” and I couldn’t bring myself to say that I’d be back tomorrow, so I just said “Portland.” That’s mostly true, right? We chatted a bit more, and then I rode off again.

I quickly entered Mill Valley, and then started slowly climbing towards the panoramic highway. It would be my first of three major climbs of the day. The road had a pretty small shoulder, but only one car didn’t give me plenty of room. He got a yelling at. Everyone else was plenty nice. Even got a shocka (did I spell that right?) from one car and a “hang in there” from another. (I don’t think I was looking that gassed, but apparently I was.) I took the panoramic highway up a little farther, and then flew down to Highway 1. (The 1, if your s Californian) The downhill was a blast! Cornering a loaded touring bike is a bit of a chore, but definitely do able. Being that no cars ever caught up to me on the way down, I must of been doing pretty well.

After getting on the 1, I quickly entered Stinson Beach, and stopped for lunch. A picture of the restaurant is below.

The restaurant serves the biggest (and probably most expensive) burritos I have ever seen. The burrito was about 14 inches long, and had an oval diameter of 4 inches by 2 inches. It was huge. I finished it all though, guess I was pretty hungry, but my body was not too happy with me for the rest of the day.

From Stinson Beach I followed highway 1 too Point Reyes. I stopped at the visitor center to request a last minute campsite, and was given a site at “coast campground” which, as you might guess, is on the coast. Thinking I was almost there, I filled my water, used the restrooms (thanks to that burrito), bought a beer (oops!), and took off in high spirits. Unfortunately, I did not realize I had one more hill to do.

Being Point Reyes, you have to go up and over a ridge to get to the ocean. I did not remember that, but will in the future. I likely was just tired, but it was about a 4 mike climb that seemed to take forever. I thought a few times about just going back to the visitor center and asking for a closer campground. But, alas, making me very happy, the road started to level, and then go down, and I was able to fly downhill.

I pulled off at the Point Reyes Hostel (probably should’ve just stayed there, they had room, but oh well), filled up my water once again, and rode the last 3 miles on a gravel road into camp. Luckily, the rain held off just long enough for me to setup my tent, so all my sleeping area is dry. However, I ended up cooking in a down pour. It seems like a storm system just moved in off coast. After dinner the rain lightened, and I got some nice sunset pictures before headed to bed!

Tomorrow will be back to SF, drinks with some friends, and then getting thoughts of sleep to start my trip on Friday! I’m looking forward to it!

(Addendum) The ride back was much better! I’m having a hard time figuring out how to deal with the temperature, sweating bullets on the uphills and freezing on the downs, but I had a fantastic ride back to SF. On the way back I stopped at a place called “Sol Food.” They served Puerto Rican food, and it was absolutely amazing! I’ll definitely be going back! Here’s a few bonus pictures from the past two days:

Waves breaking from the campsite

View from the panoramic highway

San Francisco looking good!

Hey, you see that cow?...

Fort Bragg! I’ll be coming through there later

It's been a fun week since the last post! Lots of food, plenty of work, and sight seeing on the weekend. The weather this trip has been just about perfect for exploring the city. The leaves are changing colors, the sun is out most of the time, and the air is crisp and cool. All in all, I couldn't ask for more.

I started working in the Bucharest office on Monday. It is a very nice office building, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures. Luckily, the opening of the office got a good deal of press, and you can read an article about it.

On the week days, it's been hard to get out and do much exploring in the town. That's because the end of the work day in Romania is around 8 or 9am in San Francisco. So, just when you're ready to go home, people start coming on line and asking you questions. That's led to some late nights at the office, but that is the reason I'm here anyway.

Dinners in Romania are interesting. Normal dinner time is around 8-10pm, and when going out to dinner it's expected you'll stay awhile. For example, when trying to go to a restaurant at 6pm you may be told that all tables are reserved, even if that reservation is starting at 10pm.

The food has been a mixture of traditional Romanian food, as well as random suggested restaurants. (Ironically, burgers are very popular here. Much like the craft beer scene in the U.S., everyone is trying out different places burgers.) I've been out to different restaurants every night, some times with just Sam, other times with people from the Bucharest office. Overall, the food has been excellent.

Alright, to the fun stuff, the weekend. Saturday, we went to The Village Museum. The Village Museum is an outdoor museum of old houses in Romania.

It was very interesting to see. They had description (thankfully in English and Romanian) about the house, and how and why they were constructed. They also had old village churches and lots of exhibits on tools used in the 1800s and 1900s.

Pictured above is an old washing machine. You would place woolen garments in the cone (obviously without the leaves) and then redirect water from the river down the chute. That would cause a vortex, which would make your clothing spin. Similarly, there was also a dryer

which would be attached to a water wheel, that would turn the dryer.

It was fascinating. Below is a description of how the washing machine worked.

And another on how a press worked.

Below is a picture of the kitchen area in a home from the 1800s, look at the size of the chairs!

There was a good amount of time spent at the museum, exploring and looking a different buildings.

After the museum, we walked around a nearby Herăstrău Park, which was absolutely beautiful. The leaves were just finishing falling, so the colors lit up the sky. The picture at the top of this entry is from the park. There was a really nice skate park in the park, with kids on scooters trying to do tricks (I was very impressed with their effort, although I think my cousin Josh would've given them a run for their money), families walking through the park, and kids playing soccer in the open areas.

That picture is probably my favorite from the park. It was gorgeous.

After the park, we stopped for what I hoped would be a quick lunch, but nothing about food in Romania seems fast, so 2 hours later we walked out of the restaurant, and continued our day. We quickly saw the Arcul de Triumf, which was basically the same as what they have in Paris, but nothing too special.

With that down, and sleep deprivation coming up on me fast, it was back to the hotel for a quick nap before a late night dinner.

Saturday night, we met up with some co-workers from the Fitbit Bucharest office at Hunal cu Tei, (The Liden Inn), for dinner. We got ribs and some local Romanian beers! It was a fun night, and we learned lots of interesting facts about the country. I think I'm more up to date on Romanian politics at the moment the U.S. politics.

Sunday we started our day with a tour of the palace of the parliament. The palace of the parliament is the second largest office building in the world, second to the pentagon, so the tour was quite interesting. The building was built during the communist era of Romania, and today most of it goes unused. Apparently, the yearly maintenance cost of the building alone cost 50 million euros.

To give you a perspective on size, this is not the front of the building, it's the side. The tour was only an hour long, and consisted of only 4-5% of the building, but the inside was very ornate. Aside from the occasional bare wiring going up grand marble staircases, some cracking marble, and peeling paint, the place was incredibly beautiful.

This an a conference room in the palace that was original built as a theater. It would definitely be a beautiful theater if it were used as such.

That is the chandelier in the theater, which weighs five metric tons! Changing the light bulbs in that must be quite difficult.

One of the most interesting rooms in the building, to me, was the "human rights" room. It was original built for the communist party leaders to have discussions. A custom built circular table circles the room, with a speed camera in the middle to rotate to whom ever is talking. Unfortunately, the room is rarely used. The most prominent usage was for a NATO summit.

After the tour, we briefly stopped at the contemporary art museum which is in the palace of the parliament. I definitely enjoyed the artwork. Here are some pieces that I liked:

Following the contemporary art museum, we went to the Technological Museum, and this time were there well before they closed. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed to be taken inside the museum, but they had very cool exhibits. The entire museum was built on an old powerplant, which remnants have incorporated into the museum. There's all types of tools, from roman times to modern day. They have the whole history of electricity on display, as well as engines and motors. You can see the inside of the old electrical generated the used to be in the building. (It's gigantic!)

As a final stop for the day, we walked to some street vendors in Carol Park (which is right next to the technology museum) and I ended up buying a chess set for park home. At this point, we both went back to the hotel for a breather. Sam wasn't feeling great, so he stayed in the hotel, I wandered through the city.

Bucharest is an interesting city. It has some very nice areas, and some very run down areas. However, the city seems very safe. Apparently, a few years ago they had a problem with stray dogs in the city but we've only seen one or two since we got here. There's graffiti everywhere in the city though.

Those two pictures are taken in regular neighborhoods. Even their university buildings have it!

Then, back to the hotel for some more rest, and writing of this article. So far, I've been very impressed with Bucharest. Tonight, hopefully, I'll catch up on some lost sleep. Looking forward to the coming week!

Today was a whirlwind tour of Bucharest. We tried to see the remains of a sorcerer, turned Catholic saint, turned actually not a Catholic saint, but being Sunday, there was Mass and we didn't go. We ended making it to the National History Museum, however, as well as Carol Park and saw the outside of the Parliamentary building. We had lunch nowhere special, then tried to visit both the technological museum and the contemporary art museum, but both were closed. We went back to the hotel in shame for a brief nap, before going on what would have been an excellent date night. (Make sure you read to the end to see all the details!)

Step one of our day was to try and stop at a place where the remains of a "sorcerer" turned Saint, turned maybe not a Saint a few years ago, remained. But, those remains were in a Church, and it's Sunday morning, sooooo. (Actually, I'm kinda bummed I didn't go to church. I'd like to, so I can see a mass in the eastern tradition. I didn't think of that until it was too late. I'm still very jet lagged, and forget it was even Sunday!)

The history museum right next to the church, and it was kinda of bummer, but still pretty good. It only cost 10 Lei (like $2.50) to get in, and starts with a Roman exhibit.

That was pretty interesting! But I don't remember a ton from that section. The most interesting section was on WWI. Romania sided with France/Great Britiain/Russia in World War I, but was pretty much cutoff from all of those countries, and got fully occupied. It sounds like a pretty sad day in their history. They were not treated well by the German/Austro-Hungarian invaders. However, their queen at the time, Queen Marie, seems pretty amazing. She would go to the front lines to encourage troops, and would visit hospitals to see the wounded. It sounds like this was fairly routine for her to do, which is quite incredible.

Second, we went to go visit "Carol Park." On our way, we walked in front of the Parliament Building in Bucharest. The building is huge, the second largest office building in the world (after the pentagon)! That's the cover photo of this entry. We'll likely try to get a tour of it later. In the park there's a tomb of the unknown soldier equivalent.

It was very beautiful, and guarded at all times by Romanian soldiers that were standing perfectly still (with what was probably their commanding officer coming to check on them from time to time, it looks exhausting). The park was really nice, and it was nice to see so many people out an about. There were families walking through the park, kids playing soccer, other kids using the hills in the park as bike jumps, and some very wise in age folks just sitting on park benches. There was also a lake with row boats in it, which looked very romantic. But I think it was closed for the season.

After Carol Park we got lunch at a restaurant. It was nothing too special. I ordered what I thought was a stew, but instead it was a meat + grilled veggies plate. It was alright, but not great.

After lunch (it was now around 4), we tried going to the technological museum, but that was closed. On the way we saw this beautiful old building. We weren't sure what it was, but it may be an old powerplant.

Discouraged, and tired, we went back to the hotel and decided to nap for 2 hours before going to dinner. (This jet lag is hitting me hard, I was super tired all day). Sam ended up sleeping for 2.5 hours, before I called him to wake him up. I found a few places that looked good for dinner, so we went to go try them. Thus began our "date night."

On our way to dinner, we noticed lots of police activity, people carrying Romanian flags, and some chanting. We'd find out later that there was a large protest about de-criminalizing corruption in Romania. Had we known, we'd of liked to go take a look. However, back to dinner.

The first place, "The Artist", was trying to be "hip and cool". They asked if we had reservations, we said no, and then they just "couldn't seat us". There was no wait time given, but there were definitely tables available.... We're going try going back again later, but now are not going to try and make a reservation. Instead, we went to "Upstairs Rooftop." (We've seen quite a few restaurants around here have English names. Maybe we're just going to very touristy areas, but it didn't seem like it.). The "Upstairs Rooftop" was very good, and the waiter helped me pronounce what I was ordering, which was nice. I ended up getting a salmon dish (I'm already pretty sick of meat + potatoes), and Sam got a chicken dish. The food was very good, the drinks we ordered not so much.

After a nice dinner, we walked back to the hotel. On the way back, I spotted a guy walking into some building that looked like an exhibit with a beer in hand. So, of course, we went to go check it out. It was a bit weird, we entered the building, and there was no one there, just a staircase up and some postcards. We walked up the stairs, and saw a table. A nice man working the table (probably a student) spoke excellent english and explained it was an exhibition of the history of discotech in Romania.

The exhibit was pretty neat. It had some artifacts from the "era" (actually just a few years ago). There was a video explaining the history of discotech, and to top it off, there was a live DJ playing music, and a dance floor with people dancing. It looked like a lot of fun! I'm not quite sure what this sign says, but the girls in front of us took a picture if it, so it must be something cool. :)

We exited the exhibition, and tried once again to go back to the hotel, but Sam noticed a craft brewery that we were walking by. Having a bit more time before we really needed to go to bed, we went into the brewery. Probably the best beer I've had so far this trip. And it's about three minutes from the hotel.

All in all, an excellent day! We've been loving Bucharest so far!

Today was rather uneventful, so I'll keep this brief. We woke up this morning at 8:30 at Michiel's and Maureen's with Matt saving us for oversleeping in the wonderful bed we had. We had a breakfast of bread, cheese, and juice, said our goodbyes and thank yous, and headed for the train. It was rush hour in Amsterdam (although we're informed that it's holiday season so most people are out of the city) and we were fearful for our lives that we were going to get hit by s bike.

The train was a little late, but we made it to Schiphol no problem and began the fun process of getting our bikes up to departures. The lift was broken, so we had haul our bikes up a little ways, then got carts and took the lift up to departures. We decided that we probably couldn't get out bikes through the maze at the aircanada desk, so we asked them what we should do, and they let us cut the line and just bring our boxes to the front.

Unfortunately, their computer system is terrible, and it took the three of us 40 minutes or so to check in. Luckily, the agent working with us was pretty cute, so we didn't mind. After we got all the baggage issues sorted out, we were clear and free, and boarded without any issues.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful, and we landed a little early. For the last time, we moved our boxes around in the Toronto airport through customs. We're now sitting in the Toronto airport waiting to board our plane. We can't wait to get home.

It was quite a trip. Some of our favorite things were: the mountain karts in Innsbruck, the lunch at the top of St. No ritz, and we're getting on the plane. It was fun.