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zelatore
04-27-2010, 05:47 PM
...that the smoke monster from Lost lived on Iceland and was trying to get out through a volcano?

My little trip to Austria got extended and I ended up spending an extra week in the Munich area. I'm only back to work today. Got a lot of reading to catch up on around here....

As a side note, I'll say that the food in Germany didn't do much for me, but I don't think they know how to make a bad beer!

CaribouLou
04-27-2010, 06:02 PM
:beer: is my best friend

Last Real Texan
04-28-2010, 06:36 AM
I was in the north of France on the wednesday that the beast let go...had a flight out on thursday that was cancelled and decided to wait another day before doing anything. Friday came along, went to the airport in Brussels...flight cancelled, said I have had it and went and rented a car and drove the 900 miles to Barcelona and flew out on saturday morning.I was back stateside saturday afternoon by 2 pm. I have two friends who are delta flight attendants that were stuck in Brussels for 5 days...
Glad to hear you made it home safe...an extra week in Germany well that's just Priceless.....

Tex

The Hedgehog
04-28-2010, 07:54 AM
Glad ya made it back.

I actually like the German food. Beer and weinerschnitzel!

CJmike
04-28-2010, 08:14 AM
Glad you made it home. I was wondering if you weren't stuck over there. Hell of a place to be stuck. :pimp:

See you in a week or so.:kingme:

zelatore
04-28-2010, 11:53 AM
We had been in Austria for a week but hadn't watched any news at all. The day before we were to leave I had gone alone to the BMW museum in Munich for the day and ran into a couple from Boston who commented that they had just got in before the volcano erupted, and I might want to check with my airline (delta) if I was supposed to fly any time soon. However, I blew a tire on the rental car on the way home and in the frustration, forgot all about it.

The next day when we showed up at the Munich airport the place was a ghost town. The entire Delta counter was empty. We eventually checked with a a KLM counter and found out what was going on. After about an hour, we were rescheduled on a Wednesday flight. We checked availability of rooms at the airport hotel; they had less than 10 rooms at over 300 euro/night. Er, no thanks. Instead we started trading out Marriott points and booked a room about 10 minutes from the airport. Then we tried to rent a car... By now, there were big lines at all the desks and they were putting up signs saying 'no cars without prior reservation'. We ended up getting a car at Sixt. The girl at the desk said something like 'I'm sorry, but all I've got is an Opel Corsa'. The tone was so appologetic I asked 'what's an Opel Corsaapologetic?' to which she responded 'small'. Hey, I'm fine with small. Besides, it didn't seem I had any choice. the price: 200 euro/day (!) But we took it anyway.

Now, I'm sure if you buy a higher end version, the Corsa is a perfectly adequate car. But if you get the 3-cyl, 60 hp rental special, it's not. I had no idea that you could buy a new car that was this bad. I later looked up the specs. 0-60? about 15 seconds. Top speed? about 100 mph. You literally had to drive it wide-open at all times, and the little 3-pot sounded ... well, it sounded bad. (let's pause for a moment to consider that my bike also has a 3-cyl motor that is both slightly larger in displacement at 1050cc, and makes approx. double the hp).

Later, after crashing at the hotel for a few hours I got on-line and found that the same company (Sixt) a 116 BMW for about 70 euro/day if I went downtown instead of from the airport. I promptly exchanged the crap-wagon for the little BMW. While a 1.6 liter 4 certainly didn't set the world on fire, it did demonstrate that even the worst BMW is far better than the average car!

Our Wednesday flight was again canceled. After an hour on the phone with Delta Wednesday, they were unable to find us a flight from anywhere in Germany. We considered driving almost anywhere in Europe for a flight, but the drop-off fee for the car in anther country was just a tad steep - 1500 euro. Er, pass. The best we could do was a flight Friday morning out of Milan. We ended up taking a train from Munich to Milan, then hopping another train to Milan central station, then taking a bus to the airport, then a cab to a hotel for a few hours sleep, then a shuttle back to the airport, and finally got a flight to Atlanta and then on to SFO. From the time we left Milan it took about 45 hrs total travel before we got home. It was....special.

On the plus side, since we had extra time in Germany and plenty of Marriott points to burn I got to take in the Porsche and Mercedes museums as well as Nueschawnstien castle and the Hoffbrauhaus. So it's not like it was a total bust. :wink:

CJmike
04-28-2010, 01:16 PM
On the plus side, since we had extra time in Germany and plenty of Marriott points to burn I got to take in the Porsche and Mercedes museums as well as Nueschawnstien castle and the Hoffbrauhaus. So it's not like it was a total bust. :wink:


Gotta love those ruined vacations.

gcarter
04-28-2010, 01:21 PM
So you're working???????????????????????

zelatore
04-28-2010, 02:53 PM
So you're working???????????????????????

Sort of...

I'm still at the same dealership, but I'm no longer on any regular salary and have no staff. I'm running all our service related stuff on a commission basis; basically, I'm splitting any income between them and me. It's enough to pay the bills, but only just.

I've got a few resumes out and I've been keeping my eyes and ears open but I haven't made a huge effort to find anything else. Most of what I've seen hasn't been very exciting. I'm in a good position in that Michele is pretty solid with her current job and I know that even if it all falls apart for me it's not like I'll go hungry or be out on the street. Of course, I won't have any toys either, like that blower motor for the Donzi or a Rubicon for playing in the mountains or a new bike or a Lotus for track days or...

I shot a few pics while at some of the auto museums I thought you might enjoy, George. I'll post them on a new thread.

gcarter
04-28-2010, 03:24 PM
Hey Don;
Google "statutory non-employee" which is a relatively new IRS classification for contract employee that protects your employer, allows you to not have to be available to other people, be exclusive to the dealership, and be able to deduct all your expenses.
I think that any other way gets pretty sticky....

zelatore
04-28-2010, 06:55 PM
I'll look into that. Thanks.