Lake Cumberland Kentucky!

I'm leaving for Lake Cumberland tomorrow morning with about 30 other people. We have two houseboats and two ski boats. It is suppose to be hot and sunny all weekend. I can't wait to get in the water!

Below are a few pictures of the last couple trips.


A little dish soap somehow made it into the hot tub!

The picture below is of Jason tubing off the top of the houseboat. That was several years ago. He is much wiser and more mature now....(sarcasm)


I'm sure I'll have a bunch of pictures to post and stories to tell after the trip.

Europe Trip (part 5 of 5)

On the way home we were flying out of Berlin Airport. So we took a train from Leipzig to Berlin for our last night in Germany. Below is a picture of the train station in Berlin. I think our tour guide said it cost 2 billion Euros.

We arrived in Berlin on Thursday afternoon and we were flying out in the morning so the best way to see all of the sights in the short amount of time was a tour bus. We found an english speaking tour bus at the train station. Below is one of the first sights we saw. It is Berlins Government building where the mayors office is.

The two pictures below are of a church in Berlin. You can see that the steeple is broken off and half of the church is missing. It was one of the very few things left standing after WW2. You can not see it in the picture but when you get closer the building is covered in bullet holes.


The picture below is the only remaining section of the Berlin wall

The picture below is a museum in the city square

The picture below is where many Nazi rallies were held and where Hitler gave many speeches. If you have ever seen any documentaries on the Nazi era you would have seen picture of Hitler giving a speech in front of this. There were large Nazi banners hinging from the top of the pillars.

Below is a picture of Checkpoint Charlie. It is the most famous checkpoint crossings on the Berlin wall. The west side of this check point was maned by Americans and the east side was manned by the Soviets. At this checkpoint American and Soviet tanks faced each other fully armed for many years. Luckily it did not escalate and no shots were fired.

The last two pictures are of another Church in Berlin.


Our tour guide also nicely pointed out the hotel were Michael Jackson became famous for holding a baby out the window. I didn't feel like taking a picture of that one

Europe Trip (part 4 of 5)

The three days in Leipzig I spent most of the day at the show we were attending. It was at the Leipzig fair grounds. When we got there it was not exactly as I would picture a fair ground to be.

The two picture below are of the main entrance structure that connected all of the halls. It is a steel structure covered in glass. As you can see from the pictures it is pretty large!


The picture below is a model of the entire fairgrounds. By comparing how big the glass structure in the center is to the pictures above it makes you realize how big each of the surronding building are. We spent 10 hours for three days walking the show and barely saw it all. To see every exhibitor you had to visit 20 exhibitors an hour for all 5 days of the show!

There was also an outside area for the larger areal trucks. One of the truck towers was so tall they didn't put it up one day when it was windy. (I guess they don't plan on fighting fires when it's windy?)


Below are some picture of fire trucks that were dislplayed inside. They are a little more advanced then the heavy metal firetrucks we see around here!

Europe Trip (part 3 of 5)

After we left Munich we took a train to Leipzig. This is where the show is at that we were attending. The train station in Leipzig is the biggest in Europe. Below is a picture of one of the halls in the train station

Leipzig was in former East Germany so it doesn't have the quite the culture as the rest of Germany. It was a little more run down but since east and west Germany joined in 1990 they have put a lot of effort and money into east Germany to bring it up to par with the rest of Germany. Below are a few pictures of the architecture.


Beer Garden!!!


The church below is where this guy named Johann Sebastian Bach was the cantor for the quire. You might of heard of him before?


Back at the beer garden!


Leipzig also has one of the largest college bars in the world. The college bar is actually a castle that was built in 1501 to protect the city. It was partially destroyed but rebuild by 30,000 students before it was turned into a bar in the 90's. It would have been awesome to pick up a German college chick in a castle but unfortunately I didn't have time to check it out.

Leipzig also has the second oldest and one of the largest zoo's in the world. I wish I could have made it to the zoo but once again not enough time. After all I came here to work... well sort of

Europe Trip (part 2 of 5)

The next morning we took a train to Munich Germany. We went through Austria on the way but only made one short stop there. We had our priorities straight because the first thing we did when we arrived in Munich is get a taxi to the original Hofbrauhaus!

No trip there would be complete without a couple beers and of course sausage and sauerkraut!



Below is a picture of the city center in Munich. I've been there several times when I worked at Airstream so I didn't take many picture this time.

The last two pictures are of St. Peter church. It is not a very large church but the detail and gold plating made it very extravagant.

Europe Trip Part 1

Last Saturday I flew to Geneva Switzerland for work. I went with two other guys. The show we were going to was actually in Germany but we did a little sight seeing first. We landed in Geneva Sunday morning at 7am their time. We had Euro train passes so we could jump on the train and go where ever we wanted. Instead of taking the high speed trains we took the slower more scenic train routes through the Alps.

Below is my first beer on the trip. It is a pils style of beer. It taste like Budweiser but is a little stronger. We were at a small train station waiting to change trains to go up in the mountains

The pictures below are from the train as we are going through the Alps. It was amazing and probably the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.




Below is a picture of a waterfall from the snow melting off of the top of the mountains. Some of these mountains have snow all year long.

Below is a picture of the inside of the train we took through the Alps. It is a really old train that has been restored. Some of the tracks were so steep you could hear the runaway catch "clinking" as we went up the hill. It sounded just like a roller coaster going up the first hill

More pics of the scenery

The pictures below are of a small town we stayed at in Switzerland the first night. The lake was warm enough to swim in but at the same time we could also see snow capped mountains. The water was like no other color I have ever seen.




I have four or five more post to about the rest of the trip. I'll try to post them as soon as possible

Germany

I just got back from dinner and it is 11:45 at night. I'm not going to have time to update my blog about the trip with details and pictures until I get back.

Quick Update:
Today is the first day of the show I came over here for. It is a firetruck and emergency vehicle show for all of Europe that happens every 5 years. I spent 10 hours walking the show today and only covered 1/5th of it. It is the biggest event I have ever seen!

The great thing about the show is there is free beer and bratwurst! The show got much louder as the day went on because there were 100,000 fire fighters drinking all day long.

Oh and there were topless girls handing out brochures for companies.... I LOVE Europe!!

Swiss Alps

I spent all day Sunday riding trains through the swiss alps. The sights were amazing. I have a ton of pictures but don't have time to post them today. I'm now at a hotel overlooking a bright blue lake that is warm enough to swim in but I can also see snow capped mountains in the distance. It's pretty amazing. Tomorrow we are going to Austria and then to Munich Germany. I try to post some pictures when I get time. It might have to wait until I get back