Segways in Chicago

As part of the 'tourist thing' in Chicago of course you end up doing at least one sightseeing tour. An interesting twist of that is doing this tour on top of a Segways, these little two wheel balance controlled one-person transports. I ended up in a group of eight people following our tour guide like little chicken following their mother goose. A quite funny sight by itself I thought..



Controlling these things is really easy. An older lady in our group was very terrified of these things which are a bit awkward to mount but in the end she outrun us all and even went off-road. Here you see me in front of the beautiful skyline of Chicago. A fantastic place to do your Segway tour which saves you a lot of walking... by the way, these things are quite quick with a top speed of 20 km/h (12.5 m/h)!


And of course we had plenty of breaks like this one at the modern stadium of the Chicago Bears football team. I thought it is funny how we parked all in line there.

As I said... great fun and very easy to learn. When you are around in a city with a Segway Tour go for it, it's well worth it. Only downside is something quite obvious... you are riding on them while standing on top of it. After three hours your legs are a bit heavy ;-)

O'Hare International Airport

As most of you know I went to Chicago last weekend and had a great time over there... but first things first, as most of my fellow tourists I took the plane and my first impression of Chicago was the O'Hare International airport. I was greeted by this fella on the left and started to wonder if this is a passenger still waiting for his/her connection flight?!




Anyhow... the signage is a bit of a mess over there so I wasn't wondering that much about this incident back in the terminal (the skeleton).
But even though the signs were pointing most of the time in confusing directions they got one thing straight: signs for the escalators! Which might come handy to locate the escalators in a big terminal but in a small hallway it is a bit over the top.



Especially if you are on a very long escalator which is basically heading only in one direction... putting a sign on the bottom of that is like telling you: '... just in case you were wondering where you are heading... it is DOWN'







Well, you would think it is getting downhill from there but I was pleasantly surprised by their restrooms. Jacks which are changing a clear foil underneath your bum leaves a clean feeling. I hope nobody heard me taking this picture though :-)

First Snow

Well... it is not like we weren't warned. The weather forecast over here was insisting for days now that it would snow in downtown Denver but it is not like they weren't wrong before... in fact the weather forecast is as reliable as the one in Ireland. But to be fair now Ireland is a different matter because of the Atlantic ocean etc. Over here it is just most of the time wrong.



So I really didn't expect snow on Sunday afternoon when I finally opened my blinds and found the white snow cover outside. Not really sticky stuff but still nice to see. Not to drive through, though. Anyway, I guess that means we have officially winter from now on not only in the mountains. I better get my ski gear ready for the blizzards to get to work ;-)

Mythbusters

As you already know from my profile I am not really big into watching television, with one exception: Mythbusters! Since my time in Ireland I really enjoy this show; every Wednesdays night here on Discovery Channel. As this show is filmed in San Francisco I had to visit the Mythbusters there too. Unfortunately gazillions of fans might had the same idea what would explain this sign ;-)



But endurance is paying of and so I was able to meet Tory leaving for his lunch break. He is a really nice and down-to-earth guy and I enjoyed speaking with him. And to make this an unforgettable fans-moment his girlfriend took a picture of us both. Fantastic!

If this post left you asking "What the f***?" these links will help you:

What's Mythbusters?
Who is Tory?
Official Webpage

This was the conclusion of my journey to San Francisco! My next trip will bring me to Chicago so stay tuned :-)

A day in the tank

The days are getting shorter now, it is getting colder outside and it rains a lot... the perfect time to see more water and some fish in it, in the Denver Downtown Aquarium. A very nice place filled with lovely little fishy like Nemo and his buddies on the left.



But also more nasty fellas like these Piranhas on the right. Lovely guys who can eat through to your bones in a matter of seconds. So I was very surprised that their tank was more-less freely accessible... for tall 6"6' Germans that is ;-) Well here you can see me bravely facing them with my finger. What you can't see is that these three fellas closest to the finger stirred at it like they just had seen lunch!



Much friendlier were these fellas in a kind of petting zoo for fishes... stingrays eating fish out of your hand! Funny is that they really have teeth and were going for it as you can see! At least they tried to finish the Piranhas job ;-)







But revenge was mine! After watching some nice and shinny jellyfishes it was payback time... in the aquarium's own fish restaurant. The motto of this place could have been "They are not only nice looking, they are tasty too"! Well before I get angry emails... I just had desert :-P

Different taste 7

This time it is not so much about different taste because it is tasting more-less like the real deal... it is more about healthy lifestyle which seems to become bigger and bigger over here, in a place where even McDonnalds advertisement claims "mother knows best" and takes her little ones to McDonnalds for a healthy meal. Coke jumped on that bandwagon too... and you get Diet Coke Plus! It is like a Diet Coke just with healthy vitamins and minerals.

Well, next time after the gym I will have a healthy burger at McDonnalds and a healthy Diet Coke Plus! It can't get better (or healthier) now ;-)

Third visitor

And our third visitor arrived on the shores of the new world! Hans-Peter from Munich, the first German speaker. As you can see he caught a sunny weekend over here so he had to convince Justin and me that his shades are trendy in Europe. Maybe in the 70s that is :-P


But there was no much need of shades where we went at the weekend. Hans-Peter didn't like the idea of hiking or sightseeing so we did what we can do best... partying ;-)


I wonder now who will visit me when we actually have snow and I end up skiing the Rockies. Is it maybe YOU?

Member of the Month

Since I moved to Denver I am attending the "European Language Guild" over here. This is a very friendly bunch of people who are interested in learning European languages. As my French, Italian and Russian is quite rusty these days I decided to join the German speaking group to get some opportunity to use my good old "Deutsch".

After all the fun I had with the people in that group I was very surprised when I found following message in my emails:

"... We’ve appreciated the insights into this beautiful language from Ekkehard Linden, our Member of the Month for October 2007. Congratulations, Ekkehard, and thanks very much..."

Thank you very much for the honor! This is the very first time that I got such a title ;-) And thank you Greg for putting all that together!

European Language Guild

Casa Bonita

Last week we finally did it! We went to a place everybody who lives in Denver or watches South Park knows about! Casa Bonita which stands for "Beautiful House"... but what is it?! Well that is not that easy to explain. For who has the South Park box set handy I suggest watching Season 7 Episode 11 - Casa Bonita. For everybody else... it is easiest to describe as a mixture of a Mexican restaurant and Disneyland.



In the place of Micky Mouse we have some cliff divers who have a joggling and comedy show going on but in the end doing what everyone is expecting of them... jumping the indoor cliff which is much higher then it looks like on this picture. In between you have Mexican musicians playing songs, etc.





What can I say. For that this place is very famous for hosting children's birthday parties I had a great time here. Lot's of stuff to do and to eat ;-) But the frozen Margaritas were my favorite! Justin (who wasn't here since his 12th birthday I guess) and I had a fabulous time in this extraordinary place!