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Ow, ow, ow!  Sorry, it still is a little painful sitting down after my RAGBRAI ride.  =)

For those that don’t know what RAGBRAI is, you are missing it.  It stands for the Registers Annual Great Bike Race Across Iowa.  This year’s ride was suppose to be the flattest and shortest route ever.  This years ride was July 25-31 for 441 miles with about 10,000 riders.  This year the route went through the major towns of: Sioux City, Storm Lake, Algona, Clear Lake, Charles City, Waterloo,  Manchester, & Dubuque.

I don’t do the whole ride, but I usually like to get 2-3 days of riding in.  To most people – why would you want to ride your bike outside in the weather for 60-100 miles a day?!  First, yes you have to enjoy riding your bike.  If you hate peddling – then this is not the event for you.  But even if you aren’t a veteran rider, there are so many stops through the day – it  makes the day fly by.  This is one of my main reasons for riding.  I love going through and seeing what all the towns do for all the biking visitors.  Oh.. (And they have fried fair food – and don’t forget Mr. Pork Chop since I am related).  =)

This year I rode with my cousin Rachel – and we had a lot of fun!  Here are some pictures of the ride:

[View with PicLens]

Brent Travel biking, RAGBRAI

Happy 4th of July everyone!  What a great country we have!

As most all July 4ths, I spend it at the Okoboji lake with my extended family.  It is a great time to see everyone and have some relaxing fun.  On the night of the 4th, near Arnolds Park they light a great fireworks display right on the lake.  Many boats drive over then drop anchor and tune their radios to the sponsoring station and wait for the count down of the show.  Not only it is a great fireworks display, but the fireworks are perfectly timed with the music echoing over the lake with the occational boat honk for the favorites.  The show included songs such as: Lee Greenwood (God Bless the USA), Neil Diamond (Coming to America), Louis Armstrong (Its a wonderful world), Ray Charles (America) and Elvis Presley (Glory, Glory Halleluliah), among others.

If you haven’t been to Okoboji – you need to make it out there at least once to experience the great show with your family or great friends.  It makes my summer!

Friends at the Okoboji Fireworks 2009

Brent Travel Fireworks, Friends, Holiday, Okoboji

You can’t be in the stock world or turn on CNBC without hearing the words “Warren Buffet”.  Ever since I’ve been seriously watching stocks, I’ve have been putting an attentive eye on my close neighbor – the Chairman of Birkshire Hathaway.  Last year, I was in Omaha visiting a friend and heard that the annual shareholders meeting was going on and I kicked myself for not getting a share to attend this event.  Well, another year passes and I almost made the same mistake until an email came from my friend Ann Anhalt asking if I would be interested in going since she had some extra tickets.  I couldn’t have typed yes any faster.

It was amazing.  I had never seen so many people in one place from so many different parts of the world to hear two people answer questions.  The two to speak being Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger (VP). 

I was going to give you a full description of the days events, but Ann did such a great job on her blog post “Omaha Is Buffett Country“ you should just visit her site for our trip info.

Instead I will give you some of the quotes and bits I gathered during the Q & A sections of the day:

• Berkshire Hathaway parent company has plenty of cash
• When speaking about Gambling “If you decide to do activities where the yield are mathematically negative, then there is a world of opportunity for you”
• 35,000 in attendence was recorded
• Buffett: “Wells Fargo is a very large and great bank.  They have some advantages that others do not”
• Buffett: “I don’t need large complicated spreadsheets to find a deal.  The investment should be obvious without doing a lot of  fact checking.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”
• Buffett: “Credit agencies are not the only onesthat were wrong about housing prices”
• Buffett: “You should not buy a company hoping to change it”
• Buffett: “Authority goes with the person not the position”
• Buffett: “1/3 of U.S. houses do not have a mortgage”
• Buffett: “I could have my replacement follow me around and I could say everything I am thinking – but their time is better used where they are”
• Buffett: “I wouldn’t buy a newspaper business at any price.  They havethe potential of undending losses.  The day of one main source of information is gone”
• Buffett: “I feel very good about our GE and GS deals.  I didn’t find anything better at that time”
• Charlie: “When we disagree (with Buffett), I know he will see my way, because he is smart and I am right”

It was great to see products of the Berkshire Hathaway companies.  Here are a couple pictures from that day:

Keep your health and energy Warren – I will see you next year!

Brent TickerNews, Travel Berkshire Hathaway, BRK

“5 Euro.  5 Euro.  5 Euro Le Sub 30…”  Yes, that’s right, I’m sure they also have the annoying addictive song from Subway in France too!  I ate here on my last day in Nice, and it was excellent.  First, it wasn’t 20 Euro to eat with a soda, plus I COULD GET A REFILL.  I know it seems like nothing, but even McDonalds wouldn’t refill your soda.  One point – Subway.

For our last bus trip – they organized a quick last minute trip to a perfume factory.  This was something I wen to so I could say I’ve been to one.  They weren’t making anything, since it was Sunday.  Other than the “snif” test at the beginning where you had to find the 10 correct scents – which I only got about half right.

After we got back from everyone loading up on perfume purchases, we went to our room to pack for the next morning then to have one last European meal.

I had the best sea bass I’ve tasted, with some great red wine which was some sort of French mix of Pinot Noir and some other reds.  I was tempted to buy some bottles to bring home, but the wallet was lacking Euros.  Many at my table had deserts which were kind enough for me to try – and I loved every one.  This desert displayed above is a actually an apple pie.  It was flat and had apple in the middle.  I am an American, but this isn’t a bad way to do apple pie.

After eating most were wore out from my long trip, but my roommate, Scott, and I decided to have one more beer at our favorite “large beer” bar.

After we started our first beer, we found a friend from the previous night was there.  Richard is a Brit and it was quite fun to talk about cultural & political differences between us - with some good football (Soccer) discussions.  He likes to travel around the world, and this wasn’t his first day in Nice – so he was able to show us around some fun places that night.  (It did get a little late for my 4am taxi ride to the airport, but made it home without a problem)

So, that is my Europe Trip 2009 in a nutshell.  I want to thank Lew for inviting me on this great trip – and want to thank all the great people I got to know.  I hope to continue these friendships after this trip.  Thanks again – Drake SMaRT!

Brent Travel Europe, Nice

This next morning, I did what I consider a large sin on a scenic trip – slept in!  I couldn’t take it any more.  I had the sea waves by my ears and lack of sleep.  It was glorious.  Here is the view again from our hotel room – only you can see a bit more in the day. So, my roommate and I after getting up started to talk around the city of Nice for some sights and food.  I kept smelling seafood very strong, and thought that is what I wanted to lunch.  I found the source:

As I thought that might be little raw, our quest for food was still on.  So, what exotic place did we find?

It was this crazy place with a “McCafe” whatever that is.  =)  I actually try to do this on every international trip, because even in Hawaii the McDonalds has a different menu (Spam burgers).  Here I had the LeM sandwich with a different bun as you can see.  The fries are still not as good as here.

That afternoon there was a bus ride to go see the country of Monaco – so I jumped on the bus.  Locals had told us that the economy has hit Monaco as well, as there are fewer yahts sold this year.  These are just the fun boats – I didn’t get a good snap of the yahts!  Although it started to rain a bit, this city was beautiful with its garden, guarded palace, and church.

Did I mention the view?!

Lastly, we quick ran up the mountain to see the original Monte Carlo Casino.  With all the lights on the front, made it quite a sight.  We did go in – no cameras allowed, sorry – and since you had to pay to get into any of the gambling room (pretty smart to keep the tourists out like me) there was a little slot room they let us in, and I gave a nice 5 Euro donation to the country of Monaco.

Brent Travel Europe, Monaco, Nice

After departing from Venice at 8am, a nice 4 hours later we are off the bus at Milan, Italy.  This city is well know for the church that Deb, Andrea & I are in front of in this picture and very spendy shopping.

Now, this is a mall!  As you can see this is technically outside, but it has a huge glass roof over the buildings to make it a great indoors atmosphere.  We ate at a very nice place in here where I had my first italian lasagna.

This could have been my favorite church on the trip.  It was beautiful inside, but these windows are what set it apart.  In these little vibrant subwindows each told a story from the Bible.  I could have spent 2 more hours just reading the stories.

After another 6 hour bus ride (this one was a bit long), we arrived in Nice, France.  Above is a clip from the room our awesome travel agent Lew Boehnke of The Travel Center got us, with this view at the Westminster Hotel!  After eating some great sea bass by the Meditratian and having a few beers with our friends that would be departing the next morning, we called it a night.

Brent Travel Europe, Milan, Nice

The next morning we head back over to Venice for my first look at Venice in the daylight.  Wow.  We head to the main square for our 2 hour walking tour of Venice.  She went in and out of every area of Venice. 

No Venice trip is complete without a Gondola ride.  Check out this parking job of this Gondola.  “Like a glove”!

Now, night rides are obviously the best for a couple, but all of us decided to do it during the day as it is cheaper.  When we starting shopping around for a driver, I didn’t know it was going to feel like negotiating a used car.  When he wasn’t seeming to want to budge – I told the group to just walk away because he will call us back (Negotiating 101).  If he didn’t there were 20 others that would step up.  It still cost us all together about 100 Euro.  It was worth it to know what it was all about, so I can bring my bride to Venice someday and show her the best possible time since it is like looking for a good car.  Every Gondola is unique as well as the driver.

Brent Travel Europe, Gondola, Venice

With a very short 2 hour trip we arrive in Salzburg, Austria.  I have been to Salzburg a couple times before while I was attending college, but this time I felt a little more free to just walk around the city.  I went with a group that checked out the churches and looking for a special pastry that she had that last time she was in Salzburg.  I don’t think she ever found it, but the city was great to walk through.  I had a great cheese brat from a one of these street vendors and I thought I liked Johnsonville brats, but this was the real thing.  I didn’t get pretzel, but they look absolutely great!

We actually all found our way back to the bus, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do in Salzburg.  We then departed to Venice, Italy.  This was a big of a long bus ride.  After a couple little naps and about 6 hours later we arrive in Mestre (Adjacent to Venice).  After we got the correct train & water taxi tickets, we were in Venice!

After some great Italian pizza from a local place called Bora Bora, we head for a “local” Irish bar.  These bartenders had a lot of fun with us.  After a good night – then we had the “fun” of trying to get back to our hotel.  The train that we took over to Venice is no longer running.  So, after trying to find some English speaking night travelers we got on the right bus and found our way home.

Brent Travel Europe, Salzburg, Venice

We arrived at the Dachau concentration camp at about 9:30 AM.  This is the first day that we had any weather other than a little rain or flurries.  Today it was snowing/sleeting pretty hard.  It was very appropriate for the mood of this stop.  With all the movie and book knowlege that was previously gathered really hit hard here.  To be able to see the actual fence holding these 60,000 prisoners in at one time and seeing where they slept was an experience.

I don’t believe I ever really knew how big these camps actually got.  I read the number of prisoners they had at one time, but I didn’t understand until I actually saw this model of how large this camp.  Other than walking around the camp and going through the barracks, in the main building they had a very good museum with lots of stories of what a typical day might have been at the camp, and some of the horrible events/experiences happened during the control of the National Socialist (NAZI) party.  This was the first concentration camp that others were based.

Next, we visited the Neuschwantstein Castle in the Alps.  Great picture, huh?  Ok, I might not have taken this one.  It was snowing quite bad, remember?  All my pictures look like a blizzard.  There was about a 20 minute walk up hill to get to the castle tour.  We all got pretty wet.  After our tour we talked back down, and the snow had let up.  It was a beautiful site with all the trees coated in fresh fluffy snow.  I hope to get some pictures from my travel friends that might have turned out.  A new snow balls were thrown on the way down, because you can’t waste good packing snow!

We then departed back to our hotel in Munich.  Since we had such good time at the Hofbrauhaus – we decided to go back.  Here is a little clip from the brewery and sample of the music.

Brent Travel Dachau, Europe, Fussen, Munich

We starting the morning with another nice breakfast at the hotel packed up our luggage and got on the bus for our next stop: the Leipzig MBW Auto Plan.  Now with full disclosure I own a BMW and this was going to be a big highlight for my trip.  They did not disappoint.  They did not allow cameras in the plant, but I was able to find a couple photos on the Internet taken by Thomas Mayer.

These pictures were taken in the main office part of the plant.  As you can see the place is quite large, and the building designers thought it was important for all staff to be able to see what they are producing in their daily job even though they aren’t on the plant floor.  These are real cars being transfered through the office from one part of the plant to the other, and each one can be different.  I will blog about the actual tour sometime later, but there was one fact that really stuck out.  Once you order your BMW from this plant (they mostly make 3 series) even though they have 2-3 month leadtime, you can change any configuration about your future car 4 days before it starts being built since they use JIT (Just-in-time) production.  Amazing.

Once our 2 1/2 hour tour is over, we pile back on the bus departing to Munich.  Over 6 hours later we arrive at our new hotel freshen up – then head out to the Hofbrauhaus!  The Hofbrauhaus is state owned brewery in Munich, Germany.  As you can see – the beers are quite large.  Mix in some great polka music – and you have yourself a party!  Drinking here also proved to be a great workout – 1st the bathrooms were all the way outside in an alley, and 2nd the beers are so large – they help build the biceps.  I will learn that larger beers are possible in Europe, however.

I also want to give a hello to my new german friends I met that live a few hours away.  I am still unpacking and I have yet to find the piece of paper with your contact info on it.  I will give you an shout as soon as I find it!

Brent Travel BMW, Europe, Leipzig, Munich