The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

We took a road trip from Amsterdam to the Champagne region of France with 4 other friends and enjoyed some fun, sun, and champagne, of course. The little towns in the region are very cute and it was harvest season so the tractors were hauling grapes from the families picking them to their champagne houses for processing.

Most of the photos are self explanatory, but others maybe not. It was, after all, a road trip.

I always walk over the Amstel river to the metro. This morning was early, so not too many bikes or boats.

We had never been to Prague or the Czech Republic, and we weren’t sure what to expect since we didn’t do much research before our trip. We were pleasantly surprised. The old astronomical clock was my favorite, but you have to stand there with a description of everything it does just to figure out all of the information it is telling you. Impressive engineering.

The architecture of the city is pretty stunning, both day and night.

We did sample the local street food, which is a toasted cinnamon roll that is used as a cone for ice cream or other treats. Although it is a tube, not a cone, so it needs a paper was at the bottom; poor design but tasty. We also had the local beer; they invented pilsner style beer.

Overall, Prague makes for a great long weekend trip.

We never took one of the old Ford taxis, nor did we figure out why they are used as taxis here.

We had almost 5 days of fun when we stayed with our friend Abbe in Brooklyn while our friend Kris flew in from Pittsburgh.

We did normal things like walk Coco, the dog with the biggest eyelashes ever, and go to diners and dinners with other friends in NY. However, we also attended “Drunk Shakespeare”, walked the Highline (a raised park with friend Steve giving me a personal tour), saw a variety of new buildings under construction, went to a transportation museum, hung out on rooftop with friends as we watched the sunset, walked over the Brooklyn bridge, rode the subway a bit and walked, walked, walked.

But our highlight was probably the old TWA terminal at JFK, which is now a hotel for layoversand a bit of a museum. The best is the rooftop pool & bar with a view of the runways. Yes, we sat in the pool with a G&T as we looked out at the runway watching planes take off and land. The big Airbus A380 is impressive to see. However, they have also converted their old Connie airplane into a lounge and the the entire place has an early 1960 theme to it.

Tar pits and fast cars.

Beverly Hills and “escape rooms”

Food market and walking around the neighborhood of Beverly Hills.

While in San Francisco, I tried out an Amazon Go store, which has no cashier or anyone working there as far as I could tell. My guess is that someone comes and stocks the shelves once or twice a day.

You have to use the Amazon Go app on your phone to get through the entry gates. Then you just grab stuff off the shelves and walk out.

So that’s what I did. A minute later, my phone got a notification telling me how long I was in the store along with an electronic receipt. I can also go into the app to see my history of purchases.

The store is pretty normal; basically a very clean convenient store.

This is my electronic receipt:

I had never hit golf balls from the 2nd floor of a golf range. It’s fun, but the really interesting part is the instant replay of your shot on the TV screens.