Highlights of the Europe Trip

I was going to do this post yesterday but the USDA ERP announcement trumped it. One item I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post is that when you subtract any crop insurance proceeds from the “ERP” proceeds, it does appear that you get to add back any premiums paid for that insurance. This should increase the payment to you.

Some of my favorite parts of the trip:

• Out last two days was spent in Basel, Switzerland and there is a paper museum near the Rhine River. My son and I decided to visit the museum. This was actually my favorite part of the trip. The paper mill was originally a flour mill and got converted to paper mill in the Mid-1400s. The museum showed how paper was made (from rags) and my son and I actually made some paper. There was four floors of displays related to paper to modern times that we toured. I got to show my son what a typewriter was (my favorite class in 8th grade was typing and likely had the most value too).
• Already mentioned in other blog posts was that I loved being in a taxi. Going through the five lane roundabout in Paris was a lot of fun. My wife would not think so, but I do.
• Taking the High-Speed TGV train from Paris to Basel was very interesting. These trains top out at over 200 miles per hour and the highest speed I saw on the monitor was 318 KPH or almost 200 MPH. If you tend to have motion sickness, you might not like the train, but I did.
• Speaking of trains. If you visit Europe, that is the way to get around. They are almost always on time; there is plenty to do at the train station; and even when we were in “2nd” class seats, they are still as nice or nicer than first class seats on an US airplane.
• My two favorite cities were Prague and Budapest. Although probably my favorite was the tour of the beer factory in Pilson, Czech just outside Prague. It was interesting to see how making beer has changed over the last 500 years. From requiring lots of labor and miles of tunnels to store the beer to now a couple of people make the beer and the rest is done via a computer.
• There is a lot of farmland in all of these countries. The wheat looked in good shape and it is already headed out in many cases. There is quite a bit of rapeseed grown in Europe and the yellow blossoms were in full force during the trip. Rapeseed is a part of the brassica family and is very similar to mustard or canola. It is grown primarily for its oil and animal feed. The EU grows a lot of it.
• My son is a foodie and we certainly tried out several different meals but I have to admit getting a Big Mac a couple of times was a pleasure for me.
• Perhaps spending a few more days in fewer cities may have been better for many. However, as many people know I am easily bored so hitting the cities quickly works well for me and my son did not seem to mind.
• I think my final tally in books read was 16. A couple of them were fairly small but on both plane flights I read two books and almost every day I finished reading book that night while my son was out exploring.
• Jet lag definitely messed up my sleep patterns. In the US, I am typically up around 4 AM and in bed reading by 8 PM. In Europe, I slept in to 8 AM many times and was rarely asleep before Midnight.

All-in-all, I had a good time with my son. I had done at least one major trip with my other three sons and it was good to get one down with him.