Author Topic: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread  (Read 145109 times)

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Online imref

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Offline Count Walewski

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3526: January 20, 2023, 05:15:36 PM »
Hi from San Ignacio, Belize. I am wrapping up a 5-day long stay in this largest city in western Belize. We've seen three Maya cities (Xunantunich and Cahal Pech in Belize + Tikal on the Guatemala side of the border), we've gone ziplining and cave canoeing, and we did ATM Cave which is a flooded cave you have to swim, wade, and climb your way into for 2 hours to see some skeletons from Maya human sacrifice rituals. Would definitely recommend.

Tomorrow, we switch gears and go to Caye Caulker, an island off the Caribbean coast of Belize. Cars are banned there, it's kind of like their Mackinac Island.

Offline English Natsie

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3527: January 20, 2023, 06:05:56 PM »
On your recommendation, I'm going off to try some Mayan human sacrifice rituals... ;)  :D

Online imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3528: January 20, 2023, 07:05:40 PM »
sounds awesome, thanks for sharing Count!  Nastie, please do anything you can to get Robles to hit.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3529: January 20, 2023, 08:08:56 PM »
sounds awesome, thanks for sharing Count!  Nastie, please do anything you can to get Robles to hit.
not quite everything.. we need him for the post count.

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3530: January 21, 2023, 01:05:01 PM »
Thirteen Lives is all I need to know about caves  :D

Otherwise sounds like a cool trip. 

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3531: January 21, 2023, 01:49:35 PM »
5 worst cities to drive in in the world last year, by average driver time lost in traffic:
1) London (156 hours)
2) Chicago (155 hours)
3) Paris (138 hours)
4) Boston (134 hours)
5) NYC (117 hours)
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2023/01/12/boston-traffic-fourth-worst-in-world-commute-time/

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3532: January 21, 2023, 02:11:38 PM »
156 hours?  Ha.  In Bangkok it's 156 days. 

Online imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3533: January 21, 2023, 02:38:45 PM »
Why would anyone drive in London?

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3534: January 21, 2023, 04:11:18 PM »
In an earlier life I worked as an "outdoor clerk" for a solicitor's office in Islington...part of my job was running the paperwork to Inland Revenue every week; I once tried driving in the office car (an old beat up Anglia) and gave up after a few blocks and just took the tube.

Inland Revenue was an amazing make-work project in those days - you'd take a form through a succession of long lines to get it stamped by a friendly old Indian grandma or a kid from up north whose "english" was utterly unintelligible.  I never did figure out what the point of all of it was but it was not a bad way to spend a couple of hours chatting with strangers.     

Online imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3535: January 21, 2023, 06:43:48 PM »
Last time I was there waze showed two hours from Heathrow by car to my hotel or 45 minutes via the tube.  Easy decision.

Offline Count Walewski

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3536: January 21, 2023, 08:58:51 PM »
5 worst cities to drive in in the world last year, by average driver time lost in traffic:
1) London (156 hours)
2) Chicago (155 hours)
3) Paris (138 hours)
4) Boston (134 hours)
5) NYC (117 hours)
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2023/01/12/boston-traffic-fourth-worst-in-world-commute-time/

I'm not believing a list that doesn't have Kuala Lumpur in the top 5.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3537: January 21, 2023, 09:55:12 PM »
I'm not believing a list that doesn't have Kuala Lumpur in the top 5.
Bangkok. New Delhi.  Seoul. They were all messes as I recall. Tokyo too but the drivers are so polite.

Offline English Natsie

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3538: January 22, 2023, 07:50:32 AM »
please do anything you can to get Robles to hit.

'What's the axe for?...'

'Well you see, Victor, it's like this....'  ;)

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3539: January 22, 2023, 12:07:50 PM »
I'm not believing a list that doesn't have Kuala Lumpur in the top 5.
just a guess- the average driver in the us and London/Paris makes more trips by car, perhaps a longer distance, than those in KL and New Delhi? If you live South of Boston, out by Sharon or Weymouth, you have to go through a heck of a stretch from the 128/3 interchange all the way up to the mass pike before you get the benefit of the big dig construction.  I always lived near west of the city, which had by far the easiest commute. It is not much more than 15 minutes to Logan from Newton Corner through the Ted Williams harbor tunnel now outside comuting hours.

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3540: January 23, 2023, 09:36:55 AM »
And all those chowhderheads driving in from Nashua, wicked pissah! 

just a guess- the average driver in the us and London/Paris makes more trips by car, perhaps a longer distance, than those in KL and New Delhi? If you live South of Boston, out by Sharon or Weymouth, you have to go through a heck of a stretch from the 128/3 interchange all the way up to the mass pike before you get the benefit of the big dig construction.  I always lived near west of the city, which had by far the easiest commute. It is not much more than 15 minutes to Logan from Newton Corner through the Ted Williams harbor tunnel now outside comuting hours.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3541: January 23, 2023, 10:34:12 AM »
And all those chowhderheads driving in from Nashua, wicked pissah! 

I don't know how you commute from Nashua to Boston, tbh. Down 3 to 128 to 93 from the cloverleaf to the Zakim Bridge or the Leverett Connector?  I can see if you work on Rte 128, but that's pretty complex to go downtown. Salem is more the Boston commuter town because it is straight down 93.  Where my brother lives north of Haverhill also has a lot of commuters.  See them at Dunkin's in the morning at 7 AM or earlier when I'm up there.   

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3542: January 23, 2023, 01:38:43 PM »
We had our flight from DCA to Orlando on Jet Blue delayed about three hours. Happens. They gave us meal vouchers right before they were about to board the flight and everything was closed except the one snack shop. LOL.

Offline Dave in Fairfax

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3543: January 23, 2023, 04:15:26 PM »
I'm not sure that "time lost in traffic" is necessarily the best measure of worst driving experience. In Adana, Turkey, you didn't really lose a lot of time in traffic, but you had a much greater risk of losing your life.

As for that list, I've driven in Paris many times and did not have too many problems with traffic. I was there once during a transit strike; driving was a problem then, especially in the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, but I still wasn't too delayed. I just had to find alternate routes through the confusion.

NYC generally sucks, though I have managed to reach 85mph on the West Side Highway.

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3544: January 24, 2023, 01:28:42 PM »
A Romanian friend told me that he got stuck in the innermost lane during rush hour and just drove around and around until he ran out of fuel.  His first and last time renting a car - he just got out, entered the underpass under the Arc de Triomphe, and left it behind with scores of furious Parisians blasting their horns and shaking their fists  :D   
traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe

Offline Dave in Fairfax

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3545: January 24, 2023, 04:03:26 PM »
I'd have to say of major cities I've driven in, I also really dislike driving in Berlin.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3546: January 24, 2023, 04:27:49 PM »
I'd have to say of major cities I've driven in, I also really dislike driving in Berlin.
IF you want to get anywhere in Berlin, I suggest you use 99 Luftballons.



FWIW, lots of comments on this video since Germany OK'd Poland to supply Leopards to Ukraine.

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3547: January 24, 2023, 05:22:13 PM »
Downtown Johannesburg in the mid 90s was exciting.  Actually stopping for a red light at night was a clear sign that you were a tourist or wanted to die. 
I'd have to say of major cities I've driven in, I also really dislike driving in Berlin.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3548: January 24, 2023, 09:03:02 PM »
IF you want to get anywhere in Berlin, I suggest you use 99 Luftballons.



FWIW, lots of comments on this video since Germany OK'd Poland to supply Leopards to Ukraine.
If you need to go further you can always add one. 


Offline tomterp

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3549: January 25, 2023, 11:37:30 AM »
As for that list, I've driven in Paris many times and did not have too many problems with traffic. I was there once during a transit strike; driving was a problem then, especially in the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, but I still wasn't too delayed. I just had to find alternate routes through the confusion.

I had the pleasure of riding around the Arc de Triomphe once while on a business trip.  Our insurance rep, Nathalie, worked us from outside to the innermost lane, then back out again with great skill and death defying precision cutting off of cars in the next lane.  She explained the strategy - "oh, he will not hit me, I am a woman".  And an attractive late 30 something she was.  Definitely an oddball bucket list thing to have done, better though if taken on by an experienced driver.