http://olestravels.wordpress.com/

Olestravels, Sarasota, FL (2026)

06/15/2026

In my head, I am writing a story that I wish I could dictate, but I'm driving a rental 6 speed Volkswagen Golf on a two lane road with Google maps voice turned off since it seemed to be yelling at me and I could not find the volume controls so now not only do I have to watch the road, but google maps so that I don't miss a turn (Which I did in fact do later on in this trip.)

I recently wrote that my travels are different from other people's travels, and driving is one of those things that sets travels apart. Imagine, if you will attempting a road trip in Europe forty years ago, when there was no Google maps to guide you turn by turn to where you wanted to arrive. You had a paper map that perhaps you had gotten from triple-a before traveling and maybe a trip tic. A kind of booklet that broke the map down to smaller sections that were more palatable as you were driving.

Nonetheless, when driving and another country, there are different names. There are words like 'Ausfahrt' which my navigator at the time, my second wife, thought was the name of a town, but actually means 'exit'. After passing this sign several times she exclaimed "That is one big city." She had no clue what was to come a couple of pages later when we needed to make a right hand turn on FrankfurterbockenheimerlandStraße.

Yes, that is one word.

Then there are other speed limits, which are posted on signs most of which do not make much since the first time you see them. For instance, there is a sign for no posted speed limit, you can go as fast as you want... maybe. Probably a better explanation is you can go as fast as traffic will allow, which sometimes means 200 KPH (Appx.125 MPH), then other times means that you are stopped because there is a huge traffic jam on the Autobahn. Speed limits can go from, and I'll translate this into miles per hour, 20 to 75, to 30, to 50, to unlimited, to 50 in what seems like less than three miles. And for the most part, Germans follow these numbers pretty closely shifting into the right hand lanes if they are not flying past you.

Then, of course, there is the fact that you're not in your own car. The car you're in may have similar attributes, let's say like android auto, which I use quite often, but it's not the same. First of all, it's in another language.So you have to figure out how to get it into the language that you understand. Then, there is the volume, which, on this particular model.I have yet to figure out. It is either loud or muted, off. It is in this muted mode that I did in fact miss my turn. Rather than miss another turn, I let the lady yell at me... in English thankfully.

What's your driving a car which on occasion needs fuel. Therein lies yet another problem. Which side is the gas tank on? What fuel is recommended? How the heck do their gas stations work? Do you pay first and then go to the pump since there is no credit card reader at the pump itself, or do you pump first and then go to the gas station and pay for it on the honor system? This time it was relatively easy. Here in germany, in 2026, you pump and then go in and pay on the honor system. Easy peasy. This was not the case when I was in the Netherlands or Belgium, a few years ago, I don't remember which country. On that occasion there was a card reader, and I inserted my credit card, which had, in fact, a security chip in it. ( There's a whole nother story about that trying to buy gas in France a few years earlier. A massive kerfuffle, that ultimately wound up costing me and my friends over $600 to have the tank drained and refilled with the appropriate fuel, along with having the fuel system flushed.) That said, this particular time the card reader asked for my PIN. My credit card did not require one, so I did not have one and my card would not work. However, the car that I was driving was gasping for fuel and I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to make it to another gas station, even if it was only perhaps seven kilometers down the road. I went into the self service store speaking, no Dutch this lady spoke, and the lady at the counter speaking no english and not having Google translate but working out eventually, that the store did not control the gas tanks. She very kindly allowed me to buy approximately five dollars worth of food, which I then returned to her. She then came out to the pump and used her own card to buy me five dollars worth of fuel. Which is about a gallon. Problem solved, but not without a nominal amount of fingernail, biting and looking stupid.

Well, this story went off in a tangent didn't it?

I guess one of the things I wanted to say is that there's a difference between being a tourist, a traveler, an adventurer, and an explorer. At different times I have been all of these and there's something to be said for each mode.

Life is good,

Go out and explore some.

06/13/2026

Why my travel is different.

This morning I woke up in Wachtberg, Germany at my friend's home wanting simply a hot cup of coffee. He has this amazing, expensive, built in espresso/cappuccino machine that now makes luke warm coffee. I like my coffee hot. Not quite scalding but hot. So, I decided what I would do is heat up some milk and simply make lukewarm espressos, add my hot milk to the espressos and life would be good.

With that in mind I found a pot and the quarter liter of milk that I had purchased a few days ago and proceeded to heat the milk. When the espresso was done and the milk poured I was quite satisfied with the result. However there was not enough milk left for Daniele and this had to be rectified which meant a quick drive to the grocery store, which in this case was ALDI. We have ALDI in Sarasota where I live however it is different. . as I was looking for the milk one of the first things I noticed was the aisle where they had deli meats and cheeses. In the United states perhaps the deli meat and perhaps cheese sections are 8 or 10 feet long. Not here. Noooo… .That would be way too simple. These sections in Germany are a good 15 feet or more. Inside of that I still had a bit of difficulty finding the soft cheese with herbs spread that I wanted. I didn’t know that I wanted it when I went into the store but now as I stood in front of this section I knew and it was mandatory that I find one that I liked.

Having found that and being prepared to check out, I joined the line and watched as the cashier passed groceries in front of me Into the holding area where the customer bagged the groceries themselves. As soon as one set of groceries had been registered and paid for and as the customer was still bagging them the cashier moved a partition and the next set of groceries slid also to the end of the packing area but separated from the first customer’s. It was very efficient.
Buying groceries, putting gasoline in a car, driving on roads where the names of the streets are completely foreign and the street signs themselves unique. Trying to keep up with speed limits which seem to randomly go from ‘unlimited’ to 80, to 130 to 70, to 30, and of course all of these are kilometers per hour while the cars alarm system bings when you are maybe 5 kilometers per hour over whatever the current posted speed limit is Alerting you that it is time to slow down. By the time you slow down enough the speed limit has gone up again.

This is the daily life that is completely normal in Germany. In the Philippines it is completely normal if you need headache medicine to go to a tiny little, almost whole in the wall, shop on the dirt road and buy some version of Tylenol by the pill. Not by the bottle, by the pill. In Thailand the streets are crowded with motorcycles buzzing around like swarms of mosquitoes. In Vietnam I walked into a storefront and headed towards the rear of the store only to find out that it was connected to a huge almost double warehouse sized array of shops all with a single roof.

yesterday I went into a picture shop where they advertised Yesterday I went into a picture shop where they advertised a baby back ribs special. When I calculated the price of the ribs in dollars per pound instead of EUR per kilo the price turned out to be approximately $11.00 a pound! I buy my ribs for under $3 a pound and smoke them to barbecue perfection.

While others are cramming their days full of sites recommended by TripAdvisor, I am wandering back streets, figuring out how to buy ground meat and buns in Madrid so that I can make a hamburger. Or being surprised by watching been training their roosters for a c**k fight. And perhaps even more surprising a bulls fight, not a bull fight, in Olantaytambo, Peru.

While I have been to many of the famous places and been amazed by a few of them, it is truly how other people live that piques my curiosity. It is chatting with them in Spanish or German which in my case is ‘functional’, but far from (and now aided with Google Translate) about their countries and their way of life that has my travel be fulfilled.

My way of traveling is not right for everybody sometimes quite honestly it can be tedious. But for sure it has been eye opening and altered how I see the world.

I read somewhere that life is like a book and if don't travel you only read one page. I don’t know that that’s true, but I know in my life having traveled for well over 50 years my book is pretty full.

Thank you for reading and riding along with me occasionally.

Life is good.

06/10/2026

Yesterday I had my holy crap moment... after having a relatively nice night's sleep and getting to the airport with only minor difficulties, waiting for an uber driver for more than ten minutes, and not realizing that the nice part of the business lounge at the Krakow airport was downstairs and there was only coffee upstairs, I made the hour and a half trip with Lufthansa to Frankfurt. There I followed the 'Mietwagen' (rental car) signs with no real trepidation to the Enterprise rental counter with a smile on my face and a reservation made. An Emerald member put me in the fast track line and I stood ready with my international driver's license and my passport.

But not my Florida driver's license.

No driver's license, no car... sort of reminds me of the Bob Marley song 'No woman, no cry' but I was about to shed a tear.

There's who you who know me like actually know me know that for decades, I have been carrying a man satchel, the masculine version of a purse. It's a wonderful thing and holds my credit cards, my phone, a small wallet in which I keep cash and occasional throw in a credit card if I'm headed out and leave the man's satchel hidden in my car somewhere. They're, there's even a special holder for the driver's license and any other photo.I.D that one might have. Me, of course, I have global entry, which you don't actually need the photo IdD for, but it's there anyway. Only right now, when I needed it most my driver's license was not there!!!

What the???

Ok, ok... go through everything. Nope, not there. Empty it out. Nope.

Alright, alright, tell the enterprise attendant that I can't find it. Is there something else I can do? Nope.

Ok... ok... my mind is racing. "Calm down. I had it a few days ago when I was going to Auschwitz. I know that. I didn't use it because they required a passport but I know that I had taken it out. Was it still at the hotel I'd just left? In Poland?!? Ok ok... look through my carry on and backpack. Backpack first.

Nope.

Empty it out and look really, really hard.

I'm sitting on the floor in the Enterprise rental space my backpack open and things strewn around the floor with me. The place has become more crowded. I am looking dumber and dumber by the moment. The only thing left to do is go through my carry on. I fumble around inside of it, pulling out sections of clothing. Not finding it.

Big exhalation, now what? Maybe it's at the hotel. I search for the number and find Booking.com, which I don't want. I want the damn phone number. I finally find their website as my phone battery is getting used up. Roaming will do that quickly. And I make the call. Press 9 for english. Press 0 for the front desk. I'm not panicked/panicked. Mateus is on the phone, and he understands what I'm doing. He knows the room that I was in. We had chattered several times while I was staying at the Crown Krakow Center Accor Handwritten Selection. He tells me he will send a message to housekeeping. A message!!! I don't need a message. I need my driver's license. I'm doing my best not to freak out and you're going to send a message? (That part was running through my mind, but was unspoken.)

" Thank you. How long do you think it will take them to take a look?" Is what I actually said.

"5 minutes. I will call you back."

" Do you have my number? I'll give you my number. Let me give you my number."

" I have your number, no worries."

No, I am worried! I don't screw up this much when I travel, and yet here I am.

While waiting for him to call back, i'm thinking to myself "Ok, ok. I will not be able to rent a car and I'm supposed to be here for 13 days. I can catch a train to Kŏln (Cologne) which is relatively close to my friends. From there, I can figure out a way to their town and they can pick me up at a bus station or a Schnellbahn (train). It's helps to have lived in Germany twice. I am no longer panicking. I'm figuring out options.

Mateus' call comes and they do not have my driver's license. Somehow, I thought that would be the case.

Alright, one last shuffle through everything. Knowing that my backpack had been completely emptied, it was time to do the same thing with my carry on. I'm sitting on the floor, the crowd is sort of watching, but not watching at the same time. Sort of like watching somebody else sliding down an icy incline of a road with no ability to control their car, their curiosity piqued, but not wanting to seem rude by staring.

I unloaded.

Dirty clothes are on top. (I separate my clean clothes from my dirty clothes with a laundry bag from whatever hotel I had stolen it from most recently.) Then my layered clothes. After that, towards the bottom, my socks, a pair of gym shorts and a gym shirt. I honestly don't know why I bring this, but I do it almost every trip and I almost never use them.

Hang on..

There's something in the shorts...

Holy s**t!!! I've found it!!!

Hah!

I don't remember why I had it in my gym shorts, but I do remember that I did at one point put it there. It probably made sense at the time, though it sure as heck did not make sense right now.

That said life is now good. I can rent a car, visit my friends, and be FREE!!!

I write this after having gotten to my car, fiddled with the instructions, managed to connect to Android Auto, which was not as easy as one might think, dealt with the fact that the cable that I brought with me does not plug into the USB 'C' port to recharge sunce I am now old school with a USB 'A' connecting cable. Thank the gods I have a power bank.

I'm sitting outside, a cool breeze blowing, geese making their version of quacking sounds, having a glass of dry white wine, and simply being thankful.

Life truly is good.

06/03/2026

OK, so what do you do if you wind up with 8 hours before your flight and you have to check out of your hotel, a typhoon has delayed flights, your airline doesn’t allow online check-ins for travelers over 65 years old (that is a new one for me), and you have premier credit cards from both American Express and Chase?

Me, well I had to Terminal 3 of Haneda’s international airport With as good an attitude as one might have in such situations. There I hunt for the Vietnam Airlines kiosks only to find out that they are not available until after 4:00 PM. No check in means no boarding pass. no boarding pass means no ability to go through customs and no boarding pass means no ability to go through customs and/or security. No ability to go through security means no access to the lounges which are just on the other side of security.
OK.
Now what?
Eventually I do find out about a lounge that accepts Priority Pass which is a perk available both through American Express and Chase and I have a smile on my face. Now I have to find it and it is not in the terminal itself. It is, however, in a building connected to the terminal… somewhere.

The search is on. 3 inquiries to various information kiosks on different floors of two different buildings and I am headed down a long, long hallway to another building. The one where hopefully the Haneda Garden Premier pass lounge is located. Lo and behold it is there. My journey successful.

Well no it isn’t.

I can’t use my Premiere Pass at this particular lounge until 3 hours before my flight leaves and can only use the Premier Pass by showing them my boarding pass. You know, the boarding pass that I do not have since the Vietnam Airlines kiosk is not open and I can’t get it online due to my being over 65. All of this inside of a conversation with a very nice young lady who spoke very little English.

Mistakes were made. Google Translate called upon. My exhortation that I simply wanted a place to sit, plug in my phone, have a sparkling water or Coke Zero to no avail, rules are rules. My desire was going to cost me $6.00 Just simply sit. For $24 I could sit, nosh, and plug in for a few hours. I chose option 2 Then here is it plugged in comfortable having had a tiny salad, a bite of a poorly concocted corn dog, two slices of duck prosciutto, and two of the tiniest burger bites ever.

No sparkling water though.

Regardless I am happy to be here. As a wise man once said after hiring a pilot for a private airplane “If this plane is not running right, the weather is poor, you are sick, or you just have a feeling… there is no place on earth that I have got to be.“

If Vietnam Airlines wants to postpone my flight due to any of the above circumstances, I am OK with that.

Life is good.

06/01/2026

Nine years ago I was writing emails to around 37-40 friends and family about my travels. I had been doing so for 2 or 3 years. Sometime after this, one people started deciding that they'd no longer wanted to get the email. And I decided I didn't want to maintain an email list, so I created Olestravels. Here is one of the last emails that I wrote. It was fun for me to read it again.

28 May, 2017

It is Sunday and the end of the first two weeks of this extended (7 week) sojourn through Europe and I am headed today from Prague to Budapest – doesn’t that sound exciting? It’s a 5 hour drive and I should leave in the next 2 hours to make it easily before my expected arrival time at the AirBNB that I’ve booked – my first ever AirBNB – and I’m not used to the platform so even that is an experience.

I’ve had a story cooking around in my head for a day or two now and it all started with going to do laundry. You do laundry don’t you? But you do it the normal way – trundling all your dirtied goodies to the laundry room, tossing them in and adding soap then turning the k**b to the appropriate setting and pushing or pulling the k**b to start the process. That is not how you do laundry overseas in a foreign language.

· First you have to find a laundromat. “No, I don’t want to spend $50 to have my clothes washed, ironed, and folded here at the hotel. Can you just let me know where a laundromat is?”

· Then, you have to actually find the laundromat which is hidden even when your GPS says ‘You have arrived.’ and you say back to the GPS “If I’ve arrived, where the hell is it?” until you do find it and it’s actually quite nice.

· Then you have to read the directions in order to get the process right. Having not followed them correctly the first time you now need to get change because the machine has eaten your first coins and your wash sits in the machine which is bone dry, hungry for more coins, and not going to do a damn thing until you follow the process completely, and in the correct order.

· Then you have to move your clothes to another machine since you’ve pi**ed off the first machine who you don’t really know anyway and are now muttering bad things about its mother, father and all siblings and cousins of the inanimate object which refused to do what it was supposed to even after you’d paid it!

· Realizing you have no small bills you put in a 1,000 Korona note and wind up with a pile of 10 and 20 Korona coins which weigh about 47 pounds and are a complete lump of heaviness when all you really needed was 50 korona and now you have to deal with the excess.

· Then you wash your clothes!

Ok, so that is the beginning of the real reason for my writing today, the coins.

You see, I have some rather interesting traits, character anomalies, quirks, or eccentricities if you will. One of them is I’m cheap. Not always but sometimes. I grew up sleeping in the same bed as my younger brother in a family which always had a roof over our head and food on the table, but I also wore hand-me-downs. I thought everyone did I guess since that was the norm in my life. I also remember when I went to register for college having had an opportunity to go to Yale (a partial scholarship was offered but … remember the hand-me-downs?... ) so when I went to register and asked my father how we paid for this he said simply “You pay for it.” That was it. 17 years old, working at Publix as a bagger/produce clerk for $1.60/hr. “You pay for it.” So, I paid for it.

Ever since then I’ve been a weird combination of extravagant and cheap. I’m modestly successful at this point in life and have no problem going out and buying a bottle (or three) of $80 wine, but I also look at the cans of corn on the shelf for the best deal and won’t buy my favorite all natural granola unless it’s on sale 2 for 1 when I stock up and empty the shelves so I can have it over the next several months and not feel cheated by paying like $8.00 for a box which I find absurd.

So now I’ve got these coins and I’m getting ready to go out for the day thinking ‘I have to spend this money somehow – get rid of it.’ and stuff my pants pockets with the coins. Think of perhaps 5 rolls of quarters in your pants pockets and you have some idea of what the weight and size is, but without the convenience of the rolls. Only now, at the age of 66, and having had a desk job for the last 34 years, I have no butt. None. It chose to move on without even having the decency to say ‘Goodbye’. I just woke up one morning and it was gone, gone, gone woo oh oh oh oh. You’ve lost that loving feeling….. Ok, ok, back to the story. So here I am, getting in my 20,000 steps and yanking my pants up every 5 or 6 steps and thinking ‘This is not one of my better moments.’ when I thought you, my dear readers, would love to laugh at my inconvenience. The difference between comedy and tragedy is, of course, that it’s comedy when it happens to someone else.

Fortunately I had lunch, bought my only souvenir in Prage, and an ice cream in a wonderful pastry and Wa La… coins are gone and I am sooooo very relieved.

Ok, so now what? How does one end that story? Truth is I don’t know, so I’ll just stop there and hope you’ll forgive me.

All the best,

Ole John

01/11/2026

A good morning and ‘The Smell of Freedom’

I’ve chosen to discontinue my studies in Chiang Mai and with that I had to figure out what I’m going to do for the next three weeks for which I’ve already booked my hotel. The money spent and my booking non-refundable. I do not consider myself cheap, but I am frugal, having grown up without the financial freedom that I now have. With that background, I abhor wasting money.

I also don’t want to sit around in my hotel room trying to figure out what to do, and in my mind I think I can go to a local Bistro, have a cup of coffee, and do a bit of research. I should know better, that is never what happens. What happens is that I go someplace, find a place to sit and wind up talking to people getting no research done whatsoever. I can't complain however because to me that interaction is a big part of joy in traveling. .Meeting others and sharing experiences

I will digress a moment and talk about last night, my first night after having arrived at the realization that I probably was never going to use the certification as a teacher of English as a foreign language, and with that freeing up the next three weeks for other options. I had a great night’s sleep, and good breakfast, and choose to wander to the train station where my intention was to find out about a daytime train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. I’ve taken sleeper trains before and find them to be with less than optimal and that you see no scenery and what’s the point of taking the train if you don’t have scenery? That said the train to Bangkok and leaves at 7:30 in the morning and I’m not so sure I want to do that! (I will write about that wander in my next missive.)

So this morning I was off to the Donut Café where I’ve had breakfast the last three mornings. Managing to get there right after the last two person table outside was taken by a bicyclist I had to sit inside at a round ‘table’, more of a platform around a pillar where two other people, not a couple, were also seated. My flat white and breakfast ordered, I actually did log on to TripAdvisor to look for options. Of course that research stopped when breakfast showed up and it was a good breakfast. But then the man to my left, Ray, a mid 30’s Chinese architect, started to chat with me. (No, I am not always the first one to reach out.)

He is a professor of architecture in China and recognized that his country was in a position where there were going to be fewer and fewer students and for him to keep his position he was going to have to get his PhD rather than rely on his master’s degree to retain his employment. Unlike most Chinese he had travelled fairly extensively and had in fact lived in New York City for several years where he both studied and worked. At one point he mentioned that he had also gone to Bangkok and this was years after returning to China, and the thing that struck him struck him in a 7/11. It was, he said, “The smell of freedom.”

I loved that… freedom has a smell!

The truth is I have smelled it many times but I’ve never put my finger on it. Anytime you go to a country where there is an authoritarian figure, or there is extreme poverty, there’s a different feel and in fact a different smell. There’s a French chef that says that texture is flavor. And here is right. Can you imagine Cheetos without the crunch? Crème brulee without this silkiness of the pudding? A Magnolia tree without the sweetness of its blossoms? Freedom too has a smell. I can’t describe it yet, but it is there nonetheless. perhaps somebody who is experienced a lack of freedom you can put the words together better and through those words elicit the emotion that is attached to the smell of freedom.

So today as I wander around, I will continuously go back to thinking about this and see if I can put my finger on it. But whether I do, or I don’t find the right words it will still be there.

And I hope that today, as you’re doing whatever you’re doing, you too notice the smell…

All the best,

Ole

01/09/2026

Sometimes things do not go the way you think they're going to. Other times you think you have a great idea and then you get involved with it and you go, "That's not going to work as well as I thought."

I have been in Chiang Mai for only a week. A week in which I have been attending classes from nine in the morning till after four o'clock in the afternoon to learn how to teach English as a foreign language. This I thought was a good idea inside of that it would give me access to experiences in other countries as a teacher that I wouldn't have if I was simply in the country doing my normal explorations. I would be involved. And I could do it in countries that I have an interest in staying in for more than a week or two like Japan and perhaps Poland. ( Don't ask me why Poland I don't really know.)

However, what has happened has been instruction in the English language to begin with. Duh! Who knew that before you could teach english as a foreign language you actually had to understand the grammar, the structure of sentences, what are the difference between simple tenses and perfect tenses? I mean, I know I use the words every day and I use the tenses every day, and typically my verb plurality matches my subject plurality. I have even heard of past perfect and present perfect tenses! Somewhere along the way probably in about 1964 through 1966, I actually studied this stuff. It turns out though that while I seem to have a passion for writing, I do not have the same passion for teaching others how to write or speak in a classroom setting, online, or probably even one on one.

And so what do I do now? I mean, I have flown all the way to Thailand, a trip of 32 hours, booked hotels, and paid for my training. I have three weeks that if I drop out now are going to shift from being fairly full to being wildly open with no real idea what I want to do or where I want to go, with my newly found free time.

I do know this though, I've been struggling for the last couple of days with coming to a choice as to whether or not I was going to finish the school. I think about things like "Am I being a quitter? I'm wasting money. I know I don't want to sit in a hotel room for 3 weeks!!!

This morning, though I've arrived at what I'd think is the best direction to take. I'm going to say goodbye to this school and thank them for the opportunity. With that, no longer a concern, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to sleep better and believe it or not, that's a pretty big deal in itself.

From there, my current plan is to wander around the city over the weekend, get a massage or two - they cost just under $10 for an hour. $11 including the tip. I will go on a couple of forms and find additional things to do in the area. I know one of them is a loop that you can take over the course of a day or two through the mountains nearby. Another is an ATV tour, which takes us to the sticky waterfalls and then on to whitewater rafting. Golf is a distinct possibility. So don't worry about me, I'll find something to do, and when I do I will probably write about it here.

Happy New Year to all you Buddhists.

Olestravels

06/15/2026

06/13/2026

06/10/2026

06/03/2026

06/01/2026

01/11/2026

01/09/2026

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