a thing in 125 photos

rental car

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rental car — We scored a rental car and headed to check in to our...oh, wait, did I forget to mention that our resort check-in date wasn't until Saturday and we'd decided to party the first two nights and sleep in our rental car? Hahah. Ok, so here's the story. Keep in mind, we went on this trip because my Uncle Bruce had a week at a luxury resort that he wasn't going to be able to use. That meant that we had a free place to stay from Saturday to Saturday. When we went to buy plane tickets, we found out that if we flew in on Thursday (instead of Friday or Saturday), our flights would be almost $600 cheaper. Considering we were both trying to save money (neither of us were working at the time), we decided that we take the cheaper Thursday flight and and just sleep in the rental car until Saturday when we were able to check into the fancy resort.

rental car — After Hannukah presents, we hopped back in Grant's (Satanic) rental car...

rental car — Gassing up our little Vauxhal rental.

rental car — ...and headed for the nearby shore town of Leigh-on-Sea. (Beyond the lovely scenery, the best part of the trip was the Abott & Costello-esque conversation between Grant and the Fatty where Fatty thought the town was called "Leon's Sea.")

rental car — After a 90-minute, white-knuckled drive in the rain (on the wrong side of the road)...

rental car — Grant hopped on the "red phone" and ordered us up a car. We claimed our bags and prepared to head to (DRUMROLL)....

rental car — Check it out: both Grant and Fatty are "handling their luggage."

rental car — We bid our lovely condo a fond farewell and piled into our sweet, lil' rental one last time.

rental car — With the Fatty at the wheel, we hit the road.

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So. Tired. Must. Sleep. Soon.

european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.

October 24, 2003

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We stopped at a gas station to get some water and snacks (and so Fatty could do a quick flex-down in front of the car)...

european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.

October 24, 2003

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Here's our car for the week! A Peugeot 307 hatchback. Check out Fatty enjoying the warm Cretan breeze on his face (which was such a nice change after having been in London freezing our asses off not 10 hours ago).

european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.

October 24, 2003

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Being that all the road signs were in Greek, we elected Chris to drive. We packed up the car, busted out the map, and started the 80 kilometer drive from Heraklion to Rethymnon.

european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.

October 24, 2003

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We pulled over again to take pics (and enjoy the bad-in-a-good way sulfur stink).

european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon

October 21, 2003

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The whole idea of stopping in Iceland on the way to London had been Grant's idea. So right up until this point we'd been laughing at the irony of the fact that he'd been missing out on all the fun - but the Blue Lagoon was so amazing that it just stopped being funny. Sorry you weren't there to see it with us, Lil' Buddy! We missed you! After we were done up taking pics on the hill, we climbed down, grabbed our car and headed back towards the airport at Keflavik.

european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon

October 21, 2003

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8:02am (yep, still dark). We made it to downtown Reykjavik (the world's northernmost capital) and parked our teeny-tiny Eurocar in a public lot near the Tjörn, which is a big, man-made lake in the center of the oldest part of town.

We didn't manage to get a picture of him, but on the walk over to the Tjörn, this thirty-something year-old guy, who had what looked like a giant lobotomy scar running horizontally across his forehead, ran up to us and said "Where are you from?" in perfect English. "New York City," we told him. "Oh, yeah? What do you do?" Me: "I work at a software company." He then leaned in really close towards my face and asked, "A SOFTware company, or a softWARE company?" Then cackled maniacally and ran away.

european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.

October 21, 2003

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After we got our money all squared away, we headed over to Hertz and rented a car. We told the woman at the counter that we only had a few hours and we asked her if, besides Reykjavik, there was anything that we should be sure not to miss in the short time we had. She was like "Eh, not really." So we were like, "What about that Blue Lagoon place? We saw video about it on the plane and it looked amazing! Is that worth checking out?" Once again we were met with a tepid "Eh, it's ok" and a shrug. (We wrote off her lethargy as an effect of the less than four hours of sunshine Iceland receives during its winter days).

european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.

October 21, 2003

rental car — Me pulling an exicted face at the bag of donuts Grant was holding up as I pulled in. (They got me a treat! Who's more thoughtful than them? Who's luckier than me?)

rental car — A few minutes later, I arrived. (In my sweet, sweet Intreptid rental.)

rental car — So Sunday night Louis and I landed in San Fran and picked up another bitchin' convertable rental car (This time we got a 'Stang which is way hotter than our last car.)

rental car — There's our gal? She's a real beaut, ain' she, Clark?

rental car — Before heading out of town, Sarah and I went joyriding in the pimpmobile one last time (and I snapped this amazing photo of her as we drove past some WWII airplane monument - it's one of my favoritest pics of all time).

rental car — Then later that night, Sarah and I drove all over Madison in my faaaancy convertible!

rental car — Budget car? No way, playa! Louis "Big Pimpin" Kanganis holds the key to our big pimpin' Chrystler Sebring convertable. Aw yeah, boyee.

rental car — Thelma & Louis (hehe) on the run. (Look at Louis in the background...see that serious face he's making? Yeah, that's because instead of enjoying the ride, he was responding to emails via his Blackberry messenger.)