Solvang: The Time Trial

Last night we arrived in Solvang for the decisive Time Trial. Solvang is a weird place, best described as "Little Denmark". It looks like a contingent of Danes settled this area many years ago, and have kept their spiritual ties to their homeland intact through generations. Danish names and flags all over the place.

Danish cuisine, like all Scandinavian cuisine, is pretty awful but not nearly as revolting as many other types of Eurofood. The worst Eurofood, of course, is French. French food is famous for its sauces and wines, both of which were invented to mask the fact that the meats and other ingredients making up the underlying French cuisine are so disgusting and indigestible. The disgusting-ness of French food is a possible explanation for the fact that the vast majority of French people are foul-smelling, rude, bitter, sour-dispositioned assholes. If anybody from France is reading this blog, FUCK YOU and FUCK FRANCE.

As you probably know, Maui (my home) is the #1 island tourist destination in the world. From time to time, I'll be out on my bike and a carload of tourists will ask me for directions. If the tourists are anything other than French, I will carefully give them directions to the best of my knowledge. But if they are French, I always give them the most incorrect, inconvenient, and awful directions I can plausibly make up off the top of my head. Hopefully I have ruined the vacations of dozens of French tourons, the way so many French have ruined every single one of my way-too-many trips to France. About ten years ago I vowed to never again set foot in France, no matter how much money a potential customer was willing to throw at me. This vow has served me well, I have never been tempted to waver from it in the slightest.

Once again, if anybody from France is reading this blog, FUCK YOU and FUCK FRANCE.

Now back to trashing the Scandinavian countries.

Making Scandinavian food is easy:

1. Cook your favorite meal, serve it up on a large dinner plate.

2. Take the plate and dump the entire contents, en masse, into a big pot.

3. Add some really disgusting scrap fish, such as eel.

4. Simmer for about four hours, until it is an unintelligible, congealed goo.

There you have it: Swedish / Norwegian / Danish food, at its finest.

Solvang's hotel of the day was the first lousy hotel of the Tour: The Best Western King Frederik. The towels were small and threadbare, and the walls were thin to the point where, when cars passed by in front of the hotel, they sounded so close and so loud that I expected to hear THUMP-THUMP as they ran over my ankles.

I suppose I should be grateful, however, as I heard Medalist Sports put us here because hotel space in Solvang is extremely scarce. Many of the 850 people in this crazy show had to stay as far away as Santa Barbara, which is \an hour away. Given a choice between the King Frederick, 5 minutes from Friday's racecourse, and a Four Seasons or Grand Hyatt an hour away, I would definitely take the thin walls at this point.

My ingenious and ultra-cool nephew, Christo Wilson, is coming out today for a visit. He's studying for a Masters in Computer Science at U Cal Santa Barbara, so he's driving up to say hello and check out the show. That should cheer me up a bit.