Vs: [Leica] Re: WG: Here is Part 1 again! Best, Tom A - Part 1 a

["Raimo Korhonen" <raimo.korhonen@pp2.inet.fi>]

Hi Tom, great stuff. Thank you!
About motoring in Europe in a small car you could read about my experiences in my site.
All the best!
Raimo
photos at http://personal.inet.fi/private/raimo.korhonen

- -----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: TTAbrahams@aol.com <TTAbrahams@aol.com>
Vastaanottaja: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Päivä: 23. huhtikuuta 2000 21:44
Aihe: Re: [Leica] Re: WG: Here is Part 1 again! Best, Tom A - Part 1 a


>In a message dated 4/23/00 11:30:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
>jbcollier@home.com writes:
><< Tom could you please post part 1 in two parts so it gets through? If I may 
>be so bold, how about 1a  and 1b. 
> John Collier >>
>John,
>Here goes:
>Part 1a)
>Subj:    Bessa-R to Bilbao     (Part 1- Long)  
>Date:   4/21/00 8:02:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>From:   TTAbrahams@aol.com
>Reply-to:   leica@topica.com
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>CC: leica@topica.com
>
>At last I have recuperated from the combination of flu and serious 
>photographic visitors. Fellow LUGgers Martin Howard and Arthur Krick (U.K.) 
>visited with us for a while in early to mid-April and we also had the spring 
>Swap meet with Ted and Irene Grant and Henning Wulff in attendance. Great fun 
>but it has left very little time for writing travel stuff and making 
>Rapidwinders! We have a simple rule for visitors, you want to eat, you cook, 
>but on the other hand the host provides processing for the black and white 
>films that tends to pile up. It is great to have guests that actually take 
>pictures and I think that we shot about 50-60 rolls between us in a couple of 
>weeks so the darkroom got a good workout too. It has also meant that some of 
>the stuff I shot in Europe in March is still in its undeveloped stage (only 
>15-20 rolls or so).
> Tuulikki and I left Vancouver at the end of February and arrived in London 
>March 1st. To set the tone for the trip, there was a small LUG meet at 
>Truckles in the Pied Bull Yard, only 8 of us, but a rather interesting crowd; 
>Johnny Deadman, Mike Stone, Julian Thomas, Frank Dernier, Alex Brattell and 
>Arthur Krick to spend a highly enjoyable evening talking cameras, pictures, 
>books and, of course, commenting on non-present LUGgers! Frank Dernier 
>brought his Konica Hexar RF and I had the Bessa-RF along, so everybody could 
>do direct comparisons. The consensus seemed to be that the Konica is well 
>built, large, heavy on the electronics and pricey. The finder is surprisingly 
>good, at least up to 75mm, after that it becomes rather useless. The Bessa-R 
>is lighter weight, cheaper and a bit noisy on the release; the Konica has an 
>"advance" noise after each exposure that I find irritating. I think it is 
>very much a personal preference, which of the two cameras one would use as an 
>alternative to a M-camera
> Next day, at some godawful time in the morning we caught the bus to Dover, 
>ferry to Calais and picked up our rental car, a very small, green Citroen 
>Saxo (the entire engine is slightly larger than 1 cylinder of my Chrysler New 
>Yorker here!). It did have 4000 km on it when we picked it up and we added 
>another 8500 in 30 days! From Calais we headed to Gent/Belgium for an early 
>dinner with Lucien and his friend Jack. Gent is a classic "old" town, narrow 
>street, confused street signs and names and you are forever being chased by 
>very large trams with clanging bells. The Citroen tires would fit comfortably 
>in the tram-tracks, but I had no idea how to operate the switches that makes 
>you change directions! There is also a plan underfoot to confuse tourists and 
>locals equally by changing street names, one-way streets and the introduction 
>of large granite blocks as barriers to thwart any attempt by anybody to find 
>anything. We persisted and only 15 minutes late we met with Lucien and Jack 
>and had our dinner, camera-talk, delivery of glossy black Rapidwinder for 
>Lucien's Millenium M6. Lucien was heading off with his family for 
>ski-vacation, but Jack and we made plan to see each other on the following 
>Sunday at the Houten Swap meet in Holland. We managed to find our way out of 
>Gent, thanks Lucien 'pour la pilotage" and headed for Rotterdam and the NHS 
>meet (this stands for Nikon Historical Society, you know that camera that 
>they build in Japan, large, lots of batteries and we occasionally lust for 
>when we need longer lenses and multiple flash set-ups!). I have been a NHS 
>member for years (yes, now the secret is out and "My name is Tom and I have 
>several Nikons…) and I always wanted to go to their biannual meet. Well, at 
>least the NHS and LHSA has one thing in common, they pick hotel in the 
>darndest places! The Rotterdam Airport Hotel is weird, corridors long enough 
>that I think our room was actually in Amsterdam. As usual when you arrive at 
>these gatherings, head for the bar that's where they all hang out so we did 
>and there they were! The NHS is a smaller group than LHSA but there are a lot 
>of members in common and we all exchanged secret handshakes and swore each 
>other to secrecy about our memberships. Oh, it was pouring down, wind was 
>howling and the drive from Gent to Rotterdam was interesting, particularly as 
>every truck in Holland was hell-bent on acquiring a green Citroen as a hood 
>ornament! 
> On the Friday morning the NHS crowd was bussed to a secret location, the 
>secrecy consisted of the fact that none of us know how to pronounce the place 
>and most of us are still unable to pinpoint exactly where we were. Here we 
>were fed with coffee, sandwiches and sweet buns (both the Belgians and the 
>Dutch consider any time spent not eating a waste of time, very sensible 
>people!) and we also had the chance to see the absolute best collection of 
>Leica Prototypes (and some very rare Nikon rangefinders stuff) that I have 
>ever seen. Danny, the owner of this collection has amassed a rather unique 
>collection of both early and post-war Leica prototypes. There were stuff 
>there that I had only heard about, but never seen and my favourite piece 
>(apart from the early chrome M4P with a very early chrome Rapidwinder on it!) 
>was one of the two "Snap-Shot Elmars" made after WW2. We all happily drooled 
>on the glass cabinets and tried to pick out favourites and I think that Danny 
>deserves great thanks for sharing his collection with us. The location of the 
>"show and tell" was rather sombre; it was close to a tombstone manufacturing 
>facility and one of the LHSA/NHS members asked, " When I go, could I get a 
>tombstone made in the shape of the Mountain Elmar?" Danny answered deadpan" 
>Of course, but would you prefer with hood or without?". After this feast of 
>collectibles we went to Agfa's film manufacturing facility and ate (at least 
>1-1/1/2 hours had past and we must be hungry by now, according to the 
>hosts!), no pictures allowed inside so it is best left to your imagination 
>(and it was mainly polyester base for X-ray film anyway), after this a short 
>detour to a photographic museum with some interesting exhibits and then a 
>quick stop in Breda were the entire busload walked around and also descended 
>on the local Nikon store. The staff looked terrified when about 40 people 
>armed to their teeth with cameras filled the store! Of course some of us went 
>to a local cafe and had coffee and cookies, after this we were bussed right 
>back to the hotel where, you guessed it, we had dinner!(to be continued in 
>Part 1 b) 
>Tom A
>