I was pretty bored on Sunday, April 20, and decided to accompany my friends Lauren, Katie and Strauss (last name) to Nijmegen, a city we Castle-dwellers mostly got to know as a means of getting from A-B, but which also happens to be a great city in its own right.
We took the 70-minute bus ride (our Eurails were over) and got to Nijmegen around, oh, 4 or so or something. There were a lot of people at the outdoor cafes--families, groups of couples, contented old men--just enjoying the day. It was really nice out. We went to a really great falafel place, Maoh’s, whose proprietor thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of having real live Americans in his establishment. I’m afraid of getting falafel again; I think I’d be disappointed in how it measures up to Maoh’s.
We walked around the city for a while. It’s a really neat town--the oldest in the Netherlands. A lot of the city was closed, including supermarkets and most shops. Alas, we didn’t come to shop, so we weren’t disappointed.
After that, we went to a coffee shop. In such places, coffee is, in fact, an afterthought. I didn’t smoke anything; I just sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. And I got a little sleepy. And a little headachy, so Lauren and I went outside for air for a bit.
Katie and I had never experienced doner kebap, which, in Strauss’ opinion, needed to be rectified before we went back to the castle. So we split one. Doner is pretty much a gyro. It was ok, but really quite boring. It counts as cultural, and I’m glad to say I experienced it, but meh, I wouldn’t choose to eat it again.
We went back to the bus station, and I was in the mood for some more culture, so I bought a Lion bar. “It consists of wafer, caramel and rice crispies covered in milk chocolate” (Wikipedia). They don’t have them in America. That’s what made it cultural.
We hopped on the bus--the last bus ride I would take in the Netherlands--and rode back to the castle. It was fun, and definitely more fun than staring at Facebook on my computer.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Cologne. Understated but nice-smelling.
There was still one more city I wanted to see: Cologne. Thursday was a make-up class/reading day and I had no commitments, so I got up early for breakfast and hopped on a bus to take me to the train to take me to Germany’s fourth-largest city, and the last city I would visit on my semester-long vacation.
Damnit. I forgot my Eurail pass.
So I took the bus back to the castle, unearthed my Eurail from my desk drawer and took the bus, for a second time, to Venray. By this point, I’ve realized that half of traveling is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something always goes wrong. Always. Don’t try to avoid or run away from it. It just happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it but adapt.
I got to Cologne around 12:30 and took on the city’s largest, most impressive sight: the Kolner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). I have seen so many cathedrals in the past few months, my head might explode, but the Dom was very cool, and shows a very different mood of cathedral building.
The high Gothic architecture design and dark stone used for its construction, the Dom looks positively German--weathered, serious, formidable and grave. The rest of Cologne was bombed extensively by the Allies during WWII, but the Dom stood proud, enduring 14 bombings. If it suffered any damage, you can’t tell now. This is true of the rest of the Cologne, too. In this way, it’s no Berlin.
I climbed the steps to the top of the Dom’s bell tower--five hundred and something steps. My legs, strengthened from walking around while traveling, ached as I climbed, but I made it, breathing heavily but in good condition. I passed many stragglers on the way up. Leaning against the wall; holding their sides; wheezing--these folks didn’t know what they were in for. Amateurs.
The view was really nice. Cologne has a population of nearly 1 million, but the metropolis is pretty compact. A river runs through the city (a river runs through every European city; or an ocean) and relaxed mountains trace the horizon. It was such a warm, clear day. It was worth the climb.
The Dom is the only major sight in Cologne, so I spent the rest of my day there walking around. I found a bookstore and went in. I do this in every city I go to, irrespective of language. It’s cool to see which English-language/American books pervade different markets. I saw Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and a whole bunch of Nick Hornby books. I went to the English-language section (always a highlight) and picked up On The Road. Man. Kerouac is so cool; I’m getting that book the moment I get back.
There was a Dunkin Donuts in Cologne, but I
didn’t want to consume caffeine (they don’t do decaf in Europe)
didn’t want to pay 3E50 for an iced coffee
didn’t want to be cliché
and didn’t want to have the upper of the coffee compete with the downer of the beer I wanted to drink. I would get my Dunks fix when I got back to the US. It’s only another week and a day.
I did, though, get a gelato and a Ritter Sport. This is a mandatory part of my city-seeing methodology: cheap, high-energy fuel while I walk around. I also got half-liter can of a beer-cola blend. It was cultural. I just figured--being in Deutschland--it was something I should do.
I walked down Cologne’s main street. It looked and sounded like Downtown Crossing. There were a lot of people out for a Thursday afternoon, and the people were very vibrant.
I was starting to get sleepy, and I wanted to get back to dinner, so I left on a train around 4. My train was supposed to take me from A to B, but when it got three-fourths of the way to B, it started going back towards A. It’s times like these I wish I speak German. Sigh.
So I appraised the map, and, after ascertaining what was going on, I jumped off of a moving train. Audrey has chastised me for this, but I don’t think it was that dangerous. The train had was just starting to leave the station and was only going about 5mph (8kph).
So I was in some small German town whose only visible residents were some kids playing in a backyard and a few teenagers doing a lot of nothing next to a crosswalk. I really had to pee, so I found a secluded spot and took care of that. There is no way I’m paying money to go to the bathroom.
I waited for a while and then took the train going back towards B. There was track construction going on, so we had to take shuttle buses to our destination. Sheesh. I took a bus from Venlo back to the castle. It took me so long to get back, I missed dinner. Meh. I don’t mind. I have other food.
Damnit. I forgot my Eurail pass.
So I took the bus back to the castle, unearthed my Eurail from my desk drawer and took the bus, for a second time, to Venray. By this point, I’ve realized that half of traveling is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something always goes wrong. Always. Don’t try to avoid or run away from it. It just happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it but adapt.
I got to Cologne around 12:30 and took on the city’s largest, most impressive sight: the Kolner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). I have seen so many cathedrals in the past few months, my head might explode, but the Dom was very cool, and shows a very different mood of cathedral building.
The high Gothic architecture design and dark stone used for its construction, the Dom looks positively German--weathered, serious, formidable and grave. The rest of Cologne was bombed extensively by the Allies during WWII, but the Dom stood proud, enduring 14 bombings. If it suffered any damage, you can’t tell now. This is true of the rest of the Cologne, too. In this way, it’s no Berlin.
I climbed the steps to the top of the Dom’s bell tower--five hundred and something steps. My legs, strengthened from walking around while traveling, ached as I climbed, but I made it, breathing heavily but in good condition. I passed many stragglers on the way up. Leaning against the wall; holding their sides; wheezing--these folks didn’t know what they were in for. Amateurs.
The view was really nice. Cologne has a population of nearly 1 million, but the metropolis is pretty compact. A river runs through the city (a river runs through every European city; or an ocean) and relaxed mountains trace the horizon. It was such a warm, clear day. It was worth the climb.
The Dom is the only major sight in Cologne, so I spent the rest of my day there walking around. I found a bookstore and went in. I do this in every city I go to, irrespective of language. It’s cool to see which English-language/American books pervade different markets. I saw Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and a whole bunch of Nick Hornby books. I went to the English-language section (always a highlight) and picked up On The Road. Man. Kerouac is so cool; I’m getting that book the moment I get back.
There was a Dunkin Donuts in Cologne, but I
didn’t want to consume caffeine (they don’t do decaf in Europe)
didn’t want to pay 3E50 for an iced coffee
didn’t want to be cliché
and didn’t want to have the upper of the coffee compete with the downer of the beer I wanted to drink. I would get my Dunks fix when I got back to the US. It’s only another week and a day.
I did, though, get a gelato and a Ritter Sport. This is a mandatory part of my city-seeing methodology: cheap, high-energy fuel while I walk around. I also got half-liter can of a beer-cola blend. It was cultural. I just figured--being in Deutschland--it was something I should do.
I walked down Cologne’s main street. It looked and sounded like Downtown Crossing. There were a lot of people out for a Thursday afternoon, and the people were very vibrant.
I was starting to get sleepy, and I wanted to get back to dinner, so I left on a train around 4. My train was supposed to take me from A to B, but when it got three-fourths of the way to B, it started going back towards A. It’s times like these I wish I speak German. Sigh.
So I appraised the map, and, after ascertaining what was going on, I jumped off of a moving train. Audrey has chastised me for this, but I don’t think it was that dangerous. The train had was just starting to leave the station and was only going about 5mph (8kph).
So I was in some small German town whose only visible residents were some kids playing in a backyard and a few teenagers doing a lot of nothing next to a crosswalk. I really had to pee, so I found a secluded spot and took care of that. There is no way I’m paying money to go to the bathroom.
I waited for a while and then took the train going back towards B. There was track construction going on, so we had to take shuttle buses to our destination. Sheesh. I took a bus from Venlo back to the castle. It took me so long to get back, I missed dinner. Meh. I don’t mind. I have other food.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ciao Bella: Chris in Italia
This weekend, I traveled with a grotesquely-filled backpack and a still-unquenched desire to see Italy, the last major destination of my travels. I tried to get a couple of other people to go with me, but alas, they couldn’t come. But no matter: I went alone.
Wednesday, 4/9
I left on Wednesday morning, so I had to skip my three Wednesday classes. Whatever dude. I used the class cuts to use, and I wasn’t nursing a hangover, I was going to Italy. My decision was justified.
I was on the same flight as Kevin, Brian and Greg (who were also traveling to Italy that weekend), so we took the same cab to Weeze airport. The flight was to an airport outside of Milan, and we took a shuttle to Milano Centrale, Milan’s main train station, not the hub of Pepperidge Farm cookie production.
Milano Centrale was the most confusing place in the universe, and my difficulty in deciphering the signs and geography of the station was coupled by a complete lack of anyone who was willing to answer questions with any level of specificity. I asked the information desk where I could make a reservation for a seat, and they said “downstairs.” This building is the size of Rowley. Could you narrow it down any?
I missed my train on account of not being able to find it on the departure board and nearly being swallowed by a crowd of rush-houring Italians. I switched my reservation and got on my train. Our flight to Milan took less than two hours, but my train ride from Milan to Rome took four and a half. I didn’t get into Rome until 10 p.m. Not funny, Italy. Not funny.
Also not funny is that the Rome metro closes at 10 p.m. The directions to my hostel--a camping village on the outer reaches of the city--told me to take the metro. Well, I would, hostel directions, but the metro’s closed! At 10 p.m.!
I left Rome’s main train station and approached a bus to ask how to get to line 246, the bus that would take me to my hostel. Thankfully, my guardian angel--a 55-year-old Italian man with well-groomed facial hair, a tan blazer and an issue of Vanity Fair Italia--saved me from certain disorientation. The way to bus 246 was on his way home, which was very fortunate for me. He spoke English well enough to understand how infinitely thankful I was for his help. I got to my hostel around midnight and promptly passed out.
Thursday, 4/10
I fell asleep around midnight, so I was able to get up and at ‘em pretty early, which was nice. I decided I would take on the Vatican first. Saint Peter’s Cathedral is so large, so vast, it seemed one could fit Sacre-Coeur or any other church I’ve seen inside of it. I went to a mass in one of the chapels (although the level of my participation in the Italian-language service was limited) and strolled around inside the cathedral, looking at the art and architecture. Wow.
When I left San Pietro, I noticed there were a large amount of people heading for a building down on the side of the cathedral. It was the Papal crypt, where Popes are buried and memorialized. John Paul II’s mausoleum is white and plainly decorated, and bright. I was really glad I got to see that.
I decided I didn’t want to wait through the endless lines and pay the 8 Euro ($13) to get into the Vatican Museums, at the end of which is the Sistine Chapel. Maybe if there were other people with me, I would have been more excited about it, but I just didn’t have it in me.
Rome only has two metro lines, and its bus lines are winding and poorly marked. I would have just walked around Rome (and I tried), but the city is just too expansive. I wanted to go a specific neighborhood for lunch, but I couldn’t manage to figure out the buses (and I rode quite a few of them) before hunger overtook me. There are a lot of small shops that sell pizza by weight, which can get you some reasonable deals for a quick lunch. I had zucchini (which was a white pizza) and margarita. The fungi (mushroom) pizza I had on Friday was much better, though. I spent a lot of my afternoon walking around, not quite sure where I was, slightly frustrated but still enjoying the atmosphere. And eating gelato.
The Coliseum is as cool as you think it would be, and also surprisingly integrated into the city; there were roads and buildings all around it. There was also a political rally-concert going on on the lawn right next to the Coliseum, pumping up supporters for conservative Silvio Berlusconi, whose party was victorious in the April 13-14 parliamentary elections. It was really cool to see the election placards all over the city. There are 10 or so political parties (that I could observe), so all the political advertising and imagery was really interesting to look at.
I went and saw the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. They were cool and there were a lot of people looking at them.
I had a great, mid-range dinner at a place recommended in my travel guide. I had insalate with lettuce, tomato, tuna, olives, and mozzarella. I got free bread and water, too. There was a huge pack of kids from Notre Dame (Michigan) University there. They were quite wine drunk. The owner was a really personable Italian guy, and he gave me a dessert of sugared strawberries and a glass of port to top it all off. All this for 7 Euro! It was a really great dinner. It would have been very depressing to have left Rome without a nice meal at a place like this. I got gelato again (don’t judge me) and headed back to my hostel, which was an adventure in itself.
Friday, 4/11
When I rode the bus this morning, I was the most crowded I’ve ever been in my life. Some French idiots decided it was a good idea to jump onto the already too-full bus, which then made the bus so full its doors couldn’t open to let anyone in or out! Yes! I forced my way through the doors (it took all my weight and effort to get the door open) and went to an outdoor market. It was raining--and it was raining for about half the time I was in Italy--and the market had awnings overhead, so I was protected from the rain. I bought an apple, a pastry and 1 Euro Italian toothpaste (I needed some).
I sent a postcard at the post office in Rome Termini (the city’s central train station), and walked north of the station. I didn’t want to do any more sightseeing, even though there was a lot more to see. Whatever, dude. I just wanted to walk, so that’s what I did.
On Thursday, I had instant messaged my friend Britt, after seeing she was planning to go to Rome and Florence this weekend! Britt goes to Emerson and is currently doing a semester in Greece. This was such a cool coincidence, and a very welcome one, at that. Having been alone since Wednesday, I was starting to go slightly crazy. I was thankful to meet with Britt for my journey to Florence.
Well, that journey didn’t go so well. We got on a train and went past Florence (the train didn’t stop at Florence’s main station like we had expected), got on another train that we thought was taking us back towards Florence but was really taking us further away and then waited on a platform in some deserted station until a train finally came to take us back to Florence (but for real this time). We got to the city around 11. We felt pretty dumb. I went to find my hostel, which was about a 15-minute walk from the station (Florence is very small and very walkable). This walk was prolonged by pouring rain. Hooray! Upon arriving at my hostel, I slept.
Saturday, 4/12
It was difficult to get up this morning. But after mustering up the will, I did. I went and got a pastry (a butter cookie with nutella in the middle) for breakfast and explored the city. I saw the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) and proceeded with my unscientific but tried and true method of seeing a city: walking around. I had pappa al pomodoro for lunch. It’s a tuscan Tomato stewy soup (or soupy stew) made with garlic, olive oil, basil, broth and bread (for thickening). It was a little sweet--I could’ve used some cheese--but really fresh and really good. I knew I was in for a treat when I saw a huge crowd of Italians waiting in front of this cafeteria thing. You could tell it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill pizza/pasta stand.
The indoor market (Mercato Centrale) was really neat. Outside were a bunch of booths trying to sell you poorly-made pashtima scarves and jewelry. They were too aggressive. If you want me to look at your stand, give me air. If you want me to not look at your stand, tell me you have the stuff in the market and you’ll give me the best price. Baaaaaaack off. I didn’t buy anything.
I walked over to the Duomo, which is a really unique-looking church. The emphasis was the patterned decoration and the really intricate detailing, not the architecture (not to sell the architecture short).
At this point, I hit the wall. I went back to the hostel to read a little and take a nap.
For dinner, I met up with Britt and her friend Alina. We went to Spera, a hole-in-the-wall pizza place on the outside of the city center. I got a Napoli pizza for less than 4 Euro! I don’t know how they make money off that (we got wine, so there’s the answer, I guess).
I had to get up very early Sunday morning, so I went back and went to sleep.
Sunday, 4/13
I got up at 6:30. My train was at 8:14 and I ended up having way too much time, but I wasn’t taking any chances with missing my train (out of not having enough time or out of confusion). If I missed that train, I was going to miss my flight. On the whole, it was a long and unfun day of traveling.
The Tuscan countryside kept me awake, even though I usually nap on trains. The hills and quant villas are really cool and really personable. I got to Milano Centrale at 11, and from there took a shuttle bus to the airport. I did have to take a lap around the station to find where the shuttle bus was (the ticket agent said “outside”), but I found it. The bus cost 8 Euro ($13). These ticky-tack hidden costs really added up over the course of the semester.
I arrived at the airport almost too soon to check-in (I was NOT missing this flight). I hit up the duty-free shop for a liquid gift to bring home. My iPod was dead, which sucked, and on the flight I was too tired to read and too uncomfortable to sleep. Whatever. I was almost home.
From Weeze I took a taxi service (for 15 Euroà$24), which dropped me off right where the buses that go through Well do. It was a long day and a long weekend and I’d had enough, for the time being, of being my own company. But the castle’s become my home, and home I was.
I went on a day trip to Cologne Thursday and to Nijmegen, a city here in the Netherlands, yesterday. I'll post about those later--maybe not until I have my feet back on the ground in the United States. I leave Friday! Pray for my travels...US Airways has already been playing some practical jokes on me!
Wednesday, 4/9
I left on Wednesday morning, so I had to skip my three Wednesday classes. Whatever dude. I used the class cuts to use, and I wasn’t nursing a hangover, I was going to Italy. My decision was justified.
I was on the same flight as Kevin, Brian and Greg (who were also traveling to Italy that weekend), so we took the same cab to Weeze airport. The flight was to an airport outside of Milan, and we took a shuttle to Milano Centrale, Milan’s main train station, not the hub of Pepperidge Farm cookie production.
Milano Centrale was the most confusing place in the universe, and my difficulty in deciphering the signs and geography of the station was coupled by a complete lack of anyone who was willing to answer questions with any level of specificity. I asked the information desk where I could make a reservation for a seat, and they said “downstairs.” This building is the size of Rowley. Could you narrow it down any?
I missed my train on account of not being able to find it on the departure board and nearly being swallowed by a crowd of rush-houring Italians. I switched my reservation and got on my train. Our flight to Milan took less than two hours, but my train ride from Milan to Rome took four and a half. I didn’t get into Rome until 10 p.m. Not funny, Italy. Not funny.
Also not funny is that the Rome metro closes at 10 p.m. The directions to my hostel--a camping village on the outer reaches of the city--told me to take the metro. Well, I would, hostel directions, but the metro’s closed! At 10 p.m.!
I left Rome’s main train station and approached a bus to ask how to get to line 246, the bus that would take me to my hostel. Thankfully, my guardian angel--a 55-year-old Italian man with well-groomed facial hair, a tan blazer and an issue of Vanity Fair Italia--saved me from certain disorientation. The way to bus 246 was on his way home, which was very fortunate for me. He spoke English well enough to understand how infinitely thankful I was for his help. I got to my hostel around midnight and promptly passed out.
Thursday, 4/10
I fell asleep around midnight, so I was able to get up and at ‘em pretty early, which was nice. I decided I would take on the Vatican first. Saint Peter’s Cathedral is so large, so vast, it seemed one could fit Sacre-Coeur or any other church I’ve seen inside of it. I went to a mass in one of the chapels (although the level of my participation in the Italian-language service was limited) and strolled around inside the cathedral, looking at the art and architecture. Wow.
When I left San Pietro, I noticed there were a large amount of people heading for a building down on the side of the cathedral. It was the Papal crypt, where Popes are buried and memorialized. John Paul II’s mausoleum is white and plainly decorated, and bright. I was really glad I got to see that.
I decided I didn’t want to wait through the endless lines and pay the 8 Euro ($13) to get into the Vatican Museums, at the end of which is the Sistine Chapel. Maybe if there were other people with me, I would have been more excited about it, but I just didn’t have it in me.
Rome only has two metro lines, and its bus lines are winding and poorly marked. I would have just walked around Rome (and I tried), but the city is just too expansive. I wanted to go a specific neighborhood for lunch, but I couldn’t manage to figure out the buses (and I rode quite a few of them) before hunger overtook me. There are a lot of small shops that sell pizza by weight, which can get you some reasonable deals for a quick lunch. I had zucchini (which was a white pizza) and margarita. The fungi (mushroom) pizza I had on Friday was much better, though. I spent a lot of my afternoon walking around, not quite sure where I was, slightly frustrated but still enjoying the atmosphere. And eating gelato.
The Coliseum is as cool as you think it would be, and also surprisingly integrated into the city; there were roads and buildings all around it. There was also a political rally-concert going on on the lawn right next to the Coliseum, pumping up supporters for conservative Silvio Berlusconi, whose party was victorious in the April 13-14 parliamentary elections. It was really cool to see the election placards all over the city. There are 10 or so political parties (that I could observe), so all the political advertising and imagery was really interesting to look at.
I went and saw the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. They were cool and there were a lot of people looking at them.
I had a great, mid-range dinner at a place recommended in my travel guide. I had insalate with lettuce, tomato, tuna, olives, and mozzarella. I got free bread and water, too. There was a huge pack of kids from Notre Dame (Michigan) University there. They were quite wine drunk. The owner was a really personable Italian guy, and he gave me a dessert of sugared strawberries and a glass of port to top it all off. All this for 7 Euro! It was a really great dinner. It would have been very depressing to have left Rome without a nice meal at a place like this. I got gelato again (don’t judge me) and headed back to my hostel, which was an adventure in itself.
Friday, 4/11
When I rode the bus this morning, I was the most crowded I’ve ever been in my life. Some French idiots decided it was a good idea to jump onto the already too-full bus, which then made the bus so full its doors couldn’t open to let anyone in or out! Yes! I forced my way through the doors (it took all my weight and effort to get the door open) and went to an outdoor market. It was raining--and it was raining for about half the time I was in Italy--and the market had awnings overhead, so I was protected from the rain. I bought an apple, a pastry and 1 Euro Italian toothpaste (I needed some).
I sent a postcard at the post office in Rome Termini (the city’s central train station), and walked north of the station. I didn’t want to do any more sightseeing, even though there was a lot more to see. Whatever, dude. I just wanted to walk, so that’s what I did.
On Thursday, I had instant messaged my friend Britt, after seeing she was planning to go to Rome and Florence this weekend! Britt goes to Emerson and is currently doing a semester in Greece. This was such a cool coincidence, and a very welcome one, at that. Having been alone since Wednesday, I was starting to go slightly crazy. I was thankful to meet with Britt for my journey to Florence.
Well, that journey didn’t go so well. We got on a train and went past Florence (the train didn’t stop at Florence’s main station like we had expected), got on another train that we thought was taking us back towards Florence but was really taking us further away and then waited on a platform in some deserted station until a train finally came to take us back to Florence (but for real this time). We got to the city around 11. We felt pretty dumb. I went to find my hostel, which was about a 15-minute walk from the station (Florence is very small and very walkable). This walk was prolonged by pouring rain. Hooray! Upon arriving at my hostel, I slept.
Saturday, 4/12
It was difficult to get up this morning. But after mustering up the will, I did. I went and got a pastry (a butter cookie with nutella in the middle) for breakfast and explored the city. I saw the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) and proceeded with my unscientific but tried and true method of seeing a city: walking around. I had pappa al pomodoro for lunch. It’s a tuscan Tomato stewy soup (or soupy stew) made with garlic, olive oil, basil, broth and bread (for thickening). It was a little sweet--I could’ve used some cheese--but really fresh and really good. I knew I was in for a treat when I saw a huge crowd of Italians waiting in front of this cafeteria thing. You could tell it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill pizza/pasta stand.
The indoor market (Mercato Centrale) was really neat. Outside were a bunch of booths trying to sell you poorly-made pashtima scarves and jewelry. They were too aggressive. If you want me to look at your stand, give me air. If you want me to not look at your stand, tell me you have the stuff in the market and you’ll give me the best price. Baaaaaaack off. I didn’t buy anything.
I walked over to the Duomo, which is a really unique-looking church. The emphasis was the patterned decoration and the really intricate detailing, not the architecture (not to sell the architecture short).
At this point, I hit the wall. I went back to the hostel to read a little and take a nap.
For dinner, I met up with Britt and her friend Alina. We went to Spera, a hole-in-the-wall pizza place on the outside of the city center. I got a Napoli pizza for less than 4 Euro! I don’t know how they make money off that (we got wine, so there’s the answer, I guess).
I had to get up very early Sunday morning, so I went back and went to sleep.
Sunday, 4/13
I got up at 6:30. My train was at 8:14 and I ended up having way too much time, but I wasn’t taking any chances with missing my train (out of not having enough time or out of confusion). If I missed that train, I was going to miss my flight. On the whole, it was a long and unfun day of traveling.
The Tuscan countryside kept me awake, even though I usually nap on trains. The hills and quant villas are really cool and really personable. I got to Milano Centrale at 11, and from there took a shuttle bus to the airport. I did have to take a lap around the station to find where the shuttle bus was (the ticket agent said “outside”), but I found it. The bus cost 8 Euro ($13). These ticky-tack hidden costs really added up over the course of the semester.
I arrived at the airport almost too soon to check-in (I was NOT missing this flight). I hit up the duty-free shop for a liquid gift to bring home. My iPod was dead, which sucked, and on the flight I was too tired to read and too uncomfortable to sleep. Whatever. I was almost home.
From Weeze I took a taxi service (for 15 Euroà$24), which dropped me off right where the buses that go through Well do. It was a long day and a long weekend and I’d had enough, for the time being, of being my own company. But the castle’s become my home, and home I was.
I went on a day trip to Cologne Thursday and to Nijmegen, a city here in the Netherlands, yesterday. I'll post about those later--maybe not until I have my feet back on the ground in the United States. I leave Friday! Pray for my travels...US Airways has already been playing some practical jokes on me!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Croatian dreams and Barcelona breath
Tomorrow I'm going to Barcelona, but tonight I'm looking back on our past few days in Dubrovnik. It's been a very relaxing yet eventful five days, and I'll remember a lot of my stories for a long time to come.
Friday, 3/28
We got up at 6-a-freaking-clock-a.m. to start our first travel day. We packed lunches and boarded buses for Cologne at 7:30. We got to Cologne and sat around the terminal for two and a half hours before we could board. Not cool. Don't make me get up at 6 so I can sit around in a terminal. If you want to see an unhappy Chris, do exactly that. Terrible.
We flew to Split and landed at 2 or so. We went through passport control and took a short bus journey to an old Roman village, where we checked out ruins of an amphitheatre and some other stuff I was too thirsty to properly appreciate.
Split is about 4 hours from Dubrovnik, but the drive was made worth it by the immaculate Croatian countryside. The radiant blue of the sea up against the deep green of the pine trees on the seaside mountains. Our coach buses snakes in and out of the sunset, and I almost forgot how sleep deprived I was at that point.
We got to the hotel late—around 10:30—and we ate a spread our program director had the hotel prepare for us and (mercifully) went to bed.
Saturday, 3/29
Today we began with a walking tour of Dubrovnik. The city is incredibly old, and incredibly pretty. And it's walled. We walked up around the city wall, and I jumped up onto the wall itself and made people nervous. Whatever, dudes. I can handle it.
When you enter the walls of Dubrovnik (through the front gates), the city has one main pedestrian avenue. There is little vehicle traffic in the old city. Little alleyways shoot off to the left (further uphill) and to the right (closer to the ocean). The stone streets are winding and thin and clean. The whole city (minus the abundance of stray dogs and cats) was very clean.
I had a lunch of dried, sugared figs (from an outdoor market) and pizza and went to the Sponza Palace in the afternoon. What I got out of it is that the Croatians did what the rest of Europe did during the Renaissance but later and not quite as well. But admittedly, I wasn't paying very close attention. Most of us weren't. It was so warm and sunny outside, we just wanted to run around.
I had gelato three times today, at three different gelato shops. The business models were pretty American: inexpensive product (7 Kuna=1 Euro=$1.50), large servings and marginal quality. I mean, it was tasty, but not nearly as tasty as any other gelato I've had.
That night, I went to see Skup, one of the better-known plays written by Croatian playwright Martin Drzic. It was in Croatian, so I couldn't understand anything, but the costumes and sight gags were entertaining in and of themselves. It was only like $8 or something, so I thought it was worth it to experience some of Croatia's culture.
Sunday, 3/30
Today we were to go to Mostar, Bosnia, about a 3-hour trip away from Dubrovnik. We couldn't get into the country, though, because when after breakfast, four students asked if they should go get their passports, Johnny, one of the Emerson staff members, said "No, you won't need it." Well, we did, and thanks to Johnny's incompetence, we couldn't get into Bosnia. The ride to and from the border was amazingly picturesque, though, and we had a lot of time to nap and hang out.
When we got back, we went to the beach! I went into the water, which was extremely cold. Like, oh my god I can't breathe this is freeeeeeeeeezing cold. It was good to be in the sun. That made us all very happy. Ben, Meg, Lauren and I went to Restaurant Mea Culpa for dinner, where I got baked lasagne, and went back to the hotel. We went back into town to go to a small club, Fresh, which was mostly filled with American travelers, and then went back to the hotel.
We soon learned that we were lucky to have made it back without incident. On the walk back from the hotel tonight, thirteen (our of 80) Emerson students were jumped by a pack of drunken Croatian teenagers. A few of us were taken to the hospital, but no one got anything more physically severe than a black eye. It was a freak thing, I think. Some of the local Croatian seemed to be slightly disgruntled with the presence of Americans during the tourist off-season (although the town was still filled with tourists), but all-in-all, we were welcomed and our presence embraced. I don't think Dubrovnik is any more unfriendly or friendly to Americans than any other place I've been to. It could've just been a group of drunk-ass teenagers causing trouble, which can happen anywhere, irrespective of country, irrespective of our nationality.
Monday, 3/31
I was thinking about skipping the program this morning (if you have unused class cuts, you're allowed), but I got up anyways. We were going to go to the Modern History Museum, which focuses mostly on the Yugoslav conflict, but it was closed. Dulchia, the executive director of the program, verified that everything was open before we went to these places, but open/close times were quite Mediterranean—approximate and subject to change without notification.
After an abbreviated, improvisational tour of a memorial for those who died during the Yugoslav conflict, I went with my friend Brian to get a haircut! He found a place that charged only 50 Kuna ($11), and although my hair is now shorter than I like, it will grow back, and I don't have to put up with the chastisement of those around me to control my unwieldy hair. And now my head is a Croatian souvenir, too!
In the afternoon, the museum we had planned to go to was also closed, so we went to the modest Dubrovnik aquarium for about 30 minutes and then had the afternoon to ourselves. There was something that looked like it used to be a turtle tank. Now, it looks like it's a dead turtle tank.
Because we have two travel breaks and a slightly abbreviated semester, we need to use travel excursion programs towards academic hours requirements. The shortage of true classroom time is the reason the Kasteel Well is subject to rumblings of shutdown. So when these museums were closed, we needed to find replacements in order to appease the administrators back home. I've said it many times and I'll say it again: I can't believe we're getting college credit for this. It feels like a sabbatical.
We got seafood for dinner, which was something most of us agreed needed to happen while we were in Croatia, whose currency is relatively weak and whose seafood is very fresh.
Tuesday, 4/1
By the way, one of these nights, we had an earthquake, which we were told is a weekly occurrence in Dubrovnik. Many other people were waken up, but I slept through it, which is probably why I forget when it was.
Today was our last full day in Dubrovnik, and my group was supposed to go to what was advertised by Emerson student services as an impressionism gallery, so I was pretty excited. It turned out to be some really inferior modern art. Again, the program was short. Meh.
For lunch, we went to a nice vegetarian place called Nishta. We liked it so much and word got around so quick twenty people from Emerson went there for dinner that night.
That afternoon, we went to outside of Dubrovnik to see Trestno, where there is a nice renaissance-period villa and gardens. Some people swam in the water while others strolled amongst the fountains and trees. I took a nap on the docks in the sun. A relaxing afternoon.
Wednesday, 4/2
Today we went to Dubrovnik's synagogue/Jewish history museum. The area's Jewish community is much, much smaller than it once was. The museum and tour were interesting and short, and we were done before 11. I bought figs, an apple and a roll (to be accompanied by Barpy, a hazelnut crème which cost half as much as Nutella) for a snack on the plane. And then, of course, I bought gelato (Emerson students could rarely be seen with gelatoless hands in the city) and headed back to the hotel to catch a cab to the airport.
We got into Barcelona around 6, and took a bus to the city center and the metro to our apartment. (Yes! We got an apartment!) It cost us 21 Euro ($33) a night. It's completely worth it! We can cook our own meals (which will save us money while allowing us to eat and drink better, chill out in privacy and sleep in our own beds. I feel like a real person!
We took advantage of our cooking facilities by making a big meal. I did laundry, we watched a movie together and we went to bed happy.
Now, I’m writing from our apartment in Barcelona.
Thursday, 4/3
We started slow today, which was fine with all of us. We made a big breakfast and then split up: the girls went shopping and Ben, Jeff and I went to rent bikes down by the beach. But—reoccurring theme alert—we got gelato first. We rode around for a while and saw a lot of the city. The city's very cool. It's very modern; very New York. We returned the bikes (just 5 Euro for two hours) and went back to the apartment to meet up with the girls make dinner.
After that, we went to the hostel where most of our Emerson friends are staying to visit. There are probably 40 of us in the city, our of the 80 in the program. On Wednesday, flights were scarce out of Dubrovnik, and Barcelona is was an extremely popular choice for the second half of the travel break. We didn't know where the hostel was in the classical sense, but we did know the nearest metro stop and the name of the hostel. We found it easily. Ben and I decided that we're getting quite good at this!
After we went to the hostel bar, it was too late to take the metro (even though it was just past midnight), so we walked back to the apartment. It wasn't that far though.
And now, I’m writing back at the castle!
Friday, 4/4
We got up around the same time and made about the same breakfast and left the apartment at about the same time. We went to the beach, and even though it wasn't as warm as Thursday and we could tan or go swimming, it was still nice for a little while.
After that, we went to the Sagrada Familia, Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi's still-under construction magnum opus. Construction began in 1882, was interrupted by the death of Gaudi (who left full plans for the project) and the Spanish Civil War (in 1936) and is scheduled to be completed in 2026. It's the most mammoth cathedral I've ever seen. It made me sad, though. Building such huge churches was understandable in centuries past, but here and now, when we have such a firm grasp of the extent of the problems in the world, there are much more worthy things into which we should be pouring our money. God's hands and feet shouldn't be so self-indulged as to keep building massive basilicas. We have enough already.
Acts 17:24 (NIV): The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
Saturday, 4/5
We got up at 4:30 a.m. so we could leave the apartment, get on the metro at 5, take a bus at 5:45 and catch our 8:30 flight. We got back to the castle around 11, which we were all were thankful for. It was a great travel break (and much less costly than the first), and we have a lot of awesome things to look back on!
Ben and I leave for our last big trip on Wednesday. We're skipping 3 classes that day (which was planned and is sanctioned by the program) flying to Milan and continuing via train to Rome. On Friday, we'll pick up and go to Florence, and then train it back to Milan on Sunday morning for our return flight. People have said it's good I left Italy for last—now everything won't pale in comparison! It'll be a while before I write again. When I get back next Sunday, I have finals and stuff. Until then!
Friday, 3/28
We got up at 6-a-freaking-clock-a.m. to start our first travel day. We packed lunches and boarded buses for Cologne at 7:30. We got to Cologne and sat around the terminal for two and a half hours before we could board. Not cool. Don't make me get up at 6 so I can sit around in a terminal. If you want to see an unhappy Chris, do exactly that. Terrible.
We flew to Split and landed at 2 or so. We went through passport control and took a short bus journey to an old Roman village, where we checked out ruins of an amphitheatre and some other stuff I was too thirsty to properly appreciate.
Split is about 4 hours from Dubrovnik, but the drive was made worth it by the immaculate Croatian countryside. The radiant blue of the sea up against the deep green of the pine trees on the seaside mountains. Our coach buses snakes in and out of the sunset, and I almost forgot how sleep deprived I was at that point.
We got to the hotel late—around 10:30—and we ate a spread our program director had the hotel prepare for us and (mercifully) went to bed.
Saturday, 3/29
Today we began with a walking tour of Dubrovnik. The city is incredibly old, and incredibly pretty. And it's walled. We walked up around the city wall, and I jumped up onto the wall itself and made people nervous. Whatever, dudes. I can handle it.
When you enter the walls of Dubrovnik (through the front gates), the city has one main pedestrian avenue. There is little vehicle traffic in the old city. Little alleyways shoot off to the left (further uphill) and to the right (closer to the ocean). The stone streets are winding and thin and clean. The whole city (minus the abundance of stray dogs and cats) was very clean.
I had a lunch of dried, sugared figs (from an outdoor market) and pizza and went to the Sponza Palace in the afternoon. What I got out of it is that the Croatians did what the rest of Europe did during the Renaissance but later and not quite as well. But admittedly, I wasn't paying very close attention. Most of us weren't. It was so warm and sunny outside, we just wanted to run around.
I had gelato three times today, at three different gelato shops. The business models were pretty American: inexpensive product (7 Kuna=1 Euro=$1.50), large servings and marginal quality. I mean, it was tasty, but not nearly as tasty as any other gelato I've had.
That night, I went to see Skup, one of the better-known plays written by Croatian playwright Martin Drzic. It was in Croatian, so I couldn't understand anything, but the costumes and sight gags were entertaining in and of themselves. It was only like $8 or something, so I thought it was worth it to experience some of Croatia's culture.
Sunday, 3/30
Today we were to go to Mostar, Bosnia, about a 3-hour trip away from Dubrovnik. We couldn't get into the country, though, because when after breakfast, four students asked if they should go get their passports, Johnny, one of the Emerson staff members, said "No, you won't need it." Well, we did, and thanks to Johnny's incompetence, we couldn't get into Bosnia. The ride to and from the border was amazingly picturesque, though, and we had a lot of time to nap and hang out.
When we got back, we went to the beach! I went into the water, which was extremely cold. Like, oh my god I can't breathe this is freeeeeeeeeezing cold. It was good to be in the sun. That made us all very happy. Ben, Meg, Lauren and I went to Restaurant Mea Culpa for dinner, where I got baked lasagne, and went back to the hotel. We went back into town to go to a small club, Fresh, which was mostly filled with American travelers, and then went back to the hotel.
We soon learned that we were lucky to have made it back without incident. On the walk back from the hotel tonight, thirteen (our of 80) Emerson students were jumped by a pack of drunken Croatian teenagers. A few of us were taken to the hospital, but no one got anything more physically severe than a black eye. It was a freak thing, I think. Some of the local Croatian seemed to be slightly disgruntled with the presence of Americans during the tourist off-season (although the town was still filled with tourists), but all-in-all, we were welcomed and our presence embraced. I don't think Dubrovnik is any more unfriendly or friendly to Americans than any other place I've been to. It could've just been a group of drunk-ass teenagers causing trouble, which can happen anywhere, irrespective of country, irrespective of our nationality.
Monday, 3/31
I was thinking about skipping the program this morning (if you have unused class cuts, you're allowed), but I got up anyways. We were going to go to the Modern History Museum, which focuses mostly on the Yugoslav conflict, but it was closed. Dulchia, the executive director of the program, verified that everything was open before we went to these places, but open/close times were quite Mediterranean—approximate and subject to change without notification.
After an abbreviated, improvisational tour of a memorial for those who died during the Yugoslav conflict, I went with my friend Brian to get a haircut! He found a place that charged only 50 Kuna ($11), and although my hair is now shorter than I like, it will grow back, and I don't have to put up with the chastisement of those around me to control my unwieldy hair. And now my head is a Croatian souvenir, too!
In the afternoon, the museum we had planned to go to was also closed, so we went to the modest Dubrovnik aquarium for about 30 minutes and then had the afternoon to ourselves. There was something that looked like it used to be a turtle tank. Now, it looks like it's a dead turtle tank.
Because we have two travel breaks and a slightly abbreviated semester, we need to use travel excursion programs towards academic hours requirements. The shortage of true classroom time is the reason the Kasteel Well is subject to rumblings of shutdown. So when these museums were closed, we needed to find replacements in order to appease the administrators back home. I've said it many times and I'll say it again: I can't believe we're getting college credit for this. It feels like a sabbatical.
We got seafood for dinner, which was something most of us agreed needed to happen while we were in Croatia, whose currency is relatively weak and whose seafood is very fresh.
Tuesday, 4/1
By the way, one of these nights, we had an earthquake, which we were told is a weekly occurrence in Dubrovnik. Many other people were waken up, but I slept through it, which is probably why I forget when it was.
Today was our last full day in Dubrovnik, and my group was supposed to go to what was advertised by Emerson student services as an impressionism gallery, so I was pretty excited. It turned out to be some really inferior modern art. Again, the program was short. Meh.
For lunch, we went to a nice vegetarian place called Nishta. We liked it so much and word got around so quick twenty people from Emerson went there for dinner that night.
That afternoon, we went to outside of Dubrovnik to see Trestno, where there is a nice renaissance-period villa and gardens. Some people swam in the water while others strolled amongst the fountains and trees. I took a nap on the docks in the sun. A relaxing afternoon.
Wednesday, 4/2
Today we went to Dubrovnik's synagogue/Jewish history museum. The area's Jewish community is much, much smaller than it once was. The museum and tour were interesting and short, and we were done before 11. I bought figs, an apple and a roll (to be accompanied by Barpy, a hazelnut crème which cost half as much as Nutella) for a snack on the plane. And then, of course, I bought gelato (Emerson students could rarely be seen with gelatoless hands in the city) and headed back to the hotel to catch a cab to the airport.
We got into Barcelona around 6, and took a bus to the city center and the metro to our apartment. (Yes! We got an apartment!) It cost us 21 Euro ($33) a night. It's completely worth it! We can cook our own meals (which will save us money while allowing us to eat and drink better, chill out in privacy and sleep in our own beds. I feel like a real person!
We took advantage of our cooking facilities by making a big meal. I did laundry, we watched a movie together and we went to bed happy.
Now, I’m writing from our apartment in Barcelona.
Thursday, 4/3
We started slow today, which was fine with all of us. We made a big breakfast and then split up: the girls went shopping and Ben, Jeff and I went to rent bikes down by the beach. But—reoccurring theme alert—we got gelato first. We rode around for a while and saw a lot of the city. The city's very cool. It's very modern; very New York. We returned the bikes (just 5 Euro for two hours) and went back to the apartment to meet up with the girls make dinner.
After that, we went to the hostel where most of our Emerson friends are staying to visit. There are probably 40 of us in the city, our of the 80 in the program. On Wednesday, flights were scarce out of Dubrovnik, and Barcelona is was an extremely popular choice for the second half of the travel break. We didn't know where the hostel was in the classical sense, but we did know the nearest metro stop and the name of the hostel. We found it easily. Ben and I decided that we're getting quite good at this!
After we went to the hostel bar, it was too late to take the metro (even though it was just past midnight), so we walked back to the apartment. It wasn't that far though.
And now, I’m writing back at the castle!
Friday, 4/4
We got up around the same time and made about the same breakfast and left the apartment at about the same time. We went to the beach, and even though it wasn't as warm as Thursday and we could tan or go swimming, it was still nice for a little while.
After that, we went to the Sagrada Familia, Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi's still-under construction magnum opus. Construction began in 1882, was interrupted by the death of Gaudi (who left full plans for the project) and the Spanish Civil War (in 1936) and is scheduled to be completed in 2026. It's the most mammoth cathedral I've ever seen. It made me sad, though. Building such huge churches was understandable in centuries past, but here and now, when we have such a firm grasp of the extent of the problems in the world, there are much more worthy things into which we should be pouring our money. God's hands and feet shouldn't be so self-indulged as to keep building massive basilicas. We have enough already.
Acts 17:24 (NIV): The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
Saturday, 4/5
We got up at 4:30 a.m. so we could leave the apartment, get on the metro at 5, take a bus at 5:45 and catch our 8:30 flight. We got back to the castle around 11, which we were all were thankful for. It was a great travel break (and much less costly than the first), and we have a lot of awesome things to look back on!
Ben and I leave for our last big trip on Wednesday. We're skipping 3 classes that day (which was planned and is sanctioned by the program) flying to Milan and continuing via train to Rome. On Friday, we'll pick up and go to Florence, and then train it back to Milan on Sunday morning for our return flight. People have said it's good I left Italy for last—now everything won't pale in comparison! It'll be a while before I write again. When I get back next Sunday, I have finals and stuff. Until then!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Un week-end incroyable
Finally: Paris.
From about the minute we got to the castle, this weekend was circled. Easter in Paris. Where better? Nowhere. My travel guide (thank you, Aunt Louise!) told me to avoid Paris on Easter, as it would be crowded, but it didn’t say when Paris isn’t crowded, because it never isn’t. We went, we saw and we conquered Paris.
But not from the start.
Friday / Vencredi
Right away, upon our arrival, I had to find an internet café for a phone interview I had arranged with the Boston Globe for a summer internship. (Because a late train and a subsequently missed connection, we arrived 90 minutes later than expected. My original plan was to use WiFi at the hostel.)
After my interview, we went to our hostel, but they didn’t have any open beds.
I have a reservation, though.
Booking ends at 6 p.m.
I booked it in February.
There are no open beds.
What about my reservation?
We stop booking at 6 p.m.
What do you expect me to do, leave? We came from the Netherlands. We can’t just go back home. It’s
Easter in Paris. It’s crowded. Where will we sleep?
Not here. We’re full.
Damnit. Fine. Refund my deposit.
You’ll have to talk to my boss tomorrow. I can’t refund your deposit.
But you can overbook when I have a reservation?
You’ll have to come back tomorrow.
Is this a real business, or is this just a way for you to sit here and scam everyone?
It was actually much more heated than that, but the essence remains: we’d made a reservation, they wouldn’t accept it, and I‘m out on my $35 deposit (I’m going to fight that, but I don’t think it’ll work). Some charitable Canadians gave us the phone number of a hostel/budget dormitory hotel that isn’t listed on the major hostel booking websites. We went back to the same internet café once more, and found a hostel that had empty beds. By then, it was freezing rain outside, and we could barely see. We finally got to the place around 11, and then passed out. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way. But we moved on, and by the next day it was nearly forgotten.
Saturday / Samedi
The good thing about the hostel thing is that I saved some money over the per night cost, and they had a good free breakfast, featuring cheese, Frosted Flakes and croissants. After breakfast, Ben (whom I was traveling with) went out to really introduce ourselves to Paris.
We started at the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. It was like 40F with fairly heavy rain and wind, and the line was terribly long, so we decided to do a lap around the cathedral and check that off the list. We were in no mood to stand in an outside line and catch pneumonia (though I don‘t know if I‘m ever in that mood).
We walked along and crossed la Seine. It was time to go to the Louvre. Before we saw any art, we purchased 2-day Paris museum passes, which ended up being a very wise investment. We looked at French sculpture for about an hour and French medieval painting for about another hour (this was a lot of time to spend on such small divisions of art, but the place is just as huge and impossible-to-take-on-in-one-trip as you hear about) before heading to the Italian Renaissance wing. La Jaconde—the Mona Lisa—looks just like it looks everywhere else, and it was a circus getting to a point where I could see and enjoy it (of course everyone had to have their photo of the thing). I’ll remember the pushing and shoving and desperation displayed by museum-goers more than the painting itself, but it was worth it. Not just from a “I’ve seen it” perspective, but as a piece of art, it shouldn’t be missed.
We walked down the mall to the obelisk at Concorde and then across to L’Hotel Des Invalides, the military museum. Our decision to go there was pretty much all you need to know about why Ben and I travel so well together…
Ben: What’s that?
Chris: Umm, let me find it here.
B: Let’s go to it.
C: Yah, it looks cool.
B: What is it?
C: Let’s go! Oh, yah. What is it. Let me look again
It was cool. They had really big cannons. Like, cannons that launched 600 pound balls-big cannons. And a lot of guns and swords. It was a very masculine museum, and that was welcome. After the museum, we went to Napoleon’s tomb, which is in the gold dome of L’Hotel Des Invalides. This was my favorite church (there were no pews, but it was sort of a church) I’d yet seen on the trip. There were stained glass windows of all-yellow and all -blue glass, which had such a cool effect. Napoleon also had (I’m sure he oversaw it all) different hues of marble and granite used to build it. Dude had good taste.
After that, it started to pour, so we retreated underground to the metro. We had seen a KFC the night before and hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we decided it was a wonderful time to gorge ourselves on fried chicken. Bon appetite!
We went back to the hostel to call Alex and Marita, our friends who were also in Paris for the weekend, and met up with our them at Le Centre Pompidou—Paris’ main modern art museum. As can be expected with modern art, a lot of it was artistically inaccessible or just plain wacky, but it was all fun to look at, and, sometimes, make fun of.
We bid goodbye to the girls and proceeded to L’Arc De Triomphe. The arch stands in the middle of a massive, 8-land rotary, and it was fun to watch the traffic from the top of the arch. The view of Paris by night from the top was spectacular. We even saw the L’Tour Eiffel light show while we were up there! One thing we didn’t know that there’s an underground footbridge going to the arch, so we ran across the rotary to get there. Whoops. It’d been a full day, so we returned to the hostel and passed out.
Sunday / Diamanche
Easter morning, we got up early and went to Montmartre to see Sacre-Coeur, which unseated Napoleon’s tomb as my favorite basilica of the trip. The white granite is so beautiful. To get to the Sacre Coeur we had to climb a big hill (the highest point in Paris) and dodge the gauntlet of African bracelet harassers scattered around the hill. I’ll explain. At Paris’ biggest attractions—Le Tour Eiffel, Le Louvre, Sacre-Coeur—bands of men would try to tie a bracelet around your wrist and demand a donation to their cause (which I’m pretty sure was them).
Wow. It’s raining really hard. I’m on a train from Paris to a city in Northern Belgium, and I’m lucky I’m on it. My reservation (which are required for high speed trains) was for 6:55 p.m., but after trying 3 different ticket agents at customer service, I was able to alter my reservation to the 4:25 train. I had seen all I wanted to see and wanted to get home before midnight.
Anyway, Sacre-Coeur was amazing. We met up with Alex there and after going to the top, Alex and Ben departed to go back to the castle. I really wanted to stay in the city, so I did. I was at Sacre-Coeur on Easter morning, so I thought it was pretty perfect and pretty obvious: I should go to mass! Even though I could only pick up every few words (the mass was in French), I was able to sing along with the Latin and some of the chants were the same and the order of the mass was the same. I read the readings somewhat proficiently (although I had read the Gospel reading in English a short time ago). I had to stand in the back, but that was fine. I hadn’t been to a service since I left America, and I really wanted to go to one on Easter. I miss everyone back home, and it was a wonderful blessing to be able to go.
After the service, I walked around Montmartre and bought a baguette and some cheese from a store there. I walked around and took the Metro to L’Ile de la Cite again, to try my luck at Notre Dame once more. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, but there was an Easter mass going on, so instead, I bought a meringue puff from a patisserie and visited Sainte-Chappelle, a beautiful, 12-century church with unbelievable stained glass artisanry. All of the walls were covered with stained glass which depict Biblical scenes. The church was built to house the supposed relics of Christ, which prompted some to call Paris “New Jerusalem.” It was amazing.
I then walked along the Seine to the Musee D’Orsay, Paris’ impressionism hub. It’s my favorite artistic era, and I really enjoyed the museum. It closed at six, so I could only spend two hours there. I could’ve spent more.
I got on the Metro once again (I bought day passes for a paltry 3E20 on Sunday and Monday) to visit La Bastille. Once I got there, a monument gently reminded me that the Bastille no longer exists. The “storming of the Bastille” did a pretty thorough job making sure of that. The neighborhood, though, was my favorite in Paris. I bought a slice of strawberry cake from a patisserie (it sounded better than dinner at the time and I don’t regret the decision) and found a copy of A Farewell to Arms written in French. It was only 1E50 and I had finished that same book (and loved it) exactly seven days prior, so I figured it was a sign. A Hemingway is a ma souvenir Parisienne.
It was approaching nightfall, and I jumped on the metro to go to La Defense, a high-rise district outside Paris’ city limits. The futuristic architecture was the most impressive I’ve ever seen. It looked like a movie set. There’s a huge arch there that looks like L’Arc de Triomphe, except it’s bigger, plainer and contains an office building. I was really glad I made the trip out, and I took the RER (faster and more sprawling than the metro) back in to save myself some time. At this point, I was exhausted, so I did some Interneting back at the hostel, showered and went to sleep.
Monday / Lundi
Because I went to bed pretty early, I woke up at 7:30 a.m., almost like a real person. I ate breakfast, stashed my backpack in the luggage room and set off for the Eiffel Tower. I walked up the first two levels, but I didn’t go up to the top. I had seen the views from atop L’Arc and Sacre-Coeur, so I don’t feel remiss. The tower is really, really big. Really big. Not like tall, but big. Wide. The legs are horrifying. It was like the Death Star or something.
After the Eiffel Tower, I felt like anything that followed would be a letdown. I went to the Bois De Boulogne, Paris’ largest park, but after a few minutes of being completely exposed in the bitter wind I decided to scurry back into the neighborhood, where I had the protection of the buildings around me, at least. I happened upon an outdoor market, where I bought veggies and hummus, which I had been wanting for a while. I browsed the area a little bit and then went to the Latin Quarter.
The Latin Quarter was sometimes loud and touristy, but it had personality nonetheless. The streets were so tight and the shops so small, it reminded me of Prague. I ate un Croque-Monsieur, which I wanted to do while I was in Paris.
And that’s pretty much it. I went back to the hostel, registered for my classes online, found the times for trains earlier than my reservation and hi-tailed it on the Metro and RER to Station Du Nord. Because I had to rush to make the train, I didn’t get to buy a French food product (I was thinking some sort of cookies and/or wine, which is very cheap) to bring home. Oh well. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way. But this is petty compared to almost having to sleep in the metro on Friday night. I’ll just buy wine in Italy.
I did just buy a (made in) Belgium chocolate bar when I switched trains. Actually, I bought two so I could eat one.
On Friday, we leave for our second required travel break: Croatia! We were going to go to Prague, but they joined the Schengen immigration zone, so we had to travel outside of it (the London trips serve the same purpose). I’m very excited to go. Dubrovnik is a resort town, and hopefully it’ll be warm. The excursion includes a day to Bosnia, which I'm really excited about! On the second half of the trip, we’re going to Barcelona, where we’ll be able to relax on the beach and spend a lot of time not spending money. It may be two weeks or so until I write again, but it could be less! Au revoir, for now!
(I really did write this last night on the train. I just didn't get around to posting it till now.)
From about the minute we got to the castle, this weekend was circled. Easter in Paris. Where better? Nowhere. My travel guide (thank you, Aunt Louise!) told me to avoid Paris on Easter, as it would be crowded, but it didn’t say when Paris isn’t crowded, because it never isn’t. We went, we saw and we conquered Paris.
But not from the start.
Friday / Vencredi
Right away, upon our arrival, I had to find an internet café for a phone interview I had arranged with the Boston Globe for a summer internship. (Because a late train and a subsequently missed connection, we arrived 90 minutes later than expected. My original plan was to use WiFi at the hostel.)
After my interview, we went to our hostel, but they didn’t have any open beds.
I have a reservation, though.
Booking ends at 6 p.m.
I booked it in February.
There are no open beds.
What about my reservation?
We stop booking at 6 p.m.
What do you expect me to do, leave? We came from the Netherlands. We can’t just go back home. It’s
Easter in Paris. It’s crowded. Where will we sleep?
Not here. We’re full.
Damnit. Fine. Refund my deposit.
You’ll have to talk to my boss tomorrow. I can’t refund your deposit.
But you can overbook when I have a reservation?
You’ll have to come back tomorrow.
Is this a real business, or is this just a way for you to sit here and scam everyone?
It was actually much more heated than that, but the essence remains: we’d made a reservation, they wouldn’t accept it, and I‘m out on my $35 deposit (I’m going to fight that, but I don’t think it’ll work). Some charitable Canadians gave us the phone number of a hostel/budget dormitory hotel that isn’t listed on the major hostel booking websites. We went back to the same internet café once more, and found a hostel that had empty beds. By then, it was freezing rain outside, and we could barely see. We finally got to the place around 11, and then passed out. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way. But we moved on, and by the next day it was nearly forgotten.
Saturday / Samedi
The good thing about the hostel thing is that I saved some money over the per night cost, and they had a good free breakfast, featuring cheese, Frosted Flakes and croissants. After breakfast, Ben (whom I was traveling with) went out to really introduce ourselves to Paris.
We started at the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. It was like 40F with fairly heavy rain and wind, and the line was terribly long, so we decided to do a lap around the cathedral and check that off the list. We were in no mood to stand in an outside line and catch pneumonia (though I don‘t know if I‘m ever in that mood).
We walked along and crossed la Seine. It was time to go to the Louvre. Before we saw any art, we purchased 2-day Paris museum passes, which ended up being a very wise investment. We looked at French sculpture for about an hour and French medieval painting for about another hour (this was a lot of time to spend on such small divisions of art, but the place is just as huge and impossible-to-take-on-in-one-trip as you hear about) before heading to the Italian Renaissance wing. La Jaconde—the Mona Lisa—looks just like it looks everywhere else, and it was a circus getting to a point where I could see and enjoy it (of course everyone had to have their photo of the thing). I’ll remember the pushing and shoving and desperation displayed by museum-goers more than the painting itself, but it was worth it. Not just from a “I’ve seen it” perspective, but as a piece of art, it shouldn’t be missed.
We walked down the mall to the obelisk at Concorde and then across to L’Hotel Des Invalides, the military museum. Our decision to go there was pretty much all you need to know about why Ben and I travel so well together…
Ben: What’s that?
Chris: Umm, let me find it here.
B: Let’s go to it.
C: Yah, it looks cool.
B: What is it?
C: Let’s go! Oh, yah. What is it. Let me look again
It was cool. They had really big cannons. Like, cannons that launched 600 pound balls-big cannons. And a lot of guns and swords. It was a very masculine museum, and that was welcome. After the museum, we went to Napoleon’s tomb, which is in the gold dome of L’Hotel Des Invalides. This was my favorite church (there were no pews, but it was sort of a church) I’d yet seen on the trip. There were stained glass windows of all-yellow and all -blue glass, which had such a cool effect. Napoleon also had (I’m sure he oversaw it all) different hues of marble and granite used to build it. Dude had good taste.
After that, it started to pour, so we retreated underground to the metro. We had seen a KFC the night before and hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we decided it was a wonderful time to gorge ourselves on fried chicken. Bon appetite!
We went back to the hostel to call Alex and Marita, our friends who were also in Paris for the weekend, and met up with our them at Le Centre Pompidou—Paris’ main modern art museum. As can be expected with modern art, a lot of it was artistically inaccessible or just plain wacky, but it was all fun to look at, and, sometimes, make fun of.
We bid goodbye to the girls and proceeded to L’Arc De Triomphe. The arch stands in the middle of a massive, 8-land rotary, and it was fun to watch the traffic from the top of the arch. The view of Paris by night from the top was spectacular. We even saw the L’Tour Eiffel light show while we were up there! One thing we didn’t know that there’s an underground footbridge going to the arch, so we ran across the rotary to get there. Whoops. It’d been a full day, so we returned to the hostel and passed out.
Sunday / Diamanche
Easter morning, we got up early and went to Montmartre to see Sacre-Coeur, which unseated Napoleon’s tomb as my favorite basilica of the trip. The white granite is so beautiful. To get to the Sacre Coeur we had to climb a big hill (the highest point in Paris) and dodge the gauntlet of African bracelet harassers scattered around the hill. I’ll explain. At Paris’ biggest attractions—Le Tour Eiffel, Le Louvre, Sacre-Coeur—bands of men would try to tie a bracelet around your wrist and demand a donation to their cause (which I’m pretty sure was them).
Wow. It’s raining really hard. I’m on a train from Paris to a city in Northern Belgium, and I’m lucky I’m on it. My reservation (which are required for high speed trains) was for 6:55 p.m., but after trying 3 different ticket agents at customer service, I was able to alter my reservation to the 4:25 train. I had seen all I wanted to see and wanted to get home before midnight.
Anyway, Sacre-Coeur was amazing. We met up with Alex there and after going to the top, Alex and Ben departed to go back to the castle. I really wanted to stay in the city, so I did. I was at Sacre-Coeur on Easter morning, so I thought it was pretty perfect and pretty obvious: I should go to mass! Even though I could only pick up every few words (the mass was in French), I was able to sing along with the Latin and some of the chants were the same and the order of the mass was the same. I read the readings somewhat proficiently (although I had read the Gospel reading in English a short time ago). I had to stand in the back, but that was fine. I hadn’t been to a service since I left America, and I really wanted to go to one on Easter. I miss everyone back home, and it was a wonderful blessing to be able to go.
After the service, I walked around Montmartre and bought a baguette and some cheese from a store there. I walked around and took the Metro to L’Ile de la Cite again, to try my luck at Notre Dame once more. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, but there was an Easter mass going on, so instead, I bought a meringue puff from a patisserie and visited Sainte-Chappelle, a beautiful, 12-century church with unbelievable stained glass artisanry. All of the walls were covered with stained glass which depict Biblical scenes. The church was built to house the supposed relics of Christ, which prompted some to call Paris “New Jerusalem.” It was amazing.
I then walked along the Seine to the Musee D’Orsay, Paris’ impressionism hub. It’s my favorite artistic era, and I really enjoyed the museum. It closed at six, so I could only spend two hours there. I could’ve spent more.
I got on the Metro once again (I bought day passes for a paltry 3E20 on Sunday and Monday) to visit La Bastille. Once I got there, a monument gently reminded me that the Bastille no longer exists. The “storming of the Bastille” did a pretty thorough job making sure of that. The neighborhood, though, was my favorite in Paris. I bought a slice of strawberry cake from a patisserie (it sounded better than dinner at the time and I don’t regret the decision) and found a copy of A Farewell to Arms written in French. It was only 1E50 and I had finished that same book (and loved it) exactly seven days prior, so I figured it was a sign. A Hemingway is a ma souvenir Parisienne.
It was approaching nightfall, and I jumped on the metro to go to La Defense, a high-rise district outside Paris’ city limits. The futuristic architecture was the most impressive I’ve ever seen. It looked like a movie set. There’s a huge arch there that looks like L’Arc de Triomphe, except it’s bigger, plainer and contains an office building. I was really glad I made the trip out, and I took the RER (faster and more sprawling than the metro) back in to save myself some time. At this point, I was exhausted, so I did some Interneting back at the hostel, showered and went to sleep.
Monday / Lundi
Because I went to bed pretty early, I woke up at 7:30 a.m., almost like a real person. I ate breakfast, stashed my backpack in the luggage room and set off for the Eiffel Tower. I walked up the first two levels, but I didn’t go up to the top. I had seen the views from atop L’Arc and Sacre-Coeur, so I don’t feel remiss. The tower is really, really big. Really big. Not like tall, but big. Wide. The legs are horrifying. It was like the Death Star or something.
After the Eiffel Tower, I felt like anything that followed would be a letdown. I went to the Bois De Boulogne, Paris’ largest park, but after a few minutes of being completely exposed in the bitter wind I decided to scurry back into the neighborhood, where I had the protection of the buildings around me, at least. I happened upon an outdoor market, where I bought veggies and hummus, which I had been wanting for a while. I browsed the area a little bit and then went to the Latin Quarter.
The Latin Quarter was sometimes loud and touristy, but it had personality nonetheless. The streets were so tight and the shops so small, it reminded me of Prague. I ate un Croque-Monsieur, which I wanted to do while I was in Paris.
And that’s pretty much it. I went back to the hostel, registered for my classes online, found the times for trains earlier than my reservation and hi-tailed it on the Metro and RER to Station Du Nord. Because I had to rush to make the train, I didn’t get to buy a French food product (I was thinking some sort of cookies and/or wine, which is very cheap) to bring home. Oh well. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way. But this is petty compared to almost having to sleep in the metro on Friday night. I’ll just buy wine in Italy.
I did just buy a (made in) Belgium chocolate bar when I switched trains. Actually, I bought two so I could eat one.
On Friday, we leave for our second required travel break: Croatia! We were going to go to Prague, but they joined the Schengen immigration zone, so we had to travel outside of it (the London trips serve the same purpose). I’m very excited to go. Dubrovnik is a resort town, and hopefully it’ll be warm. The excursion includes a day to Bosnia, which I'm really excited about! On the second half of the trip, we’re going to Barcelona, where we’ll be able to relax on the beach and spend a lot of time not spending money. It may be two weeks or so until I write again, but it could be less! Au revoir, for now!
(I really did write this last night on the train. I just didn't get around to posting it till now.)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Munchen, Schloss Neuschwanstein, Dachau and Berlin
This weekend rocked. We saw so many cool things, but still kept things really chill. It was just my friend Meg and I, which was a boon (waiting for a gaggle of 5 other people can be extremely frustrating). Looking back, I can't believe we fit in everything we did!
We left on Thursday afternoon and got into Munich around 9 or so. In the middle of our ride we caught a good glimpse of the Frankfurt skyline, which was very modern and architecturally striking. You don't skylines like that in many European cities, and some cities (like Paris) have building height restrictions to preserve the formability of the Old-world buildings that currently dominate their skylines.
When we got into Munich, we went to our hostel, which was all of 5 minutes from the train station. We dropped off our stuff and went out to walk around and soak up the Bavarian mood.
We felt like we were in Epcot. We couldn't believe people walked the Marienplatz (Marien Street, or something) and went in these unbelievable gothic buildings every day. It all seemed so old but at the same time so modern, so anachronistic but so cutting-edge. Worldwide-known brands were juxtaposed with centuries-old cathedrals, meeting halls and fountains. This oldness felt different from the oldness of Prague, which was more weathered and generally more out-of-date in the present. Munich's old buildings still have a niche. They fit right in.
We went to a beer hall, and since I don't like beer, I got Munich's regional pseudo-beer offering: Radler, a half-lemonade, half-beer blend. It was delicious. There are beer halls throughout Munich, and the one we went to Thursday was pretty quiet (maybe because it was a Thursday). The halls are not stratified by demographics--there is no 20s beer hall, no singles beer hall, no older professionals beer hall, no gay beer hall. Everyone goes to the same place. It's so cool. The halls were very well-lit and filled with long tables and servers in traditional Bavarian dress. It was such a friendly atmosphere, and we drank it up.
We got up early Friday morning (7) to catch a train to Schloss Neuschwanstein, or King Ludwig's Castle. Google Image Search that shiz. Incredible.
The most surprising thing about the castle is that it was built in the 1860s. At that point, people didn't do the castle thing anymore, or at least they didn't do the new, huge-beyond-huge, castle in the German Alps thing anymore. King Ludwig II, who commissioned the castle, was forced to relinquish his rule it was found he was mentally ill. He must've been mentally ill, because some things about the castle were really weird. It was like that house in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, except Narnia was in the frigging castle, not in Narnia. There were swans all over the place (Swan Lake was written at the lake at the foot of the castle) and Wagner, the prolific German composer, was enshrined in multiple locations. Meg said it was every little girl's ideal doll house.
The castle was difficult to get to (more than 5 hours of traveling, round-trip), but so worth it. In Fussen, the small town we went through to get to Neuschwanstein, there was a great little bakery which we patronized (twice, actually). There, I got a traditional Bavarian pretzel and a rasberry crumble danish thing for 1.50 Euro! Hooray for a reprieve from city prices!
That night, we met up with another Emerson student (he was traveling on his own, which is not a bad idea if you want to see the things you want to see). We went out to dinner at a Tahitian chain restaurant (it was reasonably priced and German sausage didn't sound too desirable at the time), where I had fish tacos. Oh, yah. After, we went to the Hofbrauhaus, the largest beer hall in Munich and the most widely-known in the world, so Meg tells me, though I'd never heard of it.
There must've been thousands of people in that place. Oh my gosh. The seating never ended! It was like the Kowloon except with a much more efficient (and almost cramped) use of space. We each had a liter (I stuck with the Radler) and split a pretzel and another Bravarian staple, apple strudel. We stayed for a while, listening to the music (which alternated between jazz and Bavarian folk) and observing the scene. After walking around the city once more, we went back to the hostel and went to sleep.
In the morning we got up at 7:30 to go to the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich. Most of the original structures of the camp have long since been demolished, and only fraction have been reconstructed. The resulting open expanses were very impactful and brought up questions. How did something this vast and this terrible go on for so long? I didn't feel quite right being there, not because I'm not Jewish, but because I had arrived of my own accord and left when I wished, a few hours later. None of the camp victims had that choice.
We left and Meg and I parted ways with Strauss as we headed for Berlin! We ate a lunch of fruit and Nutella on wheat puff crackers. Everything tastes better when you're on trains.
We got to Berlin at like 7. Berlin's freaking huge. I almost missed going to Berlin, so I was really glad we could fit it into this trip! Berlin may be the coolest city I've been to (though Dublin's still my favorite, and Paris, Dubrovnik, Barcelona, Milan, Rome or Florence will probably be the prettiest), mostly because of the omnipresence of it's history--Prussian, Nazi, Soviet and post-Soviet.
It was like a movie set. Some buildings were still shelled-out from WWII, and giant concrete slabs end serve as new, improvised walls. The East-West divide is still very evident, especially with the number of cranes and construction sites in the East.
We went up to the top of the Reichtag, Germany's national parliamentary building. It looked like the popper thing from that board game Trouble. The view from the top was impressive and gave us a sense of the vastness of the city. To finish off the day, we walked through the Brandenburg Gate and some of Germany's other most picturesque districts.
Sunday morning, we got up and went to the Berlin Wall Memorial Museum, which was fairly small but well-done. Now, the wall looks incredibly vulnerable. It looks like had they really wanted to, Berliners may have been able to knocked down the wall long before they actually did. The security restrictions, though, made this impossible. Berlin is still transitioning from the two, fragmented infrastructures of East and West Berlin to a single, harmonized infrastructure. They're opening a new airport next year, I think.
After the wall, we went to the DDR (East Germany) museum. Statist socialism is so interesting. It was really fun to look at, and even though the museum was crowded as balls, it was well worth our time.
We went back to Berlin's central train station, brought some foodstuffs for the train, and headed home. It was an incredible weekend, and I'm very thankful for all I got to see and how smoothly it all went!
Tomorrow late-morning we leave for Paris! We have no classes Easter Monday, so I won't be back until that night. I am so excited about this trip! I just hope I can get good sleep tonight.
We left on Thursday afternoon and got into Munich around 9 or so. In the middle of our ride we caught a good glimpse of the Frankfurt skyline, which was very modern and architecturally striking. You don't skylines like that in many European cities, and some cities (like Paris) have building height restrictions to preserve the formability of the Old-world buildings that currently dominate their skylines.
When we got into Munich, we went to our hostel, which was all of 5 minutes from the train station. We dropped off our stuff and went out to walk around and soak up the Bavarian mood.
We felt like we were in Epcot. We couldn't believe people walked the Marienplatz (Marien Street, or something) and went in these unbelievable gothic buildings every day. It all seemed so old but at the same time so modern, so anachronistic but so cutting-edge. Worldwide-known brands were juxtaposed with centuries-old cathedrals, meeting halls and fountains. This oldness felt different from the oldness of Prague, which was more weathered and generally more out-of-date in the present. Munich's old buildings still have a niche. They fit right in.
We went to a beer hall, and since I don't like beer, I got Munich's regional pseudo-beer offering: Radler, a half-lemonade, half-beer blend. It was delicious. There are beer halls throughout Munich, and the one we went to Thursday was pretty quiet (maybe because it was a Thursday). The halls are not stratified by demographics--there is no 20s beer hall, no singles beer hall, no older professionals beer hall, no gay beer hall. Everyone goes to the same place. It's so cool. The halls were very well-lit and filled with long tables and servers in traditional Bavarian dress. It was such a friendly atmosphere, and we drank it up.
We got up early Friday morning (7) to catch a train to Schloss Neuschwanstein, or King Ludwig's Castle. Google Image Search that shiz. Incredible.
The most surprising thing about the castle is that it was built in the 1860s. At that point, people didn't do the castle thing anymore, or at least they didn't do the new, huge-beyond-huge, castle in the German Alps thing anymore. King Ludwig II, who commissioned the castle, was forced to relinquish his rule it was found he was mentally ill. He must've been mentally ill, because some things about the castle were really weird. It was like that house in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, except Narnia was in the frigging castle, not in Narnia. There were swans all over the place (Swan Lake was written at the lake at the foot of the castle) and Wagner, the prolific German composer, was enshrined in multiple locations. Meg said it was every little girl's ideal doll house.
The castle was difficult to get to (more than 5 hours of traveling, round-trip), but so worth it. In Fussen, the small town we went through to get to Neuschwanstein, there was a great little bakery which we patronized (twice, actually). There, I got a traditional Bavarian pretzel and a rasberry crumble danish thing for 1.50 Euro! Hooray for a reprieve from city prices!
That night, we met up with another Emerson student (he was traveling on his own, which is not a bad idea if you want to see the things you want to see). We went out to dinner at a Tahitian chain restaurant (it was reasonably priced and German sausage didn't sound too desirable at the time), where I had fish tacos. Oh, yah. After, we went to the Hofbrauhaus, the largest beer hall in Munich and the most widely-known in the world, so Meg tells me, though I'd never heard of it.
There must've been thousands of people in that place. Oh my gosh. The seating never ended! It was like the Kowloon except with a much more efficient (and almost cramped) use of space. We each had a liter (I stuck with the Radler) and split a pretzel and another Bravarian staple, apple strudel. We stayed for a while, listening to the music (which alternated between jazz and Bavarian folk) and observing the scene. After walking around the city once more, we went back to the hostel and went to sleep.
In the morning we got up at 7:30 to go to the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich. Most of the original structures of the camp have long since been demolished, and only fraction have been reconstructed. The resulting open expanses were very impactful and brought up questions. How did something this vast and this terrible go on for so long? I didn't feel quite right being there, not because I'm not Jewish, but because I had arrived of my own accord and left when I wished, a few hours later. None of the camp victims had that choice.
We left and Meg and I parted ways with Strauss as we headed for Berlin! We ate a lunch of fruit and Nutella on wheat puff crackers. Everything tastes better when you're on trains.
We got to Berlin at like 7. Berlin's freaking huge. I almost missed going to Berlin, so I was really glad we could fit it into this trip! Berlin may be the coolest city I've been to (though Dublin's still my favorite, and Paris, Dubrovnik, Barcelona, Milan, Rome or Florence will probably be the prettiest), mostly because of the omnipresence of it's history--Prussian, Nazi, Soviet and post-Soviet.
It was like a movie set. Some buildings were still shelled-out from WWII, and giant concrete slabs end serve as new, improvised walls. The East-West divide is still very evident, especially with the number of cranes and construction sites in the East.
We went up to the top of the Reichtag, Germany's national parliamentary building. It looked like the popper thing from that board game Trouble. The view from the top was impressive and gave us a sense of the vastness of the city. To finish off the day, we walked through the Brandenburg Gate and some of Germany's other most picturesque districts.
Sunday morning, we got up and went to the Berlin Wall Memorial Museum, which was fairly small but well-done. Now, the wall looks incredibly vulnerable. It looks like had they really wanted to, Berliners may have been able to knocked down the wall long before they actually did. The security restrictions, though, made this impossible. Berlin is still transitioning from the two, fragmented infrastructures of East and West Berlin to a single, harmonized infrastructure. They're opening a new airport next year, I think.
After the wall, we went to the DDR (East Germany) museum. Statist socialism is so interesting. It was really fun to look at, and even though the museum was crowded as balls, it was well worth our time.
We went back to Berlin's central train station, brought some foodstuffs for the train, and headed home. It was an incredible weekend, and I'm very thankful for all I got to see and how smoothly it all went!
Tomorrow late-morning we leave for Paris! We have no classes Easter Monday, so I won't be back until that night. I am so excited about this trip! I just hope I can get good sleep tonight.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Prag-otcha!
So I got fined $30 for jaywalking. I know, right? The Czech hate it, I guess. I live on Boylston-Tremont, the most frenetic and unpredictable intersection in the world (easily). Yah. It was really funny, us getting fined, besides the whole paying money part. My friend Jeff got fined, too. We're actually going to be living together next year, so I guess it's good we're getting all our illicit activity out of the way now, in foreign countries instead of our apartment.
Prague is really damn old. The city lived through the World Wars and the USSR and has stayed remarkably well-preserved through it all. Capitalism is still in its neo-stage, I think, but at the same time very much entrenched. Advertising seemed to be very blunt, lacking the massage and nuance of American marketing ploys. There were literally paths on the sidewalks to the nearest McDonald's (and oh, did they love their McDonald's).
Prague Castle was beautiful, and was more like an entire walled town than a castle. The city didn't have that sheen that London or (I imagine) Paris has. We were clearly in Central Europe, not Western. I'm not making a value statement--the city was amazing--it was just a clear distinction that we made.
We got there by an overnight sleeper train from Düsseldorf that cost us 20 Euro. We got into Prague at 8 a.m. Friday. We checked into our hostel, which was the best we've been in and probably the best we will've been in at the end of the trip. Free breakfast, Internet and a private room for us 6 with our own shower and bathroom. It was cheap, too.
We took a self-guided and self-paced walking tour through the city. It's really the best and simplest way to get to know a city.
The Czech currency is weaker than the Euro, so we were given a reprieve from exchange rate woes! I had traditional Czech goulash--a dish of boiled bread and stewed beef and onions with gravy. We also went to Easter Market, a really cool outdoor bazaar in the city's central square.
The public transit system of subways and trams was extensive, intuitive and efficient. The Czech are quite orderly and systematic.
The train ride back was very cool. We went clear across Germany, and got to see really pretty parts of the German countryside. We got back around 8 Sunday night.
I'm exhausted. Tomorrow I'm off to Munich, and then on Saturday I'm going to Berlin. I come back Sunday night, and I'll write about everything before next Friday, when I go to Paris!
Prague is really damn old. The city lived through the World Wars and the USSR and has stayed remarkably well-preserved through it all. Capitalism is still in its neo-stage, I think, but at the same time very much entrenched. Advertising seemed to be very blunt, lacking the massage and nuance of American marketing ploys. There were literally paths on the sidewalks to the nearest McDonald's (and oh, did they love their McDonald's).
Prague Castle was beautiful, and was more like an entire walled town than a castle. The city didn't have that sheen that London or (I imagine) Paris has. We were clearly in Central Europe, not Western. I'm not making a value statement--the city was amazing--it was just a clear distinction that we made.
We got there by an overnight sleeper train from Düsseldorf that cost us 20 Euro. We got into Prague at 8 a.m. Friday. We checked into our hostel, which was the best we've been in and probably the best we will've been in at the end of the trip. Free breakfast, Internet and a private room for us 6 with our own shower and bathroom. It was cheap, too.
We took a self-guided and self-paced walking tour through the city. It's really the best and simplest way to get to know a city.
The Czech currency is weaker than the Euro, so we were given a reprieve from exchange rate woes! I had traditional Czech goulash--a dish of boiled bread and stewed beef and onions with gravy. We also went to Easter Market, a really cool outdoor bazaar in the city's central square.
The public transit system of subways and trams was extensive, intuitive and efficient. The Czech are quite orderly and systematic.
The train ride back was very cool. We went clear across Germany, and got to see really pretty parts of the German countryside. We got back around 8 Sunday night.
I'm exhausted. Tomorrow I'm off to Munich, and then on Saturday I'm going to Berlin. I come back Sunday night, and I'll write about everything before next Friday, when I go to Paris!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Last weekend and this weekend
After the travel break, we all felt fairly tired, pretty sick and very broke, so many of us elected to stay close to home this past weekend. I was still pretty busy though, taking day trips to Amsterdam (Friday) and Delft, Leiden and The Hague on Saturday.
It was my third trip to Amsterdam since I've been here, and I know Baudrillard likes to rag on Disney World as being falsely authentic and a simulacrum and all that fun stuff, but I think Amsterdam is by far the most fantastical place I've ever been. I can't imagine how people lead normal lives here, how they settle into a routine amidst all the overwhelming shit bearing down on them from every direction. My God.
What brought me to the city this time was my Emerson and Beacon buddy Britt Braudo, who is spending a semester in Greece. We met at Free Record Shop in the Amsterdam Centraal train station (Free Record Shop is sooooooo yellow), checked Britt and her friend into their hostel (on canal boat) and walked around the town for a while.
We were there for only about four hours or so--Britt and her friend were quite tired, having flown in from Italy early that morning. We just walked around and checked out some of the sights and I ate this delicious fruit creme tart thing for lunch and it was all good. I won't see her again until the fall, so it was really good to see her!
The next day, I rolled out of bed at 9:30 (in my world, that's early) and caught the 9:56 bus to Venray to connect to a train to The Hague. No one else wanted to come along, so I went with my backpack and a general sense of what I wanted to do. First, I went to Delft, a charmingly beautiful town outside of the Hague. The town was crisscrossed with canals and cobblestone streets and buildings from centuries long gone by. I think this was my first true visit to Holland.
A sprawling outdoor market sold all types of goods, from flowers to breads and cakes to produce and cheese. And stroopwafels! The town was so beautiful. I walked around for almost three hours, trying to soak it all up and notice when my mouth fell agape.
Leiden was next. A city of about 120,000, Leiden had a much different mood than Delft. The city is home to multiple universities and is known as one of the Netherlands' chief college towns, so its residents are much younger. Once again, there were coffeeshops galore! I got quite sleepy, so I bought and ate way too much chocolate from an obnoxiously loud confectionery on one of Leiden's main shopping thoroughfares. I got a great view of the city from the top of some battlement thing (the sign was in Dutch). The city is very old--as old as Delft. I walked all about and got quite lost (I didn't have a map or anything, just my improving-but still-pathetic sense of direction to guide me) and got back to the Hague as the sun began to fade from the sky.
I was in The Hague--my stated destination for the day--for a little less than two hours. The mood here is much more reserved and dignified than Amsterdam, thanks in large part to The Hague's status as the essential capital of the Netherlands (Amsterdam is the official capital, but the Royal Family and most of the government operates here). The city is also an important center for international business. I got a scoop of gelato, put on my iPod and wandered around. The Royal Palace was a new building (19th century), and I could only sneak a peak at it. They were closing the park where you can see the palace when I got there. (But not before I peed in the bushes! Sweet triumph!)
By this point, I was quite ready to go home, and I returned to the train station via the COMPLETE WRONG DIRECTION and caught a train back to Venlo. It was great to have a day out and about by myself where I could be completely impulsive and do as I pleased. My feet hurt like hell at the end of it and I had shin splints the next few days (I shoulda wore sneakers), but I felt recharged. It was a really good day.
In about two hours or so (oh balls, I gosta pack), we're leaving for Prague! The train there is about 14 hours long, and requires a reservation (we have a rail pass, but that doesn't cover reservations). We didn't make a reservation. It costs cash money. We're pretty much planning on acting confounded and hanging out in the dining car. I completely support this plan. We'll get there somehow, some way.
I'll write about Prague before I leave for Munich and Berlin next Thursday! Bye for now.
It was my third trip to Amsterdam since I've been here, and I know Baudrillard likes to rag on Disney World as being falsely authentic and a simulacrum and all that fun stuff, but I think Amsterdam is by far the most fantastical place I've ever been. I can't imagine how people lead normal lives here, how they settle into a routine amidst all the overwhelming shit bearing down on them from every direction. My God.
What brought me to the city this time was my Emerson and Beacon buddy Britt Braudo, who is spending a semester in Greece. We met at Free Record Shop in the Amsterdam Centraal train station (Free Record Shop is sooooooo yellow), checked Britt and her friend into their hostel (on canal boat) and walked around the town for a while.
We were there for only about four hours or so--Britt and her friend were quite tired, having flown in from Italy early that morning. We just walked around and checked out some of the sights and I ate this delicious fruit creme tart thing for lunch and it was all good. I won't see her again until the fall, so it was really good to see her!
The next day, I rolled out of bed at 9:30 (in my world, that's early) and caught the 9:56 bus to Venray to connect to a train to The Hague. No one else wanted to come along, so I went with my backpack and a general sense of what I wanted to do. First, I went to Delft, a charmingly beautiful town outside of the Hague. The town was crisscrossed with canals and cobblestone streets and buildings from centuries long gone by. I think this was my first true visit to Holland.
A sprawling outdoor market sold all types of goods, from flowers to breads and cakes to produce and cheese. And stroopwafels! The town was so beautiful. I walked around for almost three hours, trying to soak it all up and notice when my mouth fell agape.
Leiden was next. A city of about 120,000, Leiden had a much different mood than Delft. The city is home to multiple universities and is known as one of the Netherlands' chief college towns, so its residents are much younger. Once again, there were coffeeshops galore! I got quite sleepy, so I bought and ate way too much chocolate from an obnoxiously loud confectionery on one of Leiden's main shopping thoroughfares. I got a great view of the city from the top of some battlement thing (the sign was in Dutch). The city is very old--as old as Delft. I walked all about and got quite lost (I didn't have a map or anything, just my improving-but still-pathetic sense of direction to guide me) and got back to the Hague as the sun began to fade from the sky.
I was in The Hague--my stated destination for the day--for a little less than two hours. The mood here is much more reserved and dignified than Amsterdam, thanks in large part to The Hague's status as the essential capital of the Netherlands (Amsterdam is the official capital, but the Royal Family and most of the government operates here). The city is also an important center for international business. I got a scoop of gelato, put on my iPod and wandered around. The Royal Palace was a new building (19th century), and I could only sneak a peak at it. They were closing the park where you can see the palace when I got there. (But not before I peed in the bushes! Sweet triumph!)
By this point, I was quite ready to go home, and I returned to the train station via the COMPLETE WRONG DIRECTION and caught a train back to Venlo. It was great to have a day out and about by myself where I could be completely impulsive and do as I pleased. My feet hurt like hell at the end of it and I had shin splints the next few days (I shoulda wore sneakers), but I felt recharged. It was a really good day.
In about two hours or so (oh balls, I gosta pack), we're leaving for Prague! The train there is about 14 hours long, and requires a reservation (we have a rail pass, but that doesn't cover reservations). We didn't make a reservation. It costs cash money. We're pretty much planning on acting confounded and hanging out in the dining car. I completely support this plan. We'll get there somehow, some way.
I'll write about Prague before I leave for Munich and Berlin next Thursday! Bye for now.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Travel break: Part II
Well time has sort of gotten away from me, but I'm going to try to catch up on entries before I leave for Munich and Berlin on Thursday. I took two day trips this weekend--one to Amsterdam and one to and around The Hague--but was at the castle Thursday and Sunday. But first things first...
Wednesday, 20/2
Today we got up, ate our substandard and free hostel breakfast (consisting of toast, jam and bad tea) and were off on the town. Dublin! Yes! This was my favorite city so far. My memory is pretty hazy and at this point I have to work hard to remember exactly what happened. But don't jump to any conclusions. The haze isn't from drinking too much!
We went to the James Joyce Museum, which, along with walking around Dublin, makes me really want to read James Joyce. I think that's probably the idea. I'm not going to take on Ulysses, though. Holy God. Maybe Dubliners or something else that won't take 20 years to read. Afterwards, we stopped for a little bit at the National Gallery of Ireland to enjoy some art and continue being cultured. We stopped in at both of these places pretty much by accident--we were out walking around Dublin and ran into them.
We didn't take any means of transportation in Dublin except on our way in and out of town. We didn't need to! It was a great walking city, and it reminded us of Boston a lot.
It was simply becoming too wholesome of a day, what with the literature and the fine art, so I hit up the McDonalds Euro Menu for lunch to balance things out. Oh, yah. The Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery was next. I haven't had enough whiskey to discern between good and bad varieties, but I'm pretty sure this stuff was really good. We got a complementary drink at the end of the tour, and I chose the Jameson with ginger ale and lime. It was very, very good. I ordered it in Cork a few nights hence.
Following Jameson, we wandered to the Viking district, which can only be described as old as hell. We walked around the outside of Dublin Castle (we were too late for the final tour of the day), which is much more impressive than the castle from which I currently write. But they couldn't decide on one architectural style: it was a hodgepodge of Gothic and Classical influences. I guess continuity wasn't a big concern.
We got some pasta and cooked it back at the hostel's open kitchen, and then went out to a comedy show. I had never seen live stand-up before, and I don't know if I'll ever see anything as hilarious as we did! As Americans, we got picked on (they asked everyone from where they hailed), but that made it all the more fun! I haven't laughed that much in a long time.
Afterwards, we went to The Temple Bar in Temple Bar, where I paid 3 Euro (about $4.50) for a Diet Coke with nothing in it. What're you gonna do? It was a really atmospheric place, though, and we ended up running into some fellow Emersonians! It was a very good day.
Thursday, 21/2
Our third and final day in Dublin! We were sad we had to be leaving so soon--we could've used another day or so. We went to the Guinness Brewery, which seems to have been heavily influenced by Epcot. What a circus that place is! Guinness tastes like beer, so for all the praise it gets, I still don't like it. The tallest building in Dublin is 13 stories high, and from the top of the Guinness Brewery (9 stories), we had a wonderfully unobstructed view of the city!
After that, Ben got guitar strings, we got paninis, checked out of our hostel and headed for the train station. Getting there took forever. The Dublin tram system is probably the slowest means of public transport I have ever suffered through (including the Green Line). The stupid thing had to yield to cars and any pedestrian who was quick enough to cross in front of it, which was basically everyone but the elderly, the handicapped and the drunk. Terrible.
We got into Limerick pretty late, and then took a bus to Newcastle-West, where we stayed at the quaintest, cutest B&B in the world (proprietor--Eileen)! We had a little trouble finding the place, given that we had no phone to use when we got off the bus. No matter, though. We had a restorative evening, enjoying homemade cake and watching Anchorman (on Irish television, no less) before going to bed early.
Friday, 22/2
We got up and had a big breakfast courtesy Eileen (we all agreed we hadn't eaten so well since we'd been abroad) and hi-tailed it onto another bus and train, this time bound for Cork. Before we boarded the train, though, we had a little time to walk around Limerick, the hometown of novelist Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes. It was cool to be there after reading the book. And we got to play on a playground in a park! The pictures are great.
Cork is the most Irish place we went to, we think. When we got there, we went to a huge market, which is what Quincy Market/Faneuil hall would look like with actual fresh food vendors instead of Pizzeria Regina's and stuff. We got some salad stuff, some pasta stuff and some really nasty cheese. We didn't know it at the time, but that stuff was really nasty. It smelled like sadness.
We went out to a couple of pubs that night, the first of which was very subdued and grey-haired and the second of which was really freaking loud and young. Sleep felt good.
Saturday, 23/2
The last full day of the travel break! We got up and I had goat cheese, fruit and a grain roll from the market for breakfast. Everything was so cheap there! It was great. We walked around Cork after that, just checking out shops and observing things. Ben and I spent a lot of time in a couple of bookstores there. We didn't buy anything, though. We knew we couldn't, given the exchange rate and all.
That evening was a wonderful finale to the travel break, and the most organic cultural experience of the trip. We went to a pub to watch a Scotland-Ireland rugby match. It was part of the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament, which was held in Dublin. We got right in the middle of all the fans and all the cheering. It was great to be in that atmosphere. It felt like a Red Sox-Yankees game or something! We had a good, cheap meal during the match and went back to the hostel to relax.
Sunday, 24/2
We woke up at 5 today to take the bus to the airport. I had a Cadbury egg and a red delicious apple for breakfast. Very weird. Absolutely. But I would do it again. We flew from Cork to London Stansted to Weeze (just across the border from the castle in Germany). We passed through four countries--Ireland, England, Germany and the Netherlands--in about five hours. We got back to the castle around two or so. It was good to be back.
So that's my travel break. Our second travel break is three weeks from this Friday. We'll be going to Croatia and then Barcelona! Yesterday, I took care of stuff for Paris (Easter weekend) and Rome and Florence (my last trip in April). This Thursday, as I said, I'm going to Munich and Berlin for the weekend. Next weekend, I'm going to Luxembourg and Belgium. I'll write about this past weekend's adventures before I leave Thursday!
Wednesday, 20/2
Today we got up, ate our substandard and free hostel breakfast (consisting of toast, jam and bad tea) and were off on the town. Dublin! Yes! This was my favorite city so far. My memory is pretty hazy and at this point I have to work hard to remember exactly what happened. But don't jump to any conclusions. The haze isn't from drinking too much!
We went to the James Joyce Museum, which, along with walking around Dublin, makes me really want to read James Joyce. I think that's probably the idea. I'm not going to take on Ulysses, though. Holy God. Maybe Dubliners or something else that won't take 20 years to read. Afterwards, we stopped for a little bit at the National Gallery of Ireland to enjoy some art and continue being cultured. We stopped in at both of these places pretty much by accident--we were out walking around Dublin and ran into them.
We didn't take any means of transportation in Dublin except on our way in and out of town. We didn't need to! It was a great walking city, and it reminded us of Boston a lot.
It was simply becoming too wholesome of a day, what with the literature and the fine art, so I hit up the McDonalds Euro Menu for lunch to balance things out. Oh, yah. The Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery was next. I haven't had enough whiskey to discern between good and bad varieties, but I'm pretty sure this stuff was really good. We got a complementary drink at the end of the tour, and I chose the Jameson with ginger ale and lime. It was very, very good. I ordered it in Cork a few nights hence.
Following Jameson, we wandered to the Viking district, which can only be described as old as hell. We walked around the outside of Dublin Castle (we were too late for the final tour of the day), which is much more impressive than the castle from which I currently write. But they couldn't decide on one architectural style: it was a hodgepodge of Gothic and Classical influences. I guess continuity wasn't a big concern.
We got some pasta and cooked it back at the hostel's open kitchen, and then went out to a comedy show. I had never seen live stand-up before, and I don't know if I'll ever see anything as hilarious as we did! As Americans, we got picked on (they asked everyone from where they hailed), but that made it all the more fun! I haven't laughed that much in a long time.
Afterwards, we went to The Temple Bar in Temple Bar, where I paid 3 Euro (about $4.50) for a Diet Coke with nothing in it. What're you gonna do? It was a really atmospheric place, though, and we ended up running into some fellow Emersonians! It was a very good day.
Thursday, 21/2
Our third and final day in Dublin! We were sad we had to be leaving so soon--we could've used another day or so. We went to the Guinness Brewery, which seems to have been heavily influenced by Epcot. What a circus that place is! Guinness tastes like beer, so for all the praise it gets, I still don't like it. The tallest building in Dublin is 13 stories high, and from the top of the Guinness Brewery (9 stories), we had a wonderfully unobstructed view of the city!
After that, Ben got guitar strings, we got paninis, checked out of our hostel and headed for the train station. Getting there took forever. The Dublin tram system is probably the slowest means of public transport I have ever suffered through (including the Green Line). The stupid thing had to yield to cars and any pedestrian who was quick enough to cross in front of it, which was basically everyone but the elderly, the handicapped and the drunk. Terrible.
We got into Limerick pretty late, and then took a bus to Newcastle-West, where we stayed at the quaintest, cutest B&B in the world (proprietor--Eileen)! We had a little trouble finding the place, given that we had no phone to use when we got off the bus. No matter, though. We had a restorative evening, enjoying homemade cake and watching Anchorman (on Irish television, no less) before going to bed early.
Friday, 22/2
We got up and had a big breakfast courtesy Eileen (we all agreed we hadn't eaten so well since we'd been abroad) and hi-tailed it onto another bus and train, this time bound for Cork. Before we boarded the train, though, we had a little time to walk around Limerick, the hometown of novelist Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes. It was cool to be there after reading the book. And we got to play on a playground in a park! The pictures are great.
Cork is the most Irish place we went to, we think. When we got there, we went to a huge market, which is what Quincy Market/Faneuil hall would look like with actual fresh food vendors instead of Pizzeria Regina's and stuff. We got some salad stuff, some pasta stuff and some really nasty cheese. We didn't know it at the time, but that stuff was really nasty. It smelled like sadness.
We went out to a couple of pubs that night, the first of which was very subdued and grey-haired and the second of which was really freaking loud and young. Sleep felt good.
Saturday, 23/2
The last full day of the travel break! We got up and I had goat cheese, fruit and a grain roll from the market for breakfast. Everything was so cheap there! It was great. We walked around Cork after that, just checking out shops and observing things. Ben and I spent a lot of time in a couple of bookstores there. We didn't buy anything, though. We knew we couldn't, given the exchange rate and all.
That evening was a wonderful finale to the travel break, and the most organic cultural experience of the trip. We went to a pub to watch a Scotland-Ireland rugby match. It was part of the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament, which was held in Dublin. We got right in the middle of all the fans and all the cheering. It was great to be in that atmosphere. It felt like a Red Sox-Yankees game or something! We had a good, cheap meal during the match and went back to the hostel to relax.
Sunday, 24/2
We woke up at 5 today to take the bus to the airport. I had a Cadbury egg and a red delicious apple for breakfast. Very weird. Absolutely. But I would do it again. We flew from Cork to London Stansted to Weeze (just across the border from the castle in Germany). We passed through four countries--Ireland, England, Germany and the Netherlands--in about five hours. We got back to the castle around two or so. It was good to be back.
So that's my travel break. Our second travel break is three weeks from this Friday. We'll be going to Croatia and then Barcelona! Yesterday, I took care of stuff for Paris (Easter weekend) and Rome and Florence (my last trip in April). This Thursday, as I said, I'm going to Munich and Berlin for the weekend. Next weekend, I'm going to Luxembourg and Belgium. I'll write about this past weekend's adventures before I leave Thursday!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
I'm going to write until I get bored or pass out. Here goes:
So for the last 11 days I've been off cavorting around London, Dublin, Limerick and Cork. This was by far the most amazing and memorable part of the trip so far, and I'm keeping our London itinerary in front of me so I can remember all we did.
Thursday, 14/2
After dinner on Thursday we flew out of Dusseldorf/Weeze airport just across the border in Germany. We flew into London-Stansted, which was about 90 minutes from the hotel. A bus connected us, and by the time we got to the hotel, it was nearly 11.
The hotel was (many would use a harsher word) modest, but we were downtown right by the tube and a place to sleep. Also: free breakfast. There was a breakfast caste system going on. We could only select from the continental breakfast side (rolls and cereals) while other guests had access to a full English breakfast of fried eggs, baked beans (in tomato sauce), sausage, bacon and the like. I don't know who was expecting the Ritz, but they were surely disappointed.
Friday, 15/2
Today was a bit of a (non-alcoholic) hangover day, beginning with a morning walking tour around Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace followed by a rather lethargic tour of the British Museum. It was cold as balls outside, so the walking tour--given by Castle faculty, as were the museum tours of the trip--was pretty short. The museum trip was interesting but I didn't have much mental energy left, so I didn't get too much out of it. I did see the Rosetta Stone, though.
That night we went to a bar called The World's End. Really cool place. A drunk Rastafarian tried to sell us plastic jewelry. No sale. After that, my friends went to a club, but I went to sleep. We each had a night like this over the break where we, more than anything else, needed to sleep. We did have to get up at like 8:30 each of the mornings in London, so our sleep was limited.
Saturday, 16/2
Today, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we signed up for our events instead of moving as a huge blob. In the morning I went to the National Gallery. The coolest thing I saw there was probably the paintings by Georges Seurat, the subject of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, which I have listened to quite a lot lately. Pointalism. Like impressionism with poking stokes instead of sweeping ones. Very striking.
I had fish and chips for lunch. They served them with sour cream (or relish-less tartar sauce, I guess). Then we had gelato that cost way too much money. And it was way too cold out. And I was way too full to eat it. But I did, and it was freaking great.
That afternoon I went to the Tate Museum. There was a lot of Classical Age sculpture and bas-relief there. The Greeks are actually still pretty peeved about it. They want their stuff back.
That night was tried to get tickets to a show, failed, and subsequently crashed from disappointment. Balls.
Sunday, 17/2
Today I'd signed up to go on a daylong (10 a.m.-7 p.m.) tour of Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was optional and they guilted us into signing up for the damn thing (which was really damn annoying), but I didn't go. I have to sit captive in front of my crazy, senile magazine writing teacher twice a week already, which subject myself to a full day's dose of her ramblings? Instead, I slept in a little and went on a Beatles walking tour with a few of my friends.
The tour guide was interesting, but there were no bells and whistles, just the sites and stories of the Beatles in London, including Abbey Road and the Abbey Road Studios, Paul McCartney's record label's offices, the offices of Apple Records (the Beatles' label), the townhouse on the roof of which the band played their final and most infamous concert, the theatre where "Beatlemania" began, Yoko Ono's art studio (where she and John Lennon met), and some other cool stuff, too.
That night, we went to see one of Ben's favourite (when in Rome on the "-our") musicians, Kaki King. That girl can do some awesome stuff with a guitar. Damn, son. Before the concert, I went with two of my friends to try to get tickets again for Billy Elliot: The Musical, and we were triumphant! I got an obstructed view ticket for about $34 (which wasn't obstructed after I contorted my spine to see the stage). Billy Elliot's moving to Broadway in a year or so or something, so we were very excited at our luck!
The exchange rate on the British Pound, by the way, made me want to die. Math-impotent Emersonians failed to understand that 1 Pound has always been more valuable than $1, and that a currency like the Yen, although in smaller increments, can still "beat" the dollar. I've said that Emerson students should be accomplished enough in math to understand how in debt they'll be after graduation, but we can't move past exchange rates. END OF DIGRESSION. Ok. 1 pound=$2. London=exorbitant prices. Terrible.
That night we went out and looked for a club or something but didn't find anything and stumbled back to the hotel. It was still really fun, though.
Monday, 18/2
This morning we toured Westminster Abbey. By this point, we were quite tired, but I'd say this was the most impressive part of the London trip. There is so much to describe and the building is so vast. Most distinguished Britons are buried there, and the artwork and architecture are staggering. Good stuff.
That afternoon was a tour of "the London of Dickens and Shakespeare." The tour was given by a quaint British woman. She was, as Meg put it, "precious." She really was. We saw the old moorings of London Bridge; the new London Bridge; the prison where Dickens father was interned; the site of the old Globe Theatre (it burned down); the new, replica Globe; and a lot of other really cool things in that neighbourhood, including the outside of St. Paul's Cathedral.
That night we went to see Billy Elliot! It was very good. I have some issues with the show (it's no Sondheim), but it was really quite good. The experience was well worth the money, exchange rate or no.
All in all, over the 11-day trip, I spent $520 dollars (about $47/day). That's a small fortune, but significantly less than others spent and I could have spent myself. We spent the entire break in cities and had to pay for our own housing after London and most of our own food. None of that helped.
Tuesday, 19/2
Last day in London. Our flight to Dublin was at 5 p.m. That morning we went to the Docklands area--London's (much large and more impressive) version of Boston's State Street financial district. Our faculty guide was reading off a printout and clearly didn't know much about the area, and she, like us, had a flight to catch, so we were done by noon thirty. We crossed London via tube back to the hotel, grabbed lunch and headed to the train that would take us to the airport. I validates my Eurail pass that day, so the ride was free for me.
We had some issues with carry-on luggage and were scrubbed pretty hard at security and our flight was delayed an hour, but we made it to our hostel in Dublin around 10 that night. We had a big Italian dinner (always check the specials board, folks, not just the menu), had a drink at a very Irish pub and passed out for some well-earned sleep.
I'm very tired of writing and have some other urgent matters (such as watching a movie for fun) to do. I'll write about the rest of my trip maybe tomorrow.
Thursday, 14/2
After dinner on Thursday we flew out of Dusseldorf/Weeze airport just across the border in Germany. We flew into London-Stansted, which was about 90 minutes from the hotel. A bus connected us, and by the time we got to the hotel, it was nearly 11.
The hotel was (many would use a harsher word) modest, but we were downtown right by the tube and a place to sleep. Also: free breakfast. There was a breakfast caste system going on. We could only select from the continental breakfast side (rolls and cereals) while other guests had access to a full English breakfast of fried eggs, baked beans (in tomato sauce), sausage, bacon and the like. I don't know who was expecting the Ritz, but they were surely disappointed.
Friday, 15/2
Today was a bit of a (non-alcoholic) hangover day, beginning with a morning walking tour around Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace followed by a rather lethargic tour of the British Museum. It was cold as balls outside, so the walking tour--given by Castle faculty, as were the museum tours of the trip--was pretty short. The museum trip was interesting but I didn't have much mental energy left, so I didn't get too much out of it. I did see the Rosetta Stone, though.
That night we went to a bar called The World's End. Really cool place. A drunk Rastafarian tried to sell us plastic jewelry. No sale. After that, my friends went to a club, but I went to sleep. We each had a night like this over the break where we, more than anything else, needed to sleep. We did have to get up at like 8:30 each of the mornings in London, so our sleep was limited.
Saturday, 16/2
Today, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we signed up for our events instead of moving as a huge blob. In the morning I went to the National Gallery. The coolest thing I saw there was probably the paintings by Georges Seurat, the subject of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, which I have listened to quite a lot lately. Pointalism. Like impressionism with poking stokes instead of sweeping ones. Very striking.
I had fish and chips for lunch. They served them with sour cream (or relish-less tartar sauce, I guess). Then we had gelato that cost way too much money. And it was way too cold out. And I was way too full to eat it. But I did, and it was freaking great.
That afternoon I went to the Tate Museum. There was a lot of Classical Age sculpture and bas-relief there. The Greeks are actually still pretty peeved about it. They want their stuff back.
That night was tried to get tickets to a show, failed, and subsequently crashed from disappointment. Balls.
Sunday, 17/2
Today I'd signed up to go on a daylong (10 a.m.-7 p.m.) tour of Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was optional and they guilted us into signing up for the damn thing (which was really damn annoying), but I didn't go. I have to sit captive in front of my crazy, senile magazine writing teacher twice a week already, which subject myself to a full day's dose of her ramblings? Instead, I slept in a little and went on a Beatles walking tour with a few of my friends.
The tour guide was interesting, but there were no bells and whistles, just the sites and stories of the Beatles in London, including Abbey Road and the Abbey Road Studios, Paul McCartney's record label's offices, the offices of Apple Records (the Beatles' label), the townhouse on the roof of which the band played their final and most infamous concert, the theatre where "Beatlemania" began, Yoko Ono's art studio (where she and John Lennon met), and some other cool stuff, too.
That night, we went to see one of Ben's favourite (when in Rome on the "-our") musicians, Kaki King. That girl can do some awesome stuff with a guitar. Damn, son. Before the concert, I went with two of my friends to try to get tickets again for Billy Elliot: The Musical, and we were triumphant! I got an obstructed view ticket for about $34 (which wasn't obstructed after I contorted my spine to see the stage). Billy Elliot's moving to Broadway in a year or so or something, so we were very excited at our luck!
The exchange rate on the British Pound, by the way, made me want to die. Math-impotent Emersonians failed to understand that 1 Pound has always been more valuable than $1, and that a currency like the Yen, although in smaller increments, can still "beat" the dollar. I've said that Emerson students should be accomplished enough in math to understand how in debt they'll be after graduation, but we can't move past exchange rates. END OF DIGRESSION. Ok. 1 pound=$2. London=exorbitant prices. Terrible.
That night we went out and looked for a club or something but didn't find anything and stumbled back to the hotel. It was still really fun, though.
Monday, 18/2
This morning we toured Westminster Abbey. By this point, we were quite tired, but I'd say this was the most impressive part of the London trip. There is so much to describe and the building is so vast. Most distinguished Britons are buried there, and the artwork and architecture are staggering. Good stuff.
That afternoon was a tour of "the London of Dickens and Shakespeare." The tour was given by a quaint British woman. She was, as Meg put it, "precious." She really was. We saw the old moorings of London Bridge; the new London Bridge; the prison where Dickens father was interned; the site of the old Globe Theatre (it burned down); the new, replica Globe; and a lot of other really cool things in that neighbourhood, including the outside of St. Paul's Cathedral.
That night we went to see Billy Elliot! It was very good. I have some issues with the show (it's no Sondheim), but it was really quite good. The experience was well worth the money, exchange rate or no.
All in all, over the 11-day trip, I spent $520 dollars (about $47/day). That's a small fortune, but significantly less than others spent and I could have spent myself. We spent the entire break in cities and had to pay for our own housing after London and most of our own food. None of that helped.
Tuesday, 19/2
Last day in London. Our flight to Dublin was at 5 p.m. That morning we went to the Docklands area--London's (much large and more impressive) version of Boston's State Street financial district. Our faculty guide was reading off a printout and clearly didn't know much about the area, and she, like us, had a flight to catch, so we were done by noon thirty. We crossed London via tube back to the hotel, grabbed lunch and headed to the train that would take us to the airport. I validates my Eurail pass that day, so the ride was free for me.
We had some issues with carry-on luggage and were scrubbed pretty hard at security and our flight was delayed an hour, but we made it to our hostel in Dublin around 10 that night. We had a big Italian dinner (always check the specials board, folks, not just the menu), had a drink at a very Irish pub and passed out for some well-earned sleep.
I'm very tired of writing and have some other urgent matters (such as watching a movie for fun) to do. I'll write about the rest of my trip maybe tomorrow.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Munster!
It was a really fun weekend. Ela and her friend (to be honest, I didn't get the pronunciation down. She didn't speak English so we didn't interact very much. I think it was like [Ahn-tee-tee] or something) picked Ben and me up Friday night and we drove back to Germany in Ela's Uncle's Benz.
It was the first time she'd been to the Netherlands, which was a little surprising to me, but understandable. Rhode Island is only, like what, an hour twenty from home, and I've never gone there out of my own sovereign desire.
It was about a two-hour drive, which was broken up by a trip to McDonalds. I think that eating at a German McDonalds very much counts as a cultural experience. That ketchup packet (one real big one!) they gave us was frigging exotic. The food was 98% the same as in America, and just as delicious.
When we got to Ela's house, we were--immediately after hellos were exchanged--offered a beer. They had a pretty cool innovation for people like me who think that beer is gross: they put soda in it. It tasted good. Like, I didn't want to spit out each sip I took good.
We were tired, so we stayed in and watched The Departed. I take back anything and everything completely non-glowing I've ever said about that movie. It's really quite brilliant.
We got up around noon (shut up) Saturday and ate a breakfast of rolls, cheese and meats, jellies, tomatoes and a bunch of other glorious shit.
Then we went into Munster (by an about 15-minute train ride) and were given the key to the city / were led around on a very impressive and entertaining grand tour by Ela. The city is old and quaint and a far cry from Amsterdam's ever-present sense of OH MY GOD WHAT IS GOING ON
Ela tried to give us diabetes, and we offered no resistance. We went to a candy shop and had amazing German chocolates and then went to a dessert cafe' and had gelato. Friggin yah, man. Balls it was good.
We went back to Ela's town (Davensberg) by train and ordered pizza. Some of their roads are very thin; so thin that we would have to pull onto the shoulder so cars going the other way could pass.
That night we went to a club in Munster. Dancing is huge there, and so is bad 90s American music. Rock on Sum 41, Backstreet Boys and N'Sync! We got back to Ela's around 4 and then slept until noon again.
Breakfast was the same as Saturday but with Nutella and apples and no tomatoes (Ela found it very odd that I put Nutella on apples. whatever girl i do what i want). We drove into town and walked around a little bit, took a train back to Holland and took a bus back to the castle.
I watched I Am Legend last night and was underwhelmed. Smith's performance was impressive, but I didn't like the direction. Sequences were either drawn-out or harried. Nothing seemed to snap into place. They should've gone much more psychological with Smith's character. He was all-too mechanical for the last man on Earth, and his emotions were not accessible to the viewing audience. I got really bored towards the end of the movie, which is saying a lot because the movie was only 100 minutes long. Also, the cinematography was pretty uninspired. This movie just should've been much cooler.
This week has a fair amount of work, but it's all writing, so most of it is enjoyable or at the least, somewhat rewarding. We fly to London on the first travel excursion Thursday!
Go Celtics! Big win last night. And we can tack on two more before the All-Star break.
It was the first time she'd been to the Netherlands, which was a little surprising to me, but understandable. Rhode Island is only, like what, an hour twenty from home, and I've never gone there out of my own sovereign desire.
It was about a two-hour drive, which was broken up by a trip to McDonalds. I think that eating at a German McDonalds very much counts as a cultural experience. That ketchup packet (one real big one!) they gave us was frigging exotic. The food was 98% the same as in America, and just as delicious.
When we got to Ela's house, we were--immediately after hellos were exchanged--offered a beer. They had a pretty cool innovation for people like me who think that beer is gross: they put soda in it. It tasted good. Like, I didn't want to spit out each sip I took good.
We were tired, so we stayed in and watched The Departed. I take back anything and everything completely non-glowing I've ever said about that movie. It's really quite brilliant.
We got up around noon (shut up) Saturday and ate a breakfast of rolls, cheese and meats, jellies, tomatoes and a bunch of other glorious shit.
Then we went into Munster (by an about 15-minute train ride) and were given the key to the city / were led around on a very impressive and entertaining grand tour by Ela. The city is old and quaint and a far cry from Amsterdam's ever-present sense of OH MY GOD WHAT IS GOING ON
Ela tried to give us diabetes, and we offered no resistance. We went to a candy shop and had amazing German chocolates and then went to a dessert cafe' and had gelato. Friggin yah, man. Balls it was good.
We went back to Ela's town (Davensberg) by train and ordered pizza. Some of their roads are very thin; so thin that we would have to pull onto the shoulder so cars going the other way could pass.
That night we went to a club in Munster. Dancing is huge there, and so is bad 90s American music. Rock on Sum 41, Backstreet Boys and N'Sync! We got back to Ela's around 4 and then slept until noon again.
Breakfast was the same as Saturday but with Nutella and apples and no tomatoes (Ela found it very odd that I put Nutella on apples. whatever girl i do what i want). We drove into town and walked around a little bit, took a train back to Holland and took a bus back to the castle.
I watched I Am Legend last night and was underwhelmed. Smith's performance was impressive, but I didn't like the direction. Sequences were either drawn-out or harried. Nothing seemed to snap into place. They should've gone much more psychological with Smith's character. He was all-too mechanical for the last man on Earth, and his emotions were not accessible to the viewing audience. I got really bored towards the end of the movie, which is saying a lot because the movie was only 100 minutes long. Also, the cinematography was pretty uninspired. This movie just should've been much cooler.
This week has a fair amount of work, but it's all writing, so most of it is enjoyable or at the least, somewhat rewarding. We fly to London on the first travel excursion Thursday!
Go Celtics! Big win last night. And we can tack on two more before the All-Star break.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Ela yah!
This week was exciting, eventful and quite exhausting. Too bad about the Pats. The game didn't end until 4:20 a.m. I also stayed up until 5 a.m. Tuesday night to watch the returns come in from the Super Tuesday primaries.
The Democratic race could not be closer, and despite what people are saying about how the quick resolution of the Republican primary, I think it will help the Democrats by extrapolating the current trend: obsessive media coverage of the Democratic race and comparatively sparse attention paid to Republicans. Obama and Hilary showed in last week's mano-a-womano debate that they can and will play nice for the sake of their party. On this, Romney and Giuliani failed. They failed to win the nomination and splintered a base that will now succumb to an energized, purposeful Democratic votership. Sen. McCain can bark up the "unity" tree all he wants, but it won't amount to anything. Liberals are more united under their two candidates than Republicans ever will be under McCain.
GObama tomorrow in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands! I'm not sure which of these primaries are open, but independents could start gravitating to Democratic ballots in an effort to make their votes meaningful. One this might help Obama, but we can never be sure.
Castle life is good. I sleep until like 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thurdays, and if I actually go to bed before 5 a.m. I can get full nights of sleep!
I watched No Country for Old Men this past weekend. Make it the next movie you rent. See it.
Sucks about Schilling. But really, we'll be fine. I said to Ben this week, "You never have enough pitching until you have too much." We thought we had too much, but now we'll use it.
Beckett
DiceK
Lester
Wakefield
Buckholtz
(Tavarez and Snyder for spot starts)
We'll be fine.
Ela's coming to pick up Ben and me at the castle in a few hours! How balls is that? I submit very balls. We're spending the weekend at her house in Davensberg, Germany. Davensberg...it sounds like we're going to Pennsylvania, or something, not Germany.
I'll try the beer, but I'm pretty sure it will still taste like beer, and ergo, taste like pee. Blargh. Davensberg is next to Munster, which is famed for its cheese and chocolates. I think I'll mostly stick to that.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
The Democratic race could not be closer, and despite what people are saying about how the quick resolution of the Republican primary, I think it will help the Democrats by extrapolating the current trend: obsessive media coverage of the Democratic race and comparatively sparse attention paid to Republicans. Obama and Hilary showed in last week's mano-a-womano debate that they can and will play nice for the sake of their party. On this, Romney and Giuliani failed. They failed to win the nomination and splintered a base that will now succumb to an energized, purposeful Democratic votership. Sen. McCain can bark up the "unity" tree all he wants, but it won't amount to anything. Liberals are more united under their two candidates than Republicans ever will be under McCain.
GObama tomorrow in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands! I'm not sure which of these primaries are open, but independents could start gravitating to Democratic ballots in an effort to make their votes meaningful. One this might help Obama, but we can never be sure.
Castle life is good. I sleep until like 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thurdays, and if I actually go to bed before 5 a.m. I can get full nights of sleep!
I watched No Country for Old Men this past weekend. Make it the next movie you rent. See it.
Sucks about Schilling. But really, we'll be fine. I said to Ben this week, "You never have enough pitching until you have too much." We thought we had too much, but now we'll use it.
Beckett
DiceK
Lester
Wakefield
Buckholtz
(Tavarez and Snyder for spot starts)
We'll be fine.
Ela's coming to pick up Ben and me at the castle in a few hours! How balls is that? I submit very balls. We're spending the weekend at her house in Davensberg, Germany. Davensberg...it sounds like we're going to Pennsylvania, or something, not Germany.
I'll try the beer, but I'm pretty sure it will still taste like beer, and ergo, taste like pee. Blargh. Davensberg is next to Munster, which is famed for its cheese and chocolates. I think I'll mostly stick to that.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Weekend in Amsterdam
You'll hear people say that Boston is a like European city, but compared to Amsterdam, Boston isn't very European at all. Which is fine for both cities, I guess, seeing as Amsterdam is in Europe and Boston is not.
The city was beautiful, and really old. Canals ran through most every block (Amsterdam is called "the Venice of the North"). Real estate was appraised by the width of buildings, which has created tall, thin houses packed against each other. It seems to be incredibly wasteful, space-wise, but it was so interesting to look at.
We went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was really, really awesome. I'm ignorant about art, but I do know I wouldn't've liked Van Gogh 3 or 4 years ago and that I think he's brilliant now. His use of color and perspective distorts whatever his subject happens to be. But with that distortion comes more truth of emotion than any "realistic" painter could display.
The Anne Frank House was really interesting and sad, but I left feeling uplifted and hopeful about our world (I needed that after walking through the Red Light District).
We spent a lot of our time just walking around, trying to soak in as much of the local culture as we could. "Coffeeshops" (where pot vending and smoking is tolerated) litter the city without any sort of logic. They're really all-the-hell over the place. Whatever.
I'm not into the whole sex drugs and rock n roll thing, so a lot of what other people would appreciate in Amsterdam, I don't.
Despite this, it was still a really cool city and I felt pretty engaged.
A lot of their culture was American culture Euro-ized. McDonalds were all around, and Burger King, KFC and Subway were present, too. One of the best parts of the trip was the soft serve at McDonalds. It cost 35 eurocent!
Done.
The city was beautiful, and really old. Canals ran through most every block (Amsterdam is called "the Venice of the North"). Real estate was appraised by the width of buildings, which has created tall, thin houses packed against each other. It seems to be incredibly wasteful, space-wise, but it was so interesting to look at.
We went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was really, really awesome. I'm ignorant about art, but I do know I wouldn't've liked Van Gogh 3 or 4 years ago and that I think he's brilliant now. His use of color and perspective distorts whatever his subject happens to be. But with that distortion comes more truth of emotion than any "realistic" painter could display.
The Anne Frank House was really interesting and sad, but I left feeling uplifted and hopeful about our world (I needed that after walking through the Red Light District).
We spent a lot of our time just walking around, trying to soak in as much of the local culture as we could. "Coffeeshops" (where pot vending and smoking is tolerated) litter the city without any sort of logic. They're really all-the-hell over the place. Whatever.
I'm not into the whole sex drugs and rock n roll thing, so a lot of what other people would appreciate in Amsterdam, I don't.
Despite this, it was still a really cool city and I felt pretty engaged.
A lot of their culture was American culture Euro-ized. McDonalds were all around, and Burger King, KFC and Subway were present, too. One of the best parts of the trip was the soft serve at McDonalds. It cost 35 eurocent!
Done.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Retroactive to two Fridays ago...We're here!
Traveling is really no fun. Between the bus from Emerson to Logan, the loafing in the terminal, the flights to Dublin then Shannon then Amsterdam, the stamping of my passport at Dutch immigration (I think the employee simply verified I was indeed a biped and then let me into the country), the train to Utrecht and then to Nijmegen, the bus to Well (this loud, annoying ride showed me not only American 13-year-olds who are idiots) and the 10-minute half-dazed dragging of my luggage (don't pity me, I have rolling duffels) to the castle gates, it took 20 hours to get from A-B (or, like, M).
I defeated jet lag, though, with naps all throughout, and functioned on a normal sleep schedule from the time I got here.
Sunday brought the Patriots-Chargers game. Ben and I at first tried to get the game to work through Skype, and then we tried to find an Internet TV tuner, but our efforts (Ben's, really) were in vain. But mercifully, wonderfully, some others found the game on ORF--a Dutch TV network (or something). The commentary was in Dutch, which is only slightly less substantive than John Madden or Boomer Esiason or whoever was doing the game.
Stuff is smaller here. That about as profound as my cultural observations are going to get. Stuff is small. The largest container of water at Meer Mart (Well's smallish supermarket) is 1.5 liters, a far cry from the 3 gallon-large tankards at Market Basket.
My room is small but spacious, given that I didn't (or couldn't) take most of my crap with me.
I'm tired. Time to pretend to do homework and then read and then really do homework and then retire.
I'll write about my weekend in Amsterdam very soon. Goodnight!
I defeated jet lag, though, with naps all throughout, and functioned on a normal sleep schedule from the time I got here.
Sunday brought the Patriots-Chargers game. Ben and I at first tried to get the game to work through Skype, and then we tried to find an Internet TV tuner, but our efforts (Ben's, really) were in vain. But mercifully, wonderfully, some others found the game on ORF--a Dutch TV network (or something). The commentary was in Dutch, which is only slightly less substantive than John Madden or Boomer Esiason or whoever was doing the game.
Stuff is smaller here. That about as profound as my cultural observations are going to get. Stuff is small. The largest container of water at Meer Mart (Well's smallish supermarket) is 1.5 liters, a far cry from the 3 gallon-large tankards at Market Basket.
My room is small but spacious, given that I didn't (or couldn't) take most of my crap with me.
I'm tired. Time to pretend to do homework and then read and then really do homework and then retire.
I'll write about my weekend in Amsterdam very soon. Goodnight!
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