Dublin

Ok wow still can’t believe that this our last stop, it just crazy, but I’ll save all of that for later, actually I guess Chicago is our last stop, but since we are staying with Jeannie’s family it just seems different.

Alright, on to Dublin, well as odd as it seemed to be flying instead of riding a train, everything went smoothly. Other than having to wake up at a ridiculous time in London and grab a long Tube ride to the airport, of course. We grabbed a taxi in from the airport, he was a really nice man. He had about as much of clue where our street was, as we did, but he whipped out his map, broke a few traffic laws, and delivered us safely to our hostel in the famous Temple Bar area. In actuality our room was not finished yet so we plopped down in a near-by pub and had some lunch. Afterwards we went up to the room to unpack and by then the getting up so early had done us in… so of course we had a lovely nap. Afterwards we went out for dinner and what else… oh yes, we had some beer of course, I mean are in Dublin aren’t we.

So since Jeanne-Marie had had so much fun on the bus in London, one of the first things we did was jump on a bus (the first was actually going to see the Bok of Kells and Trinity College… but who really cares about that old boring stuff). The Irish bus drivers are hilarious and just lots of fun… but then can that could be said about most of the Irishmen we have met here. The drivers keep up running banter filled with Irish wit and of course drinking songs, no bus ride would be complete without one… ok fine two.

The ride took us by most of Dublin’s Georgian Squares, which I will talk about in a bit, and then journeys on to several churches, the Guiness Storehouse, the Modern Museum of Art, the historic jail, the zoo, the Jameson Distillery, O’Connell street, and several other places of note. Of course, our first stop was at the Jameson Distillery ( “you take a left at the pub, then again at the church, and you’re right there…” seriously). After that we jumped on the bus again and completed our loop.

The next day we walked up to Grafton Street which is a huge shopping and pedestrian street. We went on to Mellion’s Square and St. George’s Square which are really nice Georgian Parks. The first of which is more of a garden loop, which is famous for its statue of Oscar Wilde. The second was a historic private park which was eventually gifted back to the people by the Guiness family. St. Steven’s was packed when went there because of the unseasonably awesome weather. After the park we wandered through the Grafton Street shopping areas and malls.

The next day, which just so happened to be my birthday, we went out for breakfest, and yes again jumped on bus. It was our idea that we would try to go to the Guiness Sturehouse, but the line was… long. So instead we went to the Irish Modern Art Museum, and then just walked the city center. That night went out for food and then hung out in the Temple Bar area drinking Guiness and listening to some live music… it was a good birthday.

So on our final day we just walked around the river and O’Connell Street (there was a huge celebration in memory of the Easter Rebellion, since it was Easter), and then back through Trinity and the Grafton and Temple Bar areas.

Now we are somewhere over the Atlantic or maybe Canada by now… I’m not sure, but we are defiantly on our way back to America. I am not sure if I am sad or what exactly, but we are really close to the end of this trip and it has just been amazing. I plan on writing a follow-up summary, but after that who knows.

London

Cheerio! Well now that we have made it to London, the trip seems to be coming quickly to its end. We stayed on the Southbank and our hostel was within easy walking distance to a ton of the usual touristy stuff (Big Ben, London Eye, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, etc). On the afternoon of our arrival we walked along the Thames and explored the riverside. Later that evening we went Leicester Square, which is where all the movie houses and restaurants are, and watched our first movie in a theater in what, like 6 months.

Our first day we walked around the rest of Southbank while it was nice outside, but, eventually it started to rain again, so we ducked into the Tate Modern. That night we went to a pub, the Three Stags, which was just across the street from our hostel. The next day the weather was… well exactly what you would expect from London in Spring… it was rainy. So we did some badly needed laundry and got all of the things we had been putting off done.

So one Saturday everything cleared up and it was a beautiful day. So according we went to go see the parks. First up was Green Park, which runs into Buckingham Palace (no, we did not go see the changing of the guards, I mean seriously who cares about guys in big fur hats marching around and getting their pictures taken). After that we walked up the Princess Dianna Memorial Walkway, which I mistakenly thought was unfinished (the dirt path was actually intentional, since it was in reality a horse path). This led up to the famous Hyde Park, where we walking around the lake and past the Kensington Gardens. From there we walked back toward Piccadilly and down to Trafalgar Square.

On Sunday we decided to break down and ride one of those dam tourist buses. The bus took us from Westminster Bridge, past the Southbank Cultural District, over to London Bridge and Tower Bridge, then we went up through Old London and the Financial District. From there we doubled back along the otherside of the river past Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, back up to Buckingam Palace, over to Trafalgar Square, up to Piccadilly, up Oxford Street, over to the edge of Green Park and Hyde Park, and there we got off. Man, I was wrong about those, we had a blast, got a decent overview of the city, and still managed to have enough of a day left that we to the British Museum and send the rest of the afternoon hanging out around Piccadilly, Oxford, and Leicester Square. The Again we closed the night hanging out at our favorite pub, the Three Stags, since it was homier than our hostel and much more fun… although watching Italian girls trying to learn how to play pool is a very amusing thing indeed.

Finally on our last day we just ran around on the Tube, which is awesome and clean, but really expensive if you don’t do it right. Make sure you buy either a tourist pass, an oyster card, or at least a day pass, otherwise it could cst you up to 8L a piece for a downa and back. We ran up to Baker Street for the obvious tourist trap and then went to a tea place that Jeannie desperately wanted to find (Twinings). After that we went over to the Tate Britain and had a nice stroll home.

London was a great time, really expensive (that ole 2:1 exchange rate gets you poor quick), and on the whole the weather was surprising good. Let’s just hope this holds up while we are in Dublin. So off we go to see if these Irish folk really are as fun as people say they are.

Paris

Hello again everyone… you know all 3 of you that actually read this dribble. Well let’s go ahead and get started anyway. I forgot that it damn near rains in Paris as much as it does in London, but hey at least we bought a tourist umbrella (i.e.… crap) in Rotterdam. We changed our hotels for Paris while we were in Rotterdam because after our disaster with the Clipper, we (meaning me) have finally learned to checkout multiple hotel review sites before deciding on one. We had found out that the lovely Hotel Magenta has only one shower for 5 floors worth of rooms, oh and did I mention it cost 3 euros each time you wanted to use it… yea… so we dropped that hotel and moved to the beautiful Hotel Gerando… beautiful means under construction… yes? But hey it was very near a couple of good restaurants and a metro stop so, one can’t really complain.

We arrived late enough that we just had dinner and went out the next morning. The first place we went was Notre Dame, and from there we took our first wrong turn in Paris… instead of taking the bridge at the southern edge of the island, we accidentally went north… oops. We had intended to go see the Latin Quarter area but instead ended going to Centre Pompidou, which is a art museum that is most notable for its bight blue ductwork that hangs on the exterior of the buildings, and the really cool entry stair which is also on the exterior of the building.

After Centre Pompidou we walked around and ended up at Forum les Halles, which is a really cool subterranean shopping mall and metro shop. There is a main courtyard with lots of shops and vendors stalls, and then there are a series of pathways that run underneath a park at ground level. One of these passages continued all the way to the Louvre. Speaking of the Louvre that was our next stop. We were intending to just look at the Pyramid but it started pouring and the line disappeared so we decided to go ahead and go in while we were there. Man that place was huge. Anyway after that we went back home and grabbed food at a really good Indian restaurant next to our hotel.

The second day we started out at the Arc de Triomph, and walked along the Champs de Elysees. That took us to the Place de la Concorde, where an obelisk that Napoleon stole from Egypt still stands; it was also the historical location of the Guillotine. Next were the Jardins de Tuillieres, they were nice but were not especially our cup of tea. We hopped on a metro at the Louvre and went out to the Eiffel Tower. We walked around the Eiffel Tower area and grabbed some snacks. Jeannie did something quite silly. She decided she was going to help get rid of part of my jeans cuff that was dragging… so she stepped on it and had me walk in the other direction… sounds like a bad idea you say? Well, it was… so instead of ripping it off, my jeans split all the way up to my knee. So I was left with the option of walking around with one drafty leg, or going to buy new jeans… we bought new jeans.

The next morning we went back to the Forum les Halles, got some jeans, and went out to the Musee d’Orsay. The museum is really cool because it was originally a train station, which has now been converted into a modern art museum. We also walked around the Latin Quarter and saw the Ecule des Beaux Arts, which is one of the most important art schools in history.

The next morning, we were picked up by Mr. Chauvet and Gainerrene. The Chauvet’s are family friends of Jeanne-Marie, and are also the parents of our friend Romain. The entire family is awesome and our weekend at their house was incredible… oh and “quiet”. First though Jacque (Mr. Chauvet) gave us a tour of Paris by car. After the tour we grabbed lunch in a really cool part of town, this part of town would be the cause of a giant headache for us later. Afterwards we went out to their home in Bouvais, which is a small, old village that is inside of a larger new town called Guyencourt, and is near to Versailles. Jeannie fell in love with house immediately, and I can’t blame her a bit. It is a nice stone home that has a nice yard and is near a small creek. We slept in Romain’s old room on the third floor.

I can’t stress how much we enjoyed spending time with the family. Jacques is one of the nicest persons I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and his wife Edith is an extraordinary artist and simply wonderful. Their children are just as nice as they are, William is a wonderful pianist after only two years of playing, and let me tell you, he is really good… Then there was Vincent and his beautiful girlfriend Florence, and who could forget Gainerrene, whom Jeanne-Marie fell in love with immediately. Overall our time there was extremely relaxing, or as Jacques says, “Quiet”. That Sunday Jacques took us out to Versailles and we walked around the gardens, which were more crowded than I had expected them to be. I guess since the weekend had turned out to beautiful weather, more people were out than usual. Jeannie almost got run over by a couple bicycles (no surprise there) and otherwise it was a great time. That evening the Chauvet’s took us to a birthday party for one of their neighbors, Pierre-Eric. The entire neighborhood turned out to be just as nice as the Chauvet’s; it was a ton of fun. Afterwards we had an awesome home-cooked meal with the entire Chauvet family and Florence.

Monday morning Edith took us back to our hotel, much to our chagrin. We went up the giant hill from our hotel to the church of Sacre Coeur. From here we went to an awesome square that Edith recommended to us, Place de Tertre. The square was filled with artists and some really good sidewalk cafes. After lunch we went to the Montmatre cemetery and walked around all of the cool mausoleums. From there we caught the metro out to Parc de la Villette, where Jeannie got tired and hungry. That evening we went out to the Hark Rock for dinner as has become our tradition.

Tuesday we went to Place de Bastille, where, duh, the prison stood. Now the Garnier Opera stands in its place. From here we walked to the Viaduc des Artes and Promenade Plantee. The Promenade Plantee is what used to be a elevated railway, now it has been converted into a 2.5-mile long linear park. Underneath the Promenade is the Viaduc des Artes, which is comprised of a series of shops, housing artists, craftsman, and designers that are set between the supports for the railway bridge. The Promenade ends at the Parc de Reuilly, which makes the spot of a former chateaux. The path there merges with a bike trail and continues at ground level until it reaches a former train station and the edge of Paris proper.

We walked from the Promenade to the river and the Modern Arab Institute, where Jean Nouvell has a famous façade that is composed of thousands of shutters… like the ones on cameras, not English cottages. We grabbed a café inside and walked to the Jardins de Plantes, which were a series of public flower gardens in between the history museum and the Zoo. From there we walked on to the Sculpture en Plein Aire, the open-air sculpture park that was situated along the riverside. After which, we went to the Jardins de Luxembourg, which were extremely crowded since it was an really beautiful day. Then we made our great mistake; we went looking for that area where we went with Jacques for lunch. Yeah, that took… a while. Basically we got lost, went in circles, got lost again, gave up, got hope, went in circles the opposite way, rinsed, washed, and repeated.

We eventually found it and then had to figure just what we wanted to eat. The area is awesome because it has nearly every type of ethnic food you can imagine. We eventually decided upon Mexican, with which we were rewarded by Dos Equis nachos, and some darn fine tacos. Now we are on our way through the Chunnel, don’t worry you are really only underground for maybe 20 minutes and it is about an hour and a half trip. Next stop, Jolly London.

Rotterdam

Hostelboats are cool… oh wait no they are not. So… my brilliant plan was well umm… not so bright. Once we had arrived in Rotterdam and told our taxi where we were wanting to go, he looked at us a little odd… I only understood once we got there. So our hostelboat “The Clipper” was tied off at the very of edge of Scheepmaker’s Island… I guess not that surprisingly it looked nothing like the picture on the website. In front of us was a boat that looked like it had been to Hell and had only managed to come back because no one there wanted it.

So after we had rung the bell (yes it actually had a doorbell) and waited in the rain for 30 minutes, we said screw it and started looking for our new lodging. Well surprise surprise, Scheepmaker’s Island had no other hotels/motels/hostels/beds for rent/cardboard boxes/etc. so we had to hike it back to the area near the train station. We actually ended up the first hotel we saw, because I had been informed that if I did not find somewhere soon, I would be sleeping with the Scheepmakers if you know what I mean. Just trust me that this establishment was a… significant upgrade from our usual lodgings… enough said.

So on the rest of arrival day we walked around a design and book shop area and stopped at Café Dudok for some awesome café and the best apple pie ever… seriously…ever… Afterwards we walked to one of the most famous squares in Rotterdam, Schouwburgplein (Theatre Square), which was really quite excellent. The parking garage was contained underneath the squares main boardwalk, adjacent to this main area were a series of red cranes that had lights at the ends of their booms. These cranes are a reference to the fact that Rotterdam is the world’s largest port, they are also completely operable for the public, by ways of a control box set near the base of each one. There is also a nice theater in the middle of the square. Later that night we came back to this square and had some awesome Greek food.

Our first full day we went to Café Dudok again for some stellar breakfast, and walked to the big market square, where we rummaged through vendor stalls and booths. In the end we were a little disappointed, but it is still early in the year, and in all honestly, once you have been to Porto Portese… no other open air market really has a chance. On the other end of the Market square was Blaak station, which was a really nice rail stop. Next to Blaak were the (in)famous KubeHouses. These houses are actually in the shape of a cube that has been balanced upon on of it corners and then stuck on a pillar. They were the result of competition from the 70’s, and are actually pretty interesting once one understands that they create a covered walkway over an extremely busy throughfare. They also tend to cluster and create courtyards, which are then ringed with retail; but on the aesthetic level they are well... atrocious.

After the KubeHouses we walked along a big shopping street until we came to what, as we found out later, the natives call, the “Shopping Gutter”. The Shopping Gutter’s real name is, Beurs Traverse, but either way it is really simple, and still really cool. Basically it is just an underpass that has been filled with shops that continue back and connect up into the larger department stores that reside at street level. This allows the busy street that would cut through the middle of it, to continue unimpeded, and protects the area from the noise of the street and the major winds that shoot through Rotterdam. Further along this street transforms into a series of pedestrian streets that have low-lying arcaded shops, with higher residential buildings springing up behind them.

This took us back to the area of the crane square, and so we started to walk to the Museum Park area and went to the NAi, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, where I, much to everyone’s surprise, managed not to by a single book… and seriously you have no idea how hard that was… although I did manage to write down the titles and authors of at least a dozen or so books that I simply will have to purchase eventually. At this point we grabbed some awesome donar kebab and went back to the shopping streets where it was less windy and cold. Eventually we ended up back at our hotel for dinner; there was an incredible hibachi grill downstairs and so we of course had to try it before we left, and hey I can proudly say that I have had a very nice Asian lady tie a very pretty, and very bright, bib on me… don’t worry everyone else in the restaurant had one as well.

The second full day we covered a good chunk of ground. We started by walking to Rotterdam’s version of Chinatown, and then back to Museum Park where we ducked into the Kunsthall, which is a great museum with an awesome café, just in time to miss the hail… yeah it was some odd weather there for a bit. After the hail quit we walked to the Erasmus bridge and the Luxor theater. From there we meandered until we ended up at Blakk station again and went back to the cool shopping areas. We really had a great time in Rotterdam, it is a lot of fun and as odd as it sounds, architects seem to be the only tourists that actually come here, most other people just go to Amsterdam and then make there way onto Germany or France.

Late at night on our second day I remembered that I had talked to another architect, Rutger Spoelstra , who was from the city of Delft, on the internet about woonerfs (a Dutch planning idea about “living streets,” also called shared streets). So I dropped Rutger a line and as luck would have he responded and said he would have some to go walk and chat with us. So we decided to spend our third day traveling to Delft and checking it out.

Boy was that a great plan, we really had fun after the rain and bitter cold had subsided. Rutger was not free until 4pm, but we got there early so we could get lost and wander ourselves. Unfortunately, we did understand the true extent of how much of the town would be shut down on a cold non-tourist season Monday morning. For those of you who do not know, Delft is for its blue chinaware, which is appropriated named, Delftware. The city center of Delft is really very nice. It is largely surrounded by a series of canals, and has several large open spaces. The largest of which is the central square that contains the New Church (circa 14th century???), several nice shops, and a bunch of closed restaurants… damn Mondays… Another nice area nearby, which was considerably newer, was a shopping courtyard with a new library and theater. After walking the city center we wandered around and went to the university. At this point it began to rain and be really quite cold, so we went back to buy an umbrella for Jeannie and a scarf for my dumb self.

That afternoon we met Rutger, who as turns out is a really awesome guy. We had a good time as we all went walking, with Rutger and myself talking shop, and Jeannie taking a bunch of pictures and her usual slandering of me. Thanks to Rutger we saw a ton of stuff we would have missed. It eventually began to hail and so we ducked into a pub for some beers and then Rutger took us to a nice Italian place for pizza and pasta. Afterwards we went back for our 15-minute ride back to Rotterdam, which was made to seem so much longer by our new crazy American “friend” who we acquired at the train station in Delft.

Well now we are leaving the Netherlands for the City of Lights, and I really want to thank Rutger again for his help and for just hanging out with us. Paris is supposed to be rainy the first couple of days that we are going to be there, and we are supposed to visit the Chauvet family over the weekend, so this should be an exciting leg of the trip.

Amsterdam

Welcome to the Netherlands… Nederlands… Holland… whichever… anyway we have arrived in Amsterdam and even after a 9 hour train ride it is impressive at first glance. Our hotel was one the edge of the famous Red Light District, very near to the big town square called Dam Platz, and no it is not quite as seedy as all of those rumors you have heard.

I actually enjoyed our hotel quite a bit. It had a bar situated downstairs which had pretty good food, cheap beer, and of course sports and music (you thought I was going to say something else didn’t you…). Our room was… odd… but that was ok. We actually ate in the bar after wandering around for a bit. There are tons of idiotic fellow Americans (as there has been all over Europe) most seemed to be high school seniors here for spring break… wow that’s a scary thought, but is sure as hell beats my last several spring breaks.

Wow, this city is really a blur to me, we walked most of the city on the first day, and really had a bunch of fun. We started in the University district not too far from the Dam Platz, had café at really cool streetside café, and then wandered on up to Rembrandt Platz for lunch (here they had a cool sculpture based on a really famous Rembrandt piece that I can’t remember at this point). From there we walked on down past the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, to a couple of nice parks.

Perhaps one of the most notable things about this city, and really this whole country, for those you who have not been here, are the bicycles, and all of the ramifications they have on a city. Imagine if you will that for every ten cars you see on the road next to you, seven of them are now riding on bicycles… different isn’t it. I don’t Jeanne-Marie has yet learned to look for them before she starts to cross the street, but I haven’t let her get hit yet. My favorite thing about this city may yet be its modes of transportation. Between the bicycles, the scooters, and the usable canals you have plenty of fun options besides that gas guzzler in your garage. Of particular interest to me were all of the shared streets, I guess Steve Luoni has warped my mind that much at least.

That night we ate in Amsterdam’s Chinatown area, although it had as many Argentine restaurants as Asian ones. The following day we went out to the newer parts of town and tried to go to another park, which, again, was closed for remodeling… grr, what is it with me and these damn closed parks! We also took a canal ride… I fell asleep… it was that boring, I mean I can make it through hours of Tech lectures, and Bam! Twenty minutes into a 1hr boat-ride full of French high-school students… I snoring like a log… at least Jeannie found it amusing. We passed Ann Frank’s house (sad), Renzo Piano’s Nemo (ugly), and the West 8 planned Borneo Island (not done yet, but what’s built looks great). That night after we had grabbed some food, we sat down in the bar/hotel, watched some cricket (woo…), watched some soccer (much better), drank beer, and played on the wireless internet… man I like this hotel. We had done this each night and it was really nice to relax and take it easy.

Can’t believe this one is so short… but it is not a long train ride to Rotterdam and our lovely… boat hotel… yea… sounds fun… well at least it did in December… oh boy this should be fun.

Copenhagen

Well after avoiding a near disaster we finally made it to Denmark and Copenhagen. My dumb self left the bag with the laptop on the train from Berlin to Hamburg, so I ended up having to catch a train to the next stop in Hamburg, get the bag, and go back to Hamburg central… did I mention that German train officials are awesome!!! So anyway we missed our original train and it was after 10 when we made it to Copenhagen. Oh yea, during the winter Scandinavians eat rather early (no sun), so we of course got there after most of the kitchens had closed, so we had the choice of McDonald’s or Burger King… yum.

The next day didn’t start off too well either. I, in all of my natural idiocy, didn’t bother to check when the Tivoli Gardens opened, or for that matter, even if they closed at all. So much was my surprise when we go up the gates and they are closed… the Gardens are not going to open until the day after we arrive in the States… oops (The Tivoli Gardens are interesting because they are a series of flowers gardens, water features, amusement rides, and cultural venues, stuffed in the city center between the old city square and the train station). The day brightened up a bit though as we wandered around the giant pedestrian street called the Stroget (sorry no cool official lettering but I have no clue as to type so of these characters on an American keyboard).

We grabbed a really good milkshake at a coffee bar above one o the main streets, and began to notice something strange. There seems to be a ridiculous amount of people pushing around baby carriages, so much that we even began to count them (there were well over 40 of them while we drank our drinks, and had missed a ton before that). It was really quite… intimidating. The best is the fact that the Danes had stuffed these buggies so full that half of the time one of the parents was left with having to hold the kid.

The next day we walked along the water looking at a bunch of architecture stuff that bored Jeannie terribly. I was bummed (again) because the one thing I really wanted to see had been moved for repairs (the PLOT Harbor project for those of you who care). We walked around the castle of Christianborg… one thing I have begun to notice is that a lot of these “castles” are much more… well boring that I would have imagines, but oh well that’s what you get for watching Saturday morning cartoons and bad movies about knights.

Afterwards we walked through the Botanical Gardens and the University district; both were excellent. The parks around this city were really quite beautiful, and one can not complain about a weekend spent walking on a busy shopping street and wandering through quiet city parks. That night we had order-in pizza in an attempt to give some relief to our pocketbooks. This city is really quite expensive; hopefully London is not much worse than this. I knew Scandinavia was expensive but… man this could get bad very quickly. We were amusing by the huge group of Swedish girls that came to Copenhagen for only one night to go party. It was pretty funny, when they arranged for 4 huge van taxis to escort them to and from the club… sad… scary sad.

The last day we wandered around to catch a couple sights we had missed and walked the Stroget again to see how busy it was during the week (still pretty damn busy). That evening we decided to go see a movie since Denmark is cool and plays all movies (except for ones targeted at small kids) in their original language with Danish subtitles… man I wish more of America would do this, I just really don’t like dubbing, but that is a rant for another day. Anyway for those of you who are wondering, we saw Ghost Rider… that’s right, a good ole American action film… pure trash with a little Nicholas Cage drizzled on top for extra terribleness… it was awesome… seriously awesome… oh yea, they had popcorn and it was good…

Berlin

Well… what can I say but, wow! Berlin has turned into so much more than I was expecting. I am not sure what in particular about this city impressed me more, but I do know that this city is one of the cleanest, most friendly, and all around enjoyable that we have been to yet. As is our tradition we of course took a nap once arriving… those train rides can really wear you out... now whether from boredom or whatever else I couldn’t tell you. So right before that nap we grabbed a bit from a restaurant down the street from our hostel, and after the nap we tried another near by restaurant, which by the way was horrible.

So on our first full day, we set off from the hostel and went to Checkpoint Charlie, the famous (or infamous depending on your views) main crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin, it also serves as the Berlin Wall Museum. There we grabbed some Mexican food… yes you did read that right… and yes it was awesome. From there we walked up Frederikstrasse (and please be kind enough not to check my spelling of these names because many of them will be wrong and I won’t care… if something is 20 letters long I’m just not going to get it right no matter how much I try) which has become a major shopping area for former East Berlin.

Afterwards we went to the Brandenburg Gates and walked on to the Reichstag, the seat of the government, which has an amazing glass dome on top where tourists can spiral down and view the city from up high. Around the Reichstag are some other government and educational buildings that were quite nice. The Brandenburg Gates I mentioned earlier lead into a huge park called the Tiergarten, which hosts concerts and events during the nice months. From the Reichstag area we wandered to the Monument for the Jewish Dead, something that I was familiar with because of the recognition it has gotten in the architecture world, but I was not fully prepared for it. I won’t go into too much about it, but one can say that when first walking through it, you have a feeling about it that changes completely after having gone through the museum attached.

After this we went to Potsdamer Platz, a newly reinvigorated square that has become a media and recreation center, for a beer… I had a “flavored” beer for the first time, and it was awesome… I am going to have try it at home (and probably fail miserably), basically drop a shot of apple juice in your next glass of hefeweissen. Afterwards we went to the first restaurant we went it and it was awesome again… although the lights did go out on me in the bathroom and I had to fumble around in complete darkness in a foreign bathroom… fun is not the first word that comes to mind.

The second full day we walked around the Museum Island, and yes no tricks here it was an island in the river covered in museums. From there we went on to the Alexander Platz, and walked up Weinerstrasse and Oresinstrasse, both of these streets are well known shopping and recreation neighborhoods, and are full of the “texture” that has made Berlin famous. We wandered back to Frederikstrasse and then made our way to Potsdamer again for a beer. That evening we went out to the Zoological Gardens area, and wandered through all of the shopping areas there. We also attempted to go to the Hard Rock, only to find that it was closed for a private party. We then wandered forever looking for a restaurant to eat at… sadly missing that they were all on the second level… and eventually after getting a little backwards went to an awesome Greek restaurant.

On our final day we explored the rest of the area around Potsdamer, seeing several nearby famous architectural sights, but spending most of our time in the Arkade, which is a wonderful shopping mall, that acts as the joint between a series of corporate and mixed use buildings. After this we went to the Jewish Museum, which was designed by Daniel Liberskind. It is famous for its use of life and how it simulates the feeling of loneliness and isolationism that the Jews were to have felt while in the terrible camps. After this we went on to happier things and returned to the shopping areas around the Zoo.

We also went to, yes, another Mexican restaurant… and yes it was awesome too… especially my nachos! Afterwards we went to the famous KaDeWe (Kauhaus de Westins) for yes more shopping fun… this place is a huge department store and was celebrating its 100th anniversary as we arrived. Near was an interesting old church where most of the church has been blown up in the war, so that only the center spire remained. Now the spire is flanked by a large blue stained glass tower, and on the other side is another blue stained glass structure, this one being the new sacristy… although they were kinda ugly… anyway afterwards we went back the house and Potsdamer for drinks and dinner at an Australian restaurant there called Corroboree. By the way if any of you have a chance to grab an ice cold Victoria Bitter I would strongly suggest you take that opportunity, as anyone self-respecting person who has been to Australia will tell you.

We had a great time here, that was probably made even better when we didn’t exactly expect it to be so much fun. Maybe it is because Berlin now sees itself as a city for all cultures, as opposed to its so well known recent past. Maybe it is just the product of the recent collapse of the Berlin Wall and the two halves of the city being rejoined… but whatever it is, it was great.

Prague

After a lovely all night train ride, with a Japanese girl who snored loud enough to wake up our drunken neighbors, we arrived in Prague. For anyone considering going to Prague, and you should, do not take the taxis they will rip you off terribly (sorry Peter we did not receive your warning until after this first one).

Once we arrived to our first hotel, which happened to be owned by a friend of a Venetian that we met on the train, we informed that they were having a water problem and sending us to another hotel… right after this of course they showed an older Scandinavian couple to their rooms… hmm… oh well it didn’t matter cause our new hotel was great! While our old hotel was in the Nove Mesto (New City) our new one was in Stare Mesto (Old City) and was right next to the main Muzeum and the awesome street in front of it.

That first night we wandered that street a little bit and went to a restaurant that we recognized from Spain, Pizza Marzano… yes pathetic but most of the places to eat on this street were Italian and really the Czech ones that were there were filled with tourists, while the Italian ones were full of Czechs… weird… I guess one gets tired of goulash eventually. And for all of those out there who are in doubt, as Peter informed us, Czech beer is the best in the world, and the cheapest! You simply can not beat a half liter of sumptuous Czech brew for a paltry average of 40 czk (about 2 bucks… Yes it really is that awesome). It was also amusing to note that in nearly every tourist area there were clearly marked “look out for pickpockets” signs, also as Peter had noted for us.

Our first full day was marred by rain, but we caught most of the main stuff in the central area. We walked the street in front of Muzeum that I mentioned earlier, I believe its name is Wenceslas Square, but my map and my memory are apparently poorly annotated… either way the street is a beautiful place. In a way it is very similar to La Ramblas in Barcelona, in that has a wide pedestrian area in the center with a couple lanes of traffic flanking both sides, and then commercial interests in the buildings on the outside edges of the street. There are several differences but I won’t bore you too much with those now. This street basically had larger buildings around it that acted as shopping courtyards and malls, instead of being in Barcelona’s old quarter with its tiny streets and shops. Also this street does not allow cars to drive its full length, as it eventually acts as a gateway to the old city’s pedestrian zone when it terminates onto a wide shopping promenade.

After the street we went to the Old Town Square which is best known for its Astronomical Clock which draws tourists every hour on the hour, as it puts on a little show of characters parading past a set of windows in the clock. After this we grabbed lunch and headed to the Charles Bridge, which is one of the oldest stone bridges in the world. About this point it started raining pretty good and we decided that it might be better to head back to the hostel and blow off the Prague Castle until the next day. So the rain let up as we went back home, and so we decided to just wander around in the old town area. Eventually though it started pouring and we had to take cover over by the Powder Tower… not fun… anyway eventually we snaked our way through the shopping courts and malls and walked back up Wenceslas Square to our hotel. That night we hung out and ate (and drank of course) around Wenceslas Square again.

The next day we made our way to Charles Bridge again and started up the sizeable hill to Prague Castle. On the way up to the Castle we stopped at a cool restaurant called, Cowboys, while the food was nothing special, the space was really quite nice. The restaurant was in the cellar of a medieval building, and the brick arches and foundations were left exposed, creating a really nice to sit and eat and of course drink more beer… as a fun fact Czechs consume more beer per capita than anyone else in the entire world. You get a really nice vista of Prague from up at the Castle and the castle itself is fairly interesting. It basically is like a small fortified town, with a nice Gothic church and street called the Golden Lane because it housed the city’s goldsmiths at one time (as a sidenote Kafka also lived here for a time).

On our way down we caught a couple sights, like Prague’s Effiel Tower, and the Metronome. Also you can see the Tv Tower from miles away as it towers over the rest of the city. No we did not go see Frank Gehry’s building here, because I am not going to waste my time to go look at some building named after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and is honestly extremely ugly. The rest of our time we just wandered about enjoying ourselves, I do wish we had spent more time in the Jewish Getto, but the rain did really cramp our time… oh well.

We had a great time in Prague, and I’d love to come back here again sometime. Peter does not seem to be the only one of his countrymen who has good taste in music, as Jeanne-Marie and I were reliving our childhoods with all of the 80’s music we kept hearing everywhere. Before I came here I did not know much about Czech history, pride, or hell Czech anything… well ok I knew about the beer but very little. Now I have really come to respect it and want to learn more about Eastern Europe in general, hopefully we eventually can make another trip just to see more of Eastern Europe nad the things it has to offer. Well now we are on our way up to Berlin, the train ride through the Czech Republic and Germany so far has been very enjoyable, with the hillsides being adorned with stone monestaries and keeps, and the towns nestled into mountain valleys and tucked up along rivers and streams. Very beautiful and very different from anywhere else I have ever been. Well as we are pulling into Dresdan I will let you go and stare out the window some more.

P.S. Thanks to Peter for his help and for writing out his “guide to Prague” for us! High Five!!!!

Venice

I must be the first person in history to go to Venice… and not get lost… at all… I promise… no really I walked into that canal on purpose… well… not really but wouldn’t that have be a fun story to tell… and no I did not fall in the canal… but we did do some meandering around. Venice is really much nicer than I assumed it would be… I mean you hear other Italians call it “Disneyland” and you start to worry… but all in all it is rather pleasant. Now don’t get me wrong I can see why they call it that, and yes it is way too damn touristy for me and the prices that go along with it.

I am not sure if it is just the fact that this was the first canal city I have ever been to, but I really enjoyed the uniqueness of Venezia. I cannot help but imagine its beauty hundreds of years ago when its canals were filled with gondolas and galleys, instead of the vaporetti (water taxi/bus) and tourist boats of today.

Our hostel was run by an extremely nice lady named Amanda, and her lovely baby Giacomo, to whom we owe many thanks and without whom we would definitely not had such a great time. The afternoon we arrived, we really just wandered around, catching all of the main tourista stuff like Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge (which our hostel was very near to). We spent the evening around the Piazza Santa Margherita, which had a younger more vibrant crowd and was a lot of fun. On our way to Santa Margherita, we just turned around a little and ended up at Piazzale Roma, which is where all of the cars and buses access the island… really a rather depressing place, but hey what car garage is not.

Now that I come to think of it, Venice is the only Italian city I have been to where it seems everyone is in a rush. I mean all Italians walk fast and are a little pushy, but at least they commonly congregate around cafes and chat up a storm while they have their infamous 3 hour long dinners where you have to ask for the check 3 or 4 times before the waiter figures out you actually mean it. These people were almost running to their cars and buses, it was really quite odd… so un-Italian… at least the Italian that I am used to. Thankfully when we actually got to Santa Margherita, that all changed; All of the students and young people there behaved as I had previously hoped all Italians did, so perhaps it is just that most of the Italians who work on the main island just want to get away from the tourists and return to normal once they reach the Lido.

This brings up my other pseudo-qualm about Venice… its so damn empty at night… its almost scary. I couldn’t help but dream up a Jack the Ripper story for this place, with al of its fabulous tiny streets and near total lack of lighting… it just seemed to fit… but then again once one thinks about it… Venice may be one of the safest cities in the world, especially in the off-peak season… I mean there are no vagrants, the gypsies are required to have housing… it just seems safe, I wouldn’t personally leave my doors unlocked but I bet you probably could and get away with it.

On our first full day we went back to really explore the areas around San Marco, watching idiot tourists feed the friggin pigeons… I mean seriously I think half of them go to San Marco’s just play with those damn rats… anyway I digress… The piazza is really something to see, I can see why it has become such a famous place to visit… I really think Venice is opulence at its greatest… especially the inside of San Marco, I mean its just gold and mosaics, the sheer amount of work and material is staggering, both visually and financially. After that we wandered around on Murano (island famous for its glass) and saw the Bridge of “Sigh”, it is called this because it was the bridge that ran between the courthouse and the jail, so as prisoners were lead across it, the view would be the last they would every see of the outside world… hence the “sigh” it invokes.

After that we wandered around to the area around the Accademia and its cool wooden bridge that was originally only supposed to be temporary but due to its popularity it has stayed in use for almost a hundred years. After that we did some shopping and went to a restaurant which ended up being more touristy than I care for, even to the point that the waiter was almost trying to push the bill on us… we of course in return delayed it as long as possible and had a fabulous 4 hour dinner complete with dessert and coffee… much to his chagrin.

Our second day started out with running to the post office for the second straight day (too much shopping…grrr … oh well it is friggin Venice), and then we hung out around the Rialto again. The Rialto Bridge is another shopping bridge not terribly dissimilar from Florence’s Ponte Vecchio. The Rialto is divided into 3 stairways with 2 rows of shops in between. Whereas Ponte Vecchio is a large sloped bridge, the Rialto is just a series of stairs and feels stubbier. It seems the 2 side stairs are more for the Venetians to rush by the shopping tourists, than they are for viewing the Grand Canal. Anyway afterwards we went to the nearby Rialto Mercato district which is filled with great food vendor stalls, and a great open air market right off of the Grand Canal. Next to the open air market is the Pesceria, which is a building full of fish vendors… smells great… or something… yay…

After that we were off to the train station again to get our overnight train tickets to Prague (joy!), and then back to Santa Margherita for lunch and more wandering. We ate at the same restaurant as the first night, but this time we ate outside in the piazza. The waiter here is just a nice guy, and his comments about the people who spurned eating at his restaurant were the highlight of my day, just hysterical. After that we just had a great time wandering around and popping in a church here and there, with Jeannie even discovering an artist she hadn’t heard of, Giandomenico Tiepolo, who did an awesome stations of the cross in Chiusa di San Polo. Then we found a rare and used books store, had some pizza cake (Italian term for thicker crusted pizza), and hopped on our train for Prague.

We both look forward to the next time we can come back to Venice so we can see more of the many things that we had to miss this time around… so now onto Prague and more languages I have no hope to understand… yay! high-five!

Rome

Ahh Roma, my love, I missed you so… what? You’re mad at me? But why? I didn’t want to leave you I promise… no please don’t make me sick… again!

Yes if you haven’t guessed, I have been stricken to bed again, but don’t worry all is fine now. You know for all of the joy I find in Italy, I sure am tired of being sick whenever I come here. The first day in Roma went well, we arrived and met the owners of our hostel (two great guys named Monti and Benji). The hostel, called RetRome, is a retro-themed joint with all kinds of lovely 70’s and 80’s stylings. After that we wandered around the area surrounding Termini and went to the church (Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martyr) adjoining the Baths of Diocletian (sp), which was refurbished by Michelangelo.

For the next couple days I had a bad fever and we stayed in mostly… thank god we planned plenty of extra time here! So on Wednesday we attempted to go to the Vatican Museum, which has of course changed its hours effective Jan 1, 2007, and screwed us royally by closing before we could get there. So we went through St. Peter’s instead. As typical the Pieta was swarmed by tons of Asian tourist… scary… but the rest of the church was fairly navigable. Stunning as ever was the Baldiccino by Bernini, and the piazza outside with its colonnades by Michelangelo. After this we followed il Passeto (secret pope escape route) to the Castel Sant Angelo, otherwise known as Hadrian’s Mausoleum. We then of course went to Piazza Navona, and my favorite place in all of Roma, Campo di Fiori, more on it later. Afterwards we went to my favorite pub in all of Rome, the Abbey Theater. There we watched the Roma game, which was exciting even though it ended in a scoreless tie. Of course while we were there we sampled Abbey’s awesome burgers and had… well a few beers. Afterwards the buses had stopped so we hopped a taxi ride back to Termini.

Thursday we spent wandering through the rest of mid-town. Which of course means we went back to Campo di Fiori for the daytime market and gelato… mmm… gelato. Then we went to the Pantheon, which is still my favorite building in the city. Afterwards we wandered back home and stopped for a beer and hot chocolate at the Nag’s Head. That evening we had dinner near the hostel at a trattoria called Dell’ Omo… it was absolutely awesome, even if our waiter disappeared down the street for 20 minutes or so, I mean hey its Italy… it happens (by the way this place has the best Tiramisu in all of Roma, I garuntee).

So Friday we went on our ill-fated quest to attempt to go the Vatican Museum again… let’s just say the line went all the way from the museum doors, around the city walls, and to the gates of Piazza San Pietro… yea… hmmm… 2.5 mile long line… or go explore… it’s time to explore! (by the way this was the line that formed before the doors even frigging opened, since everyone’s guidebooks said it opens at 8am when now with the new rules its really 10am… awesome job by whoever made that change…yea…) So we made our usual stops at Campo and the Pantheon, we also went by the U of A Rome Center but Davide, the director, was out with the students in Florence for the weekend. We had lunch at the great restaurant just behind the Pantheon that is called, Miscellania. Anyone who is familiar with my last stay in Roma, will know this restaurant as the one which we went to for everyone’s birthday, and yes the food and beer are just as good as ever… oh yeah and that fragola frizzy stuff is still tasty too. Then we went to St. Ivo (the church with Borromini’s spiraled dome), and on to the Capitoline Museum and the Tabularium (which has an awesome view of the Forum). Finally we went to Trinity College for beers, which were terrible and had leave so they could seat a group of people… it was the most disappointing bar of our whole trip so far.

Saturday we went to the northern chunk of central Rome, which includes Piazza de Popolo, the Spanish Steps, Via del Corso, Agustus’s Malsoleum, the Ara Pacis (Richard Meier building), and etc. We had a great time wandering through all of the shops and boutiques in the area and Jeannie finally got to go the church at Piazza de Popolo that has the Carravaggio paintings and Bernini sculptures. That evening we went to the Hard Rock for dinner and meandered our way home. This area is especially fun on the weekends because the streets are largely bare of cars and pedestrians take them over and the streets are so busy it feels like half of Rome is right there walking shoulder to shoulder and shopping.

On Sunday we continued a tradition that started back during my first stay in Rome, and went to the Porto Portese for world’s largest flea market. On the way there we went to the Pyramid in Rome (yes it is real, basically some rich guy back in the day went to Egypt, saw a pyramid, and wanted one for himself when he passed on… hence the Roman pyramid), got lost, made our way to the Circus Massimus, and went into Trasteverre for Porto Portese. Porto was as packed as usual, although there seemed to more clothing vendors than I remember, and incredibly fun just to wander through… you don’t have to buy anything, the fun is just seeing all of the people and the ways that they interact with each other… although bartering there is a ton of fun, and truly an art that seems lost to most Americans. Afterwards we wandered through Trasteverre, and grabbed a bit for late lunch. Then back to Circus Massimus, the Mouth of Truth, the two old temples nearby, the arch of Hercules, and Teatro de Marcelo. That evening we cooked pasta at the hostel that damn near as good as some that we have been having at some restaurants, and notably better than some. Also Monti and Benji have great taste in wine, as all of their suggestions turned out great.

On Monday we were hoping to go to Siena for the day, but it just didn’t work out so we did some things around town that we just didn’t make it to. We of course went to Campo again and went to visit Davide, for all those interested: he is doing well, Emilio and Bruna both just had babies, and Francesco is going to go teach at Miss State next year while David “Biggie” teaches at Auburn’s Rural Studio! After Davide, we went to Pantheon one last time, and on to San Pietro in Vincoli to see Michelangelo’s tomb for Pope Julius II. That thing is huge! But anyway we also went to Santa Maria della Vittorio to see St. Teresa in Ecstasy. That evening we went to Abbey Theater for drinks and a shirt for Jeannie, then we went to the hostaria down the street which was one of my favorite restaurants the last time I was here… we should have let just like that… in the past. It was always hit or miss but usually hit. This time it was pretty bad, the waitress I remembered was still there but she seems to have become more surely than ever… oh well after having to another waiter for our wine again, we got our food… the antipasti’s were great, and my lasagna was really good, but they got Jeannie’s food really wrong. She ordered a Farfelle alla Ragu e Verdura (translation: bowtie with red sauce and veggies)… well unless Ragu has changed to mean al burro (butter sauce) they screwed up… also the pasta was seriously undercooked, and when I tried to tell the waitress she just looked at me like everything was correct… so we eventually left (with me being quite annoyed) and went back down to Abbey Theater for more beers and trivia night. Well our beer was free… but that did require us to run trivia scores down from upstairs… hehe ok Jeannie ran them down, but hey it was still fun. It was quite hard actually but hey we’re not European so half these questions made no sense to us anyway (and in our defense all of the hardcore trivia people were complaining that it was very hard this week… oh well like I said it was fun.

So now we are on our way to Venice, I’m excited I have never been there, so it should be an interesting experience. Although we couldn’t get the post to work in Termini this morning so it should be… interesting to get these damn heavy bags lugged around Venice and the “water taxis”, outside of that headache this should be great. Here’s to hoping that neither of us fall into the canal…

Florence

Ok sooo….. Siena didn’t work out like we had hoped. Since we had hour and half delays everywhere, we were forced to skip it (with hopes of making a day trip from Roma) and stay a couple of days early… I know, I know, you feel bad for us, but don’t worry I’m sure we get over it eventually… we’re soo deprived.

It actually worked out well though, because for some reason both of us have come down with a good head cold (and I better not hear one of you say we deserve it… whether we do or not). So after Jeannie being conked out for a day, I was… and so by the end of it, we would have been in Florence anyway.

I enjoyed this city a lot more this time around than the last… although not getting my camera stolen was very probably a big part of this. We hit everything… well ok most everything. Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo (damn stairs still under construction… grrr), il Duomo, Santa Croche, piazza Republica, piazza Signoria, The Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Strussi, Hospital of the Innocents, you know mostly everything.

We didn’t make it to the Boboli Gardens or the Piazzale Michangelo or Chapelle Medici this time, but that’s ok. Oh yeah and we of course went shopping… I swear this is the one place in the world I will never be able to stay on budget… now ask me if I care…

You know one thing I love about Italy is that for the price of two beers you can get a liter of casa rossa and get at least 6 good glasses of wine out of it… on a side note red wine seems to do wonders for my cold… hey I’m not going to complain.

One thing I love about this city is its youth. For a place that served as the birthplace for perhaps the most significant period of art of all-time, and for it be still so filled with a vibrant youth and collegiate community it is just awesome. Although I do have say it seems most of the other Americans we meet over here tend to make complete asses of themselves, but hey if you listen to the Italians that is what we do best anyway…

I think the things I appreciate most about Florence are all the great loggias (a kind of colonnaded porch) and the public artworks. The Hospital of the Innocents, piazza de Republica’s arc de triumph, piazza de Signoria, and the Uffizi, all have great loggias attached to them. Whether they are intended for fresh air and a breeze (Hospital), or as a place to promenade (arc de triumph and Uffizi), or as a place to display works of art (piazza de Signoria), all of them become produce air of openness and comfort that has become one of the city’s hallmarks.

Now we are off to Roma… ahh fair city of my heart…

Nice

Well Nice was nice…. Hahaha yes ok now that we have gotten that cliché out of the way… it was actually amazing. The Cote d’Azur certainly lives up to its reputation. While no we did not frequent the casinos, we did though hang out on the beach… even if it was too cold to go swimming.

Nice’s rocky beach was a lot nicer than I always assumed a rocky beach would be, and of course my inner child immediately took a liking to the fact that nearly all of stones on the beach were of excellent skipping variety…. Of then I preceded to attempt skip in the ocean…. Which as one would assume is not quite as easy as a lake or river, but I eventually figured out that I should skip them along the waves, not into them… stupid me I know, I know.

What Nice is known for is its boardwalk along the coast (the Promenade de Anglaise… or something close to that… yea can’t spell in French, that’s Jeannie’s job). One can imagine it would be fantastic during the summer months, with tons of people, vendors, street artists, bikers, skaters, and sunbathers… right now during the winter it is still very pleasant and busier than I expected it to be.

Ok now that I think about it… I lied… Carnival is what Nice is really known for… but maybe I was just jaded because we are here a week before Carnival and get to see all the preparations, but not the party.

One thing I find interesting about Nice is that it appears it too has developed former river bed into a strip of parks and cultural centers… this was something that I was not aware of before we arrived and I actually started looking at the map of the city in earnest. So I guess this is another thing I am going to have to research further. It appears that they have either diverted their river or it naturally has gone underground… Either way the river (which currently is barely flowing, and appears that the river bed is either being prepped for some work or is being cleaned) now flows underneath the Acropolis (Nice’s expo center) and a series of public fountains, gardens, and the Carnival grounds, before it goes under the promenade, over the beach and out to sea.

Our hostel here was really nice and was maybe a 2 minute walk from the train station…. Not bad at all. Also the food right around the hotel was excellent. I really enjoyed that blending of the French and Italian cultures that occurs here in Nice. Something I didn’t know was that Nice had been apart of Italy as recently as the mid 1800’s, and was actually the birthplace of that great Italian hero, Guiseppe Garibaldi.

Just some other things while I remember. The old part of Nice was great, it was really interesting to be in those tiny streets with their tall buildings, and then have them open onto the promenade and the sea. Oh god and stupid me I have completely failed to mention the Flower Market… you know the other thing Nice is well known for… boy this getting sad what has happened to my poor memory… anyway… The Nice Aux de Flores is a happening place all week, but Sunday is when it is at its best. It maybe be because Nice is our first truly warm stop but it seems there is nothing nicer than getting to wander through booths and booths of fresh fragrant flowers… and I’m not even that big of a flower person. And of course there is a lot more than just flowers, the Aux de Flores handles all of your other typical market fares as well.

I think one of things I find so remarkable about things the Aux de Flores and Barcelona’s La Ramblas, is that they are common things… not in that they are unremarkable (far from that in fact), but that they are made up of common ingredients that are not taxing a city to provide. I guess what it is that makes these examples succeed where others have not, is the surrounding culture that these spaces work the way they do.

Well off we go to Siena, this part of the trip seems tricky because crazy Italian trains… so we’ll see, we also have to call our hostel in Siena and they are going to meet us there… sounds weird to me but hey I’ll do anything once.

Barcelona

Alas poor Espana, I knew it well…. Ok well not really but I did rather enjoy it. It appears we have finished our time here in Spain, but not before a great time in Barcelona.

After a nice ride from Valencia we spent most of the rest of the first day walking around the port and beach area, which was actually not far from our hostel… damn if it was only warmer… that evening we went to La Ramblas, which is the major pedestrian promenade and shopping area. It may well be my favorite part of a city with many things to love.

On Sunday we spent most of our time wandering around the older and gothic parts of Barcelona. Again we spent a lot of our time in the La Ramblas area walking, shopping, and good ole people-watching. Really it was pretty uneventful and quite enjoyable.

The third day we did all of the Gaudi stuff. For those of you who don’t know Anton Gaudi was a late 19th-early 20th century architect who is famous for his unique style and forms. His work is similar to the works of surrealist artists like Salvador Dali… just in built form. Anyway so we saw Casa Batllo and Le Pedrare, which are a house and an apartment building, respectively. Both are known for their unique facades and Le Pedrare in particular is known for its roof garden (which was unfortunately under construction). Then we went to the Sangrata Familia…. Damn love that building every time I see it… The Sangrata Familia is considered to be Gaudi’s masterpiece, he worked on for the last 40 years of his and it will take at least another 15 or 20 to finish it. Everything is extremely intricate, and it is taking every ounce of available technology to just figure out how to build it… and this guy did all of this in the 1880’s with friggin sandbags…. Just unbelievable… ok moving on now.

The fourth day just kinda bummed out on us. We were going to see the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van de Rowe…. But the whole entrance area to the Olympic Parks was under construction for another big festival there later this year… damn! So we walked up the street to go see the Joan Miro Park…..it was under construction…damn! So we decided to go to Parc Guell, which was again designed by Gaudi… well it was open… but it was up a giant hill… which did suck though. Again I am not that impressed by Guell but hey whatever floats your boat, right? It’s of course worth seeing… just don’t buy the café there… it’s really bad. So to close the day we again played on La Ramblas (of course).

Then on the last full day we went to the Parc Diagonal Mar and Forum area. While I enjoyed most of it… Jeanne-Marie was a little bored. I’m not a huge fan of the Forum building (which is a giant blue triangle, wait my bad a giant floating blue triangle… yes there that’s better) but I liked the design of the parks in the surrounding area. The Forum itself is not finished, so it is not really fair to judge, but it doesn’t feel successful yet… maybe when they finish everything it will… the Office Da park was cool though. Also the Parc Diagonal Mar was awesome… again, but maybe I just like gabian walls… So as we were closing our time in Barcelona we of course wandered La Ramblas again...

Now we are on our way to Nice (Neece), which according to Jeanne-Marie is very nice, sadly the pun is intended… no one said we are witty… well not very witty…

2-3-07 Valencia

Well even though it was not Las Fallas, Valencia turned out to be more than worth the trip. It started off interestingly enough with our taxi not knowing where the hell our hotel was…. You know its bad when the taxi driver stops every passerby to ask them where your street is. We found it soon enough though and made our way to our room, our hostel apparently believes that each room should have a different theme… so we were in the China Room… thankfully not the plate ware, just some paper lamps and oriental styling.

Since we arrived mid-afternoon we just wandered about and left the big things for the next day, although we did make it to a nice café called Templo de Café, and we went to a horrible restaurant for dinner that isn’t really worth naming. On Friday we did the majority of our exploring… this city is really different without all of the giant sculptures…. Ahhh Las Fallas… anyway we went to the Mercado Centro for the morning rush, the market was very lively and like all markets smelled of fish…yay… After that we wondered down through Plaza de la Reina onto the (former) river.

For those of you not familiar with Valencia, it is famous for the Las Fallas (or Bones) Festival that is held year around Lent time. The city becomes a one week war zone while fireworks are legal and giant paper mache sculptures adorn each street crossing. Anyway the other thing that Valencia is known for is its (former) river. I am not sure of the specifics… I guess I need to look it up sometime… but the river that used to flow through downtown Valencia has either changed course or had it course redirected to the point that water no longer actually flows in the city’s riverbed… gross right? Now they have all of that nasty junk from under the river exposed, right? Well no actually.

Valencia has turned its riverbed into an amazing asset, by converting it into a series of parks, playfields, and museums. So now just 20 ft. below the street level, there is an amazing place protected from the noise of the street and filled with things to do. There are soccer fields, bike paths, gardens, playgrounds (including one that is called Gulliver and is shaped like a fallen matador…. Very cool, think of Gulliver and the Lilliputians, and the kids are the Lilliputians), and a series of famous museums done by Santiago Calatrava (including an art museum, science museum, planetarium, and an aquarium). Also each year during that Las Fallas Festival there is a great fireworks show at the river area, and the fireworks are actually shot from a Calatrava bridge… damn can you tell this is his hometown or what, actually there was even a Carre (street) Calatrava near our hostel.

Anyway after the river we got lost… fun! Again! Then was lunch and on to the Mercado Colon, another amazing market that a series of shops that stay open all day, unlike the Mercado Central which is more like a traditional farmers market. It seemed like there was going to be show, but nothing happened so we eventually we left to go find something to do for dinner. We actually ended up in an area that I was somewhat familiar with from when I came for Las Fallas a couple years ago. And well now we are off to Barcelona for our longest stop yet! I’m excited and well Jeannie is just along for the ride, so until then, Adios!

2-1-07 Cordoba

Hola! It’s me again. Well Cordoba was fabulous, while it was not the biggest city, it certainly has been the most enjoyable so far. Cordoba is famous for the Mezquita, the city’s former mosque. The mosque was actually converted into a cathedral in the 1200’s, and is just plain amazing. There is a courtyard with a grove of orange trees and then the hypostyle hall, a grid of columns for you non-architecture people. The Christian interventions are rather depressing but at least they left the hypostyle alone.

So anyway our hostel was really nice, it was in a main plaza, called Plaza de la Tendillas. There were some interesting photos inside of what the plaza used to look like a few years ago, when it was covered with asphalt and did not look to dissimilar from things you would expect to see in America. Recently they have ripped up all of the asphalt and replaced with some nice big square pavers and added a couple of water features. Now the plaza is filled with sidewalk cafes and restaurants. The area around the plaza is a big shopping area, the main of which is called Gran Capitan. Gran Capitan it self was interesting in that it had all of its asphalt replaced too, and so the entire space felt continuous even though cars were allowed on the outside edges and the middle was relegated to pedestrians and a series of head sculptures.

On the first day we went to the Mezquita, awesome just awesome, and then walked down to the nearby river area, where we saw the old roman bridge, which was under construction unfortunately, and series of Arabic water mills that leapfrogged across the river. On the way home we walked by the remnants of the old city walls, and then along the major north-south street, Paseo de la Victoria. The street was interesting because it was divided by a huge green strip, which had things like an elementary school, a student driving course, an auditorium, and a series of parks embedded in it. That evening we went out walking looking for food, and then proceeded to get ourselves lost… fun! Eventually we made it home and passed out.

The second day we walked to a cool shopping courtyard, which had tons of shops and a market along the sides and then several floors of patio apartments above them. We had seen a postcard of the space when it was filled with a huge outdoor market…. Well I guess it is just too cold or the wrong day, because there was no market…although there was a nifty rodeo-like setup, yee-haw! The rest of the day we wandered, had a café… shopped, had a café… ate, had a café… you know we lived like Italians.

Well know we are on another train ride, this is filled with olive groves and sheep farms. It is so much fun to ride through the countryside as opposed to fly over it, it really gives you a good feel for the different scales of European life, and not just the metropolitan. On to Valencia and hopefully it is just as warm as Cordoba was… if not warmer.

Madrid (1/30/07)

1-30-07 Madrid

Well my gosh where did I leave off, ahh yes our lovely train ride from Bilbao to Madrid, and I mean lovely…yeah…. While the actual ride was quite pretty, we soon grew quite tired of the train when the ride that was supposed to be 3 hrs turned into 12!!! Apparently some snow had fallen blocking us between Bilbao and Palencia, so we waited…and waited…and waited… the time for our next connection came and… we just waited some more.

Eventually we made it to Palencia, but not before one of the crazy old Spanish guys in our car decided it was time to break out into song… no I am not kidding, and yes it was actually quite good, but when everyone clapped, it convinced him that he should do it again… and again…and again… does anyone else see a pattern with this trip? Don’t get me wrong, he was a cute old guy, but he just kicked that dead horse one too many times.

Once we actually made it to Madrid, we jumped on the metro, baggage in tow (FUN!!), and made a switch midway to finally get to the stop near our hostal. Well let me tell you, this hostel was lovely, couldn’t find it from the street, filled with british high school students, they cancelled our room 30 min before we got there (damn snow!!!), and now we were put in a giant room filled with 4 twins (beds not people) and no heat! Oh and they informed us that we would have to hang around the hostal until noon the next day so they could figure out where to put us.

YAY!!! We get to move again, well at least it was only up a street or 2. This place seemed a bit quieter (little did we know). Our room reeked of smoke and the shared bath was with around 12 other rooms….awkward. Anyway so we finally made it out of the room and explored the surrounding area. We also went to the Museo de Prado, it was quite interesting but not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the Valezquez and the Goya pieces the most, along with the Ruebens and the Van Dykes… those crazy Dutch guys…as Jeannie says, if they are not painting about sex its death… ho well at least it makes for an interesting subject. The rest were rather unremarkable, but it certainly was a good museum.

The following day we had a great time wandering and exploring. First off were some delicious croissants and juice as always, then we went to the museo de Reina Sofia and its expansion by Jean Nouvel. The museum was really cool, I enjoyed the cubism more than Jeannie, but she got to see some surrealistic photography, so she was more than content. We both agree that their temporary exhibition of early art in film… well sucked. I have had my fill of flickering tvs and scratchy audio loops for quite a while… I an can appreciate what they were going for, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
The Expansion was really nice, actually much nicer than I though it was going to be when I saw it under construction a couple years ago. The courtyard space was a little breezy but what isn’t this time of year. The Library was gorgeous, just a really nice space. I wish we could have caught the auditorium open, but hey the library so made it worth it, cool bookstore too.
Anyway after the Reina Sofia we explored the Parc di Retiro. I must saw it is beautiful even in the winter. When I last went, it was spring and was spectacular, but it more than held its own in winter. Retiro is on the small kind of scale as Central Park, where is the major green space for a very large metro area. The key differences being the forms of the urbanism around them and the planning approaches used. Central Park is more raw natural space, while Retiro is a heavily planned baroque series of spaces and interventions.

We then went to Plaza de Colon for lunch… yes we broke down and went to Hard Rock… but hey we are determined to go every hard rock we can… no real reason just sounded fun at the time. From there we wondered on up to the Plaza de Espana and on to the Palacio Real. From there we went to Plaza Mayor, which was a very cool shopping courtyard, and not too dissimilar to some of the great roman courtyards and colonnades.

It’s official… I am a tea junkie. You people can have your coffee, just give me some hot tea, man that stuff is good, and it really helps this damn cold that I am still trying to get over since New York.

Well now we are on our train to Cordoba, thank god. I can not wait to get there and take a nice shower… there was no way I was going to that at that last nasty hostal we were in. I think that is the one place in the world I have seen where the women’s room was more disgusting than the men’s…. and that is saying something. I lost my ring that Jeannie gave me a couple years ago, actually I should say someone stole out of the bathroom, but hey it was my fault for leaving it there…. oh well she owes me a new one anyway… Well that was a bit longer than I was planning…huh oh well off we go to Cordoba… man this ride is different from the last one. Last time we were up in the mountains, now we are crossing these wide valleys between. It really quite beautiful, it would be even nicer if there wasn’t all of the soupy fog, but it sure does make the mountains look cool when they pop out of it. Right now we are going theses huge groves of olive trees… its crazy how many damn olive trees there are here… oh well… until next time…

Bilbao (1/27/07)

Ahh! Sunny…er Snowy Spain? I guess I should have seen this coming, but that requires thinking ahead and planning and all of that other boring stuff. As it is we left JFK at least an hour and a half late (on the least comfortable international plane I ever experienced… unless you count that one RyanAir trip where they were literally trying to sell a seatbelt to you, this may be a personal opinion but if someone is trying to sell me a seatbelt, I figure I am screwed enough that in the end whether or not I actually purchase will not matter as we die in a fiery crash because the pilot spilt his scotch and soda… but enough digressing for one day.

The airport in Madrid is really quite nice, you know the one done by one of those british guys… Richard Rogers…or that other guy I can’t think of…you know the famous one…anyway the damn thing was huge., and of course we missed our initial flight because of the JFK disaster. So now we are to get on another flight to Bilbao at the 6th gate….welll make that the 70th gate (so nice of them to switch the gate 5mins before we started boarding… ah Spain I missed you so).

Another lovely airport, this time done by Santiago Calatrava… damn its snowy here in Bilbao too! Once in the city we find out that our “hostel” is actually a swanky “high-tech hotel” in the major plaza of Petite Palacio Arana, a mere 200m from the train station…score! While we waited on our room we explored this side of the river. It is just as I have remembered it., a lovely maze of streets locked away from the automobile and filled with wandering people, even during siesta.

Once back to the hotel we of course pass out for a few hours…oops. Once awake we explored the commercial side of the river and wandered along the river towards the Guggenheim and the Calatrava bridge… Jeanne-Marie does not care for the museum’s exterior, but did like the spider sculpture and the cool playground next to it. I am inclined to agree… but hey at least it makes more sense here than the Disney in L.A.

Now we prepare to go out for dinner. I have been telling Jeannie that in Spain people do not eat until around 10 at the earliest. She started to not believe me as we were walking back to the area around the hotel and all the shops were closing. Thankfully I was correct (for the first time ever it seems) and we found a lovely little Chinese… yes Chinese restaurant not afar from our hotel. I did nearly kill myself by choking on the flowers they put in my damn tea…. I mean yes it was pretty and I am sure it is more authentic… but I was not expecting dandy lions in my ginsing tea but hey it was still darn tasty.

Currently we are on our train to Madrid… well kinda. Since I wasn’t thinking we are traveling on Saturday and so we must go through Palencia first, no big deal but now we are stuck as something seems to be blocking the tracks a little up ahead… so this should be fun Hopefully we do not sleep on the train, or maybe we can at least get to Palencia and hope it is big enough for a hostel to be there… wouldn’t that be nice.

New York (1/25/07)

Oh my, here we are and the trip has begun. New York is well… as expected. Not to take anything away from it, but then again it was freezing and New Yorkers are obnoxious… of course that was expected as well.

We left the Rock at the crack of dawn, I mean seriously when was the last time I got up at 4am?!? And on purpose for that matter!!! Anyway Jeanne-Marie and I survived and reached our lovely hostel, the Chelsea Inn. I swear that was the mostly sweltering hotel room I have ever had the displeasure to encounter. Oh and for those who are not already aware Jeanne-Marie and I are now officially engaged (took my damn time didn’t I, it only took 6 and a half years to get it done.

On the rest of the first day, we meandered through the area near our hostel (17th st. between 5th and 6th ave.) Had some amazing greek food just down the street from our front door… it is nice to be in a big city again.

Day 2 we focused on mid and uptown, seeing everything from Times Square, Penn Station, Central Park, the Met, and attempted to see MoMA but my dumbass forgot it is closed on Tuesdays….doh! It’s a long damn walk from 17th to the Met ( around 70th) and of course with all of our wandering in between, we had a hell of a day of walking… what a way to break in the new shoes. That night for food we went to a place again down the road, Havana… I can’t call it bad Cuban food but it was a bit disappointing, although the free jolly rancher shots made up for a little bit of the crappyness of Jeannie’s rice dish.
Wednesday we explored Broadway and lower Manhattan. We somehow managed to not buy anything on Canal St. and Chinatown… oh yeah we are on a budget…. Well hell who thought we would actually stick to it…. Although Jeannie has been encouraging me with that big whoopin stick of hers… anyway went by WTC and Battery Park to catch a glimpse of the Lady. Then we went back up to Time Square for a yuppie lunch and on to MoMA… did I fail to mention that Jeannie’s watch screwed up and so we thought we got there at 3:30, when it actually was really 4:45…damn that was a sprint through a museum if I ever saw one…. Oh well chalk it up as another excuse to come back to the City….darn.

Thursday we mailed home all the shit we thought we needed when we really didn’t. After thought we were chased out of the hostel at noon and forced to go to the airport hours before the Iberia check-in desk had even opened….woooo good times in JFK terminal 7… good times…yeah…

New York as a whole was interesting, most especially the vitality of the street, and all that it encompasses. From vendors to dogs, from markets to stoops, from taxis to suicidal pedestrians. The street was always vibrant and full of… not life exactly… but rather action. The city may not sleep, but it certainly never sleeps…. And now that I think of it… it didn’t let me sleep either… Well on to Bilbao and all the glories of Spain.