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Ross is still about, but Billy is stuck in the UK? and Lisette is
nursing it up in the low countries.
Good times. We miss you
This was taken during the early summer at a La Taperia, en La Plateria
Plaza, near the Prado, on Calle del Prado.
Nicci is eating a nice cold gazpacho with a crostina of bread with
peppers on it, and some olives. Above that is the Tinto de Verano, a
fine spanish drink (Red wine, ice and usually either Limon soda, or
gaseosa bubbly stuff). Yum.
I've got a two tostas (or toasts), one with salmon, and the other with
the famous jamon iberico. Beer too.
Free basket of bread in the back (cost 1.5€)
We enjoyed this meal.
Hiya old boy!
Although people from Britain, the UK, England, whatever you want to
call them don't consider themselves "European" (see Rich Mc), Ross
does a fine job of the lean in beso game like all the Spaniards around
here.
Bravo
Rumor has it that she is heading to Panama to break some hearts there
too.
Fall has hit here in Madrid, and the one thing that we seem to love in
all seasons is Retiro Park (El Retiro). Called the lungs of Madrid, it
is easily the best way to relax in the City, take a run or people watch.
The trees are dropping their seeds, which in Retiro are these weird
green brown spiky balls of stuff, that then look like a chestnut when
the outer skin comes off, and then a gigantic macadamia nut once that
skin comes off too.
I'll need to find out what kinds of trees those are.
Just a quick post to let you know that we are cranking out teaching
here, and getting amped for our trip to Praga in 2 weeks.
yay!
Andy and Nicci
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We had planned a few days to be here, and stayed really near
Checkpoint Charlie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_Charlie
We used the bus and metro to get to our hotel (too early again to
check in) and wandered about. We were pretty tired from our crack of
dawn flight, so we fueled up at Starbucks (surprise surprise, they are
all over in Berlin) and then saw Checkpoint Charlie (which is an
intersection now).
More importantly, we went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which was
fascinating. If you are in town, definitely go. All kinds of great
stuff about the war, the Soviets and a time gone by.
We were staying along one of the main streets (fredrickstrasse) and
were up and down that thing several times. In case you are wondering
the U6 line of the metro has a stop (Kostrasse) that is right at
Checkpoint Charlie.
We walked around, and did our best to not get lost. Berlin is a big
mix of concepts (since the allies bombed the bejeezes out of it in the
war), over 90% of the buildings are 60 years old or less. It seems a
fairly cosmopolitan city, and also, and uniquely perhaps, it has no
city center, and redundant services, busses and trams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
Course, the were a city split in half for 40 years, so it makes sense
that they had their own airport(s) and everything else. This means
there is no epicenter of the city, there are like 6 of them. Well, we
found about three of them and liked what we saw.
I got some good German food, although it seems like I think of German
food being Bavarian food, and as any German will tell you, they are
not the same thing. Anywho, I also partook of some of the Berliner
Pilsener, which is quite good, and cheap.
The weather wasn't great for us, but at least it didn't totally rain
on us (oh wait, it did, but only once) and we caught all the main
sites. We did a day trip to Potsdam that I'll also write about, and
that was pretty neat.
Berlin was so big that it's probably worth another visit. Even taking
the tourist bus around and hearing about all the buildings doesn't
give you a true lay of the land. I wonder what it is like being
German, and what sense of national identity you have these days. We
Americans never lose any wars (do we?) and so I'm not sure about that
feeling of if you were the kickee in the last big battle.
The Olympics started when we were in Berlin, so we enjoyed hearing
them in German, and Spanish. Go Team USA.
There is a good Jewish memorial, sculpture, city block right near the
Brandenburg Gate. It is a large number of concrete blocks on an
undulating floor/ground. The blocks are all different heights, and
with the variation of the ground, you can walk amoungst them and have
them tower over you, but they still seem of moderate height from the
street.
I think having that is the least the Germans can do.
We are fairly travel weary, but we still have to/ get to go back to
Madrid. We have a bunch of pictures, and I'm sure I'll write up a
wrapup.
Thanks for reading!
After we checked-in and regrouped a little, we headed out to see what
there was to be seen. Vienna is really quite beautiful. Tons of old
majestic buildings that are museums, theaters of some sort, churches,
and old royal residences. We were able to try apple strudel and other
very yummy pastries. Dinner was good (once again, yet another
European city that seems to recognize vegetarians as humans and not
aliens) and Andy was able to sample some of the local beer. During
the next day, we spent a large part of it visiting the museum/old
palace of the Hapsburg Royal Family (one of the few Royal Family's/
Empires I remember from History class). It's so hard to imagine a
life back then as either royalty or as the relatively poor working
class. The money and opulence that goes into establishments at that
time in history is unbelievable. A huge section of the museum is
dedicated just to their table services of silver, gold-plated silver
and porcelain. We learned some about the Royal Family - this is the
family that Marie Antoinette was born into. Most of the focus was on
the most recent generation that lost power with the start of WW I. I
think you could just as easily teach European history from a lineage
point of view and cover just about everything from that angle.
Vienna was a charming city that clearly has much pride in its cultural
heritage and significance. I wish we had a little more time there,
but a couple of days was a good amount to get a general idea.
Ta-Da!!
Having spent some quality time in Bellingham, it was amazing to see
this poster in Warsaw, Poland.
Spald, this one is for you.
Seriously, tons of acts that barely made a blip on the music radar of the states are over here and rocking it hardcore.
And there you have it.
I think his shirt is hilarious, and frankly, I think I got him
outgunned.
Mad props, Malmø dude, mad props.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, beaches in Sweden are clothing
optional (bikes too)
We were not in Bratislava too long, but we were able to find a local
concert performance in one of the churches. I think its proximity to
Vienna motivates the city to have some music culture of its own. It
was a lovely concert of pipe organ and violin music. This is one
thing I wish was more readily available in the States. Just local
cheap or free classical music concerts in parks or downtowns or
churches.
Our knowledge of the history of Slovakia is fairly limited. We
weren't able to go on any tours there and just wondered through
churches and up to the old fortress castle and read what we could.
They are on their own currency currently, but are moving towards the
Euro fairly soon. I will say, that all of this traveling has
certainly motivated me to read up more on the history of these
countries. I remember very little of the European history I did
actually cover in school. I don't stand a chance for history that I
never even learned about.
After Warsaw, we took a train to Cracow, (or Krakov, or Krakow). The
train was a bit odd, as it took a fair amount of time to go not so
far, we had to change trains, as well as we had a long wait in a
trainyard (not at a platform).
We arrived at our transfer point (Breklov, Czech Republic) 15 minutes
late. (a bit irked about that). However, the connecting train coming
from whereever, was 35 minutes late, so wait 20 minutes we did, and on
the way to Cracow we were.
Like many European cities, the train station is right in the middle of
town. This was true in Crakov as well. They have a tram system (which
we decifered) and took down to the Jewish area, where our hotel was.
The ticket system is a bit on the honor system, and if you don't have
the coins, you are stuck (the driver doesn't sell tickets). The way
they do the honor system is at timest hey have a guy walking through
checking the time stamps on the tickets. We saw the tickets checked
once. We rode for free at least 3 times, as the machine was broken, we
got there before we could pay, or we just decided to stick it to the
man, and take the risk.
Crakow has a very nice center city, big church, big plaza with lots of
restaurants and booths, and more. Sort of your typical European city.
It is very nice, and we had some rain, but on the whole great.
We were in Crakov for like 3 full days, and did a couple of tours.
Before the tours, we did walk up to the castle on the river, and get
some good food in town. The first tour we did was to Auschwitz. I
wasn't super keen on going, as I've done Dachau twice (outside of
München), but Nicci surprised me and wanted to go. We got a big smack
of Nazi and Soviet history in Warsaw, and it continued in Cracov.
Much was been written about Nazi concentration camps (or more
correctly, Nazi death camps). I'll write a post just on it. We took
many pictures.
We also took a trip to a famous Salt Mine (which my father should be
glad about). This mine was in production for 750 years, and was pretty
incredible. I'll probably post just about that too.
One coinkidink (coh, ink, eey, dink) was that in the Crakow cathedral
tower (the taller of the two) there is a trumpter/bugler every hour on
the our, for the last several hundred years. The reason for this, was
back in the day, the Tarters attacked Cracov, and the lookout up there
saw it and played the alarm. In doing so, he took an arrow in the
throat. He saved the town, but lost his life. They have their own
version of "Never Forget" and this is it.
We left on another crack of dawn train, and headed to Bratislava.
Salt was super valuable a long time ago, and even before the spice
trade (remember that?). Food tasted bad back in the day, water was
dirty, and people were stinky.
Salt is sal in Spanish. Sal can become salorio for a person who works
with salt, or is a miner of salt (not an exact translation) Lots of
Poles worked in this mine, which was found by drilling into a salty
pool on the surface. Suddenly, Polish food was the best in the world
(not really). But, the king in the area took full advantage of this,
and made tons of money, and influence by doling out this salt to
miners and controlling the sale of salt.
The 2 kilo stipend that he allowed the miners to take from the mine
(in addition to his wage) was called his salorio also. From this we
get the word Salary.
Cool, eh?
We went a couple of hundred meters into the earth, through a huge
ballroom (see the pictures) and tons of passages.
No slaves worked this mine. No prisoners worked this mine. Miners here
were happy and rich. The Poles are proud of this, rightfully.
Amazingly, I got an email from Patrick McDonough of Braintree, MA
telling about how he also has hit this mine (back in 2006). You are
right Pat, it was super cool.
It was 14 degrees down there. Nice and cool and we were sad to get
back up to the surface and the hot weather up there.
Oh, and a side comment. There are wasps in Central Europe, and they
are all over the food everywhere. They don't look like the cute little
honey bees. They look like yellow jackets or wasps. They are annoying,
and I wish they would buzz off.
Nazi's killed lots of people? Sure they did.
They split families up, and sent most of the people off the trains
straight to the Death Showers, and the ovens'? Yeah, I knew that.
They applied German Engineering to the problems of how to kill as many
sick or weak, or Jewish, or gay, or Jehovah's witnesses, or gypsies
(or Roma, or Gitanos), or Soviets, or prisoners of war in the least
amount of time, at the cheapest cost? Sure they did, and they were
very efficient.
They mashed 80-100 people in cattle cars for 3-4 days to ship them all
the away across the continent, in order to steal anything they have
left, strip them naked, shave them bald and then asphyxiate and burn
them? Yep and yep.
They lured some of the murdered on board after selling them their
tickets and promising that they were just being relocated to farms and
other towns in the east? Sure, a bunch of times.
They quickly outgrew their first location (a Polish army camp), and
built another one a few k away, to hold 10x the people. Yep, they did.
Don't forget the third one they built, or the expansion program they
had at the second one.
Being German, they kept incredibly detailed records of people
admitted, took pictures and personal details, and then worked their
prisoners to death. Yep. Thanks for that, now we the victorious have
infinite records to use to remember what you did.
That they only entered people who made the first cut (intended), which
would be the strong, and just obliterated anyone else. Right. If you
went left from the train, you were insta-dead, and all your stuff
would be sent back to the Volk in Germany.
Experiments on men, women and children? Course, they are Nazi's.
Research into twins, so that they could alter German women to give
birth to more twins, which would be good for Germany.
Research into castration and barrenness, so that you could spay and
neuter those that might be infecting those that deserved to live.
Open pit burning of corpses, when your ovens just weren't big enough,
the supply was too high, or one of your oven's was in the shop. Yes
Shaving of heads for the express purpose of turning it into clothe
that could be used in garments or as stuffing or ticking for pillows.
Yes. These products were highly sought after for their high quality.
Express built warehouses to hold all the loot, much of which was
melted down (like their previous owners) and sent to help the Reich.
Yes, and once the allies (in this case, the Soviets) showed up, there
were bags of hair 80 kilo's each stacked to the ceiling, with a total
weight of about a ton. Never mind all the shoes, luggage, pairs of
glasses, cups and glasses, dolls, prosthetic legs, crutches, prayer
shawls, gold teeth and belts.
See what I mean? Hardly even makes a dent.
When we awoke and were finally able to get out into the city, we
discovered we were in a great location. It was very close to the
completely reconstructed old town area. Most of Warsaw was in ruins
by the end of WWII. The city was painstakingly rebuilt it as it had
been before the war. It was very beautiful. We wondered around most
of the day and just enjoyed being there.
The next day, we went to the Warsaw Uprising museum. It was so
fascinating. I would say, after the Jewish people, the Polish people
are the next in line to have been so totally abused and destroyed. I
learned quite a lot that morning. The most important thing I learned
is that at the beginning of the War, Poland was occupied by both the
Nazi's and the Soviet Union. I didn't realize that they were doubly
occupied. There was so much information and pictures and history that
are hard to summarize in any capacity, so I will not even try here.
Other things we learned while we were in Warsaw was that Chopin is
Polish (well- at least half - his other half is French, but he was
born and raised in Poland). Warsaw has a lot of music, history and
culture there. Perhaps it is not the draw that Vienna is for most
musicians, but they have quite a lot of musicians around and
performing all the time there. We were fortunate to catch a free
concert one of the evenings were were there. It was lovely and it was
outside and the weather was perfect.
Our final full day in Warsaw, we spend at one of the large parks
walking around and sitting and relaxing. In this parks, they have
peacocks, which Andy and I found to be very humorous and beautifully
colored. So, as you go through the pictures, be on the lookout for
the peacocks. Unfortunately, we were not able to see (and therefore
to capture) any peacocks with their tail feathers spread. This left
us to realize that we have both forgotten what makes them spread their
feathers. Our final guess was mating. We also didn't know if they
could fly or what their mode of self-defense is. Any ideas?
Leave a comment if you know why peacocks flair their feathers.
Thanks M n M. We could have been on this train, 50/50 chance.
xoxox,
A n N
We had really great (read hot) weather in Kopenhagen. We wandered
around a bit, rented some bikes for a fortune, and had plenty of time
at the airport.
Quick segway (sic). The Kopfenhagen airport has one of those malls in
it, that all the cool airports have these days. They are so "pijo".
The duty free shop has now expanded to an entire floor, and basically
all space that is not an actual boarding area is now a selling floor.
We managed to escape their clutches but still dropped about 45 bucks
on two sandwiches, a coke, a muffin and a bag of chips.
We are glad to be out of that country. Pricey!
Well, back to Harry Potter.
Our flight was delayed, meaning (importantly) that we landed in Warsaw
after the magic 11:00 (23:00) hour. At that hour, normal buses stop
running. I tried to plan ahead, and bought some zloty's in
Køpfenhagen. I got some 20 bills (worth about 10 bucks) and was raring
to go.
So, we land, the busses are stopped, and I ask the info guy what to
do. He says "Night Bus". I say sweet, and am glad to avoid a 50 zloty
cab ride.
We head outside, and find the stop, and wait. Sweet. The bus comes in
5 minutes.
Let's talk about the bus first. Yellow, big, old. Not like a school
bus, but like one of those cars that's gotten dinged up enough, that
the owner goes to the junkyard and buys a whole new door, 'cept the
door is a different color than the rest of the car. Apply that to this
bus. It is mostly yellow, but there is some red, and probably some
brown too.
The driver. Older man, gray party hair (sticking out in cool ways).
Gruffly getting us on the door. Not pleased to see the crumpled 20
zloty bill I hand him. Shakes his head, and just waves me off. I show
him my map from www.hotels.com and hope that this guy shows me some
sign that we are going near our hotel, the Sofitel Victoria Warsaw.
Not so much. He turns the map around, fishes out his glasses, and
takes another gander.
Eventually he just ignores me, I tell Nicci to sit down, and we stuff
ourselves into the front seat.
This guy takes off. Everything is in Polish (duh). We (and actually
another dude got on, same sitch, same response, but still on the bus).
At 11:30 the streets are dead. Did you know there is a Jeff's Steak
House in Poland? On the road to the airport? In full neon (red and
green?) Hmmm.
So there are a bunch of stops, and this guys stops for a total of
about 9 seconds at each one. I didn't even notice the dinger button or
pull cord to indicate "Driver, I'd like to stop at the next stop,
please".
He just seemed to discern when to stop, or caught a clue from the
little old ladies working their way to the door.
We finally get into the central area, after about 30 minutes, and
start seeing large buildings, more neon, and city-ness.
We hope we are not in the wrong place, but relax when we see the
central train/bus/mall/casino that they have in the center of town.
A taxi queue. Yay.
So, we managed to get to Warsaw downtown for free, and had a cab
waiting for us.
Nice. I'm glad to be back on the mainland. Things have gotta be
cheaper here.
Best y'all.
From what we've been able to tell, the swedish countryside is much
less varying than Norway. It is more like rolling hills and farmland
with lakes and trees sprinkled in frequently. Again, everyone speaks
English as a second language, so getting around was there was also
easy. I think we will be in trouble when we hit Poland. We've gotten
used to the English thing. Stockholm is much more touristy (or at
least has a much larger touristy section) than Oslo, but it is a
large city that has much more to offer and do. Similar to New York
having Time Square or San Francisco having Pier 39 or Fisherman's
Wharf - all touristy sections that you kind of have to go to if you've
never been, but if you care to get away from that and see the actual
city, then it's possible. As is the situation with most of these
cities we've been to or are going to, Andy and I quickly get through
the tourist sections and then move to the authentic city as soon as
possible.
However, aside from the expense, the country itself is really
spectacular. There was so much variation just in the parts we
traveled in, it was unbelievable. We were in farm land for parts of
it, cold mountainous areas with snow still around in other parts and
tons of waterfalls and water. There are many fjords in Norway and the
size of them is hard to comprehend. The general population looked
like an ad for REI. I think if you live there, you are raised outside
primarily. It's gorgeous.
In Oslo, we were able to walk around to various parks and go to some
museums. We enjoy walking around the cities to different places since
you can see so much more of the color of a city and get away from all
the touristy places. Oslo is touristy, but much less so than any of
the other places we've been to so far. People there are friendly and
helpful and everyone speaks English. So, getting around was pretty
easy. Although most restaurants aren't terribly veggie friendly in
dishes they offer on the menu, I had no problems what-so-ever in
eating establishments when I told the waiter/waitress I was
vegetarian. They were always more than ready to make me anything I
wanted within their ability. It was very nice. The city was very
clean. No smog, no bad car exhaust (unlike Madrid), clean sidewalks
and hardly any graffiti anywhere. There are flowers everywhere and
the buildings are very baroque in style (at least that's the style I
think they are). Overall, I would recommend visiting Norway - Oslo
itself, but also go see the countryside and the fjords - that is where
so much of the beauty and character of the country is.
Wok Sushi
Sushi Thai Food
Indian Thai Wok
Hmmmr. Do any of these sound familiar? If you live in the CET, I dare
say they do. Perhaps you are not fully aware that there are different
countries over there in Oriental-land.
Mayhaps, you can't tell a Japanese Man, from a Chinese Man, and as for
Thai's, India's or Hong Kong, forget it.
In the "Good Ole, US of A" certain types of different cuisines can be
mixed. Tex-Mex is a good example of this. They fit, and they work
together. Part of the issue is that the preparation of such food does
not take an inherent, genetic disposition to doing it right. Like say,
sushi rice. If you ain't Japanese, you can't do it right.
Also, some of the countries listed above HATE EACHOTHER, or at least
they used to hate each other. Think Rape of Nanking, and how the
Chinese feel about the Japanese.
I am afraid of eating at these restaurants, and think that I will try
to avoid them.
Perhaps if I have my camera aboust me, I shall snap some photos of
said offenders of culinary propriety.
Gracias y'all.
If we do what we plan, we will blog more.
New pictures are up at the picasa site.
A n N
We are here:
I have never been farther North.
Today is Sunday the 20th of July, the SUMMER of 2008.
I recently purchased a WINTER SNOW HAT in Bergen, Norway, because I
didn't know how cool it was up here.
Now, we are from San Francisco, and have travelled the world telling
people how it is cold in SF during the summer, and how funny it is all
the sweatshirts and fleeces that people buy, showing that they didn't
pack the right clothes.
Now we are on the epic jaunt about Europe for 30 days. We have two
bags, and planned with coats, jackets and hats. An Umbrella.
Now, in my own defense, I didn't HAVE to buy a hat like this:
http://palenskepod.blogspot.com/2007/11/norwegian-snow-princess.html
It wasn't so bitter cold, that I needed it, but the only had i had was
like this:
you'll notice my head would show through the top, and so things like
RAIN will get through.
So, we ignored the calendar and embraced the available products. Yay!!
Bergen, Norway is cool, even cooler than Oslo.
Norway is EXPENSIVE. This is helped by the dollar doldrums we are in,
and even against the Euro €, it ain't cheap.
The costs break down like this:
Norway is not on the Euro. They have the Krone (which in English,
sounds like Kroner, as they put that little lilt at the end)
Current the exchange rate is: 5 Krone to 1 dollar. 8 Krone to 1 Euro.
Easy, right?
Well, coffee here costs 22 Kroner. That's the cheapest thing we can
find. A medium cheese pizza is 150 Kroner.
The math there works liks this? Coffee is 4 bucks. Pizza is 30 bucks.
A beer costs between 40-60 kroner.
This means that free food is good, coffee is drunk a lot, and beer is
a distant memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway
Here is some more;
http://www.ssb.no/english/magazine/art-2005-02-01-03-en.html
We really like it here, and are thankful to all our friends at www.chase.com
for their help.
Amsterdam is also a beautiful city. There are museums, pretty walks,
and tours on the water.
We stayed about 200m away from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_Square
And used the tramways to get around town. The Amsterdam Centraal
Station is under total renovation, and so there is construction and
building all around.
You'll see a bunch of this in our pictures. It has rained a bit, and
so many of our pictures have clouds in them.
Our room was the worst one in a 4 star hotel. It seemed to be bolted
on to the side of the main hotel. It was like staying on a boat, with
a smaller room, up some stairs, with exposed beams and low ceilings.
(so it was like staying in a 3 star room) ((course, the star system
over here is inflated, and a 4 star here is like a 3 star in the
states.))
More soon.
We had a fairly leisurely time in Utrecht, climbed up a church bell
tower and walked around the city. I have been fighting a fairly nasty
cold (no doubt given to me by the little darling children I taught
before we left for our trip), so it was a good pace to start with.
Since they have fairly cool summers here (in the 60s - maybe low 70s
for highs) they commonly serve soup in most restaurants. I was able
to eat a vegetarian soup often or get veggies and we have even found
bagels. What a novelty. So, I've been eating well since we arrived.
One other thing that was nice about our time in Utrecht is that there
were no tourists. Very, very few at the most. They get so few
tourists that they have no menus in English, which is great and
astonishing - since they all speak English so well here, you would
think it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But again, it speaks of how
few tourists visit there, so Andy and I were happy with that. At
least we knew we were seeing authentic Dutch life in action instead of
a way of life forced for tourists.
On Tuesday afternoon, we took a very short train ride to Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, there is major construction going on at the Central
Station and all around it, so the memorable entrance into the city was
not really possible. It was still cool though. Within minutes of
being in Amsterdam, I had already seen more nationalities than I've
seen in my entire time in Spain so far.
We made our way to our hotel, which is located very centrally, and
then hit the streets walking. We walked here and there and tried to
get a lay of the land. It's much more touristy than Utrecht (of
course). In our attempt to avoid touristy areas, we quickly walked
through some, less pretty and all commercial areas and got to be
better parts of the city. We had very, very good apple strudel
yesterday, ate a veggie restaurant today. We went to the Anne Frank
house museum here today and the Rijksmuseum (which houses a variety of
Dutch painters works). We ate pancakes for dinner tonight. They were
the thickness of swedish pancakes/crepes but very large. It was one
huge pancake with stuff on top.
I've also seen something I never see happen in Madrid - wait staff
actually wiping down tables after people are finished eating there.
In Madrid they look at you like "what is your problem, you can't eat
off of a dirty table?" like it's an absolutely ridiculous standard.
Here, it seems to be the norm, as it should be. Amsterdam is much
cleaner than Madrid (not that that is too difficult) and the people
seem much more normal. Being a pedestrian is not a full contact sport
here - people avoid running into each other and say excuse me!!!! You
can go into a restaurant and not catch lung cancer. It's sooooo nice
to be back into civilization. Overall, our visit to the Netherlands
has been great. The people are nice, it's über-charming, there are
flowers everywhere, and it's totally veggie friendly!!!!
We have half a day left in Amsterdam tomorrow and fly to Oslo tomorrow
afternoon!!!
More soon for sure.
ps. I don't like fries with Mayonnaise.
We had a fairly leisurely time in Utrecht, climbed up a church bell
tower and walked around the city. I have been fighting a fairly nasty
cold (no doubt given to me by the little darling children I taught
before we left for our trip), so it was a good pace to start with.
Since they have fairly cool summers here (in the 60s - maybe low 70s
for highs) they commonly serve soup in most restaurants. I was able
to eat a vegetarian soup often or get veggies and we have even found
bagels. What a novelty. So, I've been eating well since we arrived.
One other thing that was nice about our time in Utrecht is that there
were no tourists. Very, very few at the most. They get so few
tourists that they have no menus in English, which is great and
astonishing - since they all speak English so well here, you would
think it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But again, it speaks of how
few tourists visit there, so Andy and I were happy with that. At
least we knew we were seeing authentic Dutch life in action instead of
a way of life forced for tourists.
On Tuesday afternoon, we took a very short train ride to Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, there is major construction going on at the Central
Station and all around it, so the memorable entrance into the city was
not really possible. It was still cool though. Within minutes of
being in Amsterdam, I had already seen more nationalities than I've
seen in my entire time in Spain so far.
We made our way to our hotel, which is located very centrally, and
then hit the streets walking. We walked here and there and tried to
get a lay of the land. It's much more touristy than Utrecht (of
course). In our attempt to avoid touristy areas, we quickly walked
through some, less pretty and all commercial areas and got to be
better parts of the city. We had very, very good apple strudel
yesterday, ate a veggie restaurant today. We went to the Anne Frank
house museum here today and the Rijksmuseum (which houses a variety of
Dutch painters works). We ate pancakes for dinner tonight. They were
the thickness of swedish pancakes/crepes but very large. It was one
huge pancake with stuff on top.
I've also seen something I never see happen in Madrid - wait staff
actually wiping down tables after people are finished eating there.
In Madrid they look at you like "what is your problem, you can't eat
off of a dirty table?" like it's an absolutely ridiculous standard.
Here, it seems to be the norm, as it should be. Amsterdam is much
cleaner than Madrid (not that that is too difficult) and the people
seem much more normal. Being a pedestrian is not a full contact sport
here - people avoid running into each other and say excuse me!!!! You
can go into a restaurant and not catch lung cancer. It's sooooo nice
to be back into civilization. Overall, our visit to the Netherlands
has been great. The people are nice, it's über-charming, there are
flowers everywhere, and it's totally veggie friendly!!!!
We have half a day left in Amsterdam tomorrow and fly to Oslo tomorrow
afternoon!!!
More soon for sure.
ps. I don't like fries with Mayonnaise.
Also, Andy seems to have, over the last couple of years, developed
this strange habit of almost missing his flights. We get to the
airport in plenty of time, but then once through security it's like
time stops and his impeccable internal clock just goes haywire. We
made it onto the plane - but barely. Anyway, shortly after we landed
in Eindhoven, I saw a St. Bernard. "Fabulous!!! I already like this
country," I thought.
Even better was how easy it was for me to find veggie friendly food
even in the train stations. We trained from Eindhoven to Utrecht.
Our journey was fairly short, but picturesque. Lots of flowers and
gardens everywhere, lots of agriculture, tons of canals and lilly
pads, everything was as green as you can imagine.
The temperature here is similar to San Francisco during the summer.
We went out for an evening walk here to get the lay of the city in
Utrecht and we both needed jackets - I had a light sweater on as
well. The city is very cute and just as you see in pictures. Dinner
time is much more 'normal' here, so we were sitting down to dinner by
7:30. It was a fairly cool, but sunny evening. We enjoyed a
leisurely dinner (again - easy to find veggie foods here) and then
strolled back to our hotel by 9:30. It's strange for us now to eat
dinner out so early, but it is nice. However, it is still fairly
sunny outside, which is a bit strange.
It reminds me of being a little girl and having to go to bed by 8:30
in the summers and it still being light out.
Nicci likes Salamanca too, which is a plus, as right now, any relief
from Madrid is a good thing.
(this post written well after the trip, but at least I just uploaded
the photos.)
Enjoy las fotos!!
The whole point of being here is to be able to live in a foreign
country, make a enough money to only go broke slowly, and travel as
much as we can.
Well, Rome was high on our list. Many thanks go to Nicci to pushing to
get it planned and executed. Surprisingly, she is more organized and
stuff than me...
Public transport is great in Europe, and there are metros, buses,
taxi's, planes, trains and automobiles available. I've seen rickshaws,
big red tourist buses and horse drawn carriages (Which always remind
me of Kate and Tori).
Europeans have their own way of doing things, and one thing they seem
to like to do, is have weird schedules and do odd things at odd (to
us) times.
Case in Point:
We fly in to Rome after working in Madrid all day. We land about 9:45,
collect our bags and aim for the metro. There is a train from the the
Frampachino (not the real name, but something like that) to downtown
Rome, (the Termini station). Rome is a bit inland, and the train takes
about 40 minutes. We were lucky as we got to the train near the
airport just as it was about to leave. Yay! 22€ later, we were
onboard and waiting to get to Termini.
We get there, and are in your typical huge, center city, train, bus,
metro station.
We aim for the metro, of which there are two lines (A and B)
http://www.rome.info/metro/
Our hotel is on line A, down by porta
furba (out of center down, but right on the line, so still good).
Compare this to Madrid's metro:
http://subway.umka.org/maps/madrid.gif
Ok, back to the topic.:
Rome CLOSED their metro at 10pm, to continue building line C ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Metro
GRR!!
So, we are in rome, with bags, at night and hungry. There are buses
(we find out later), but my italian is very poor, and I end up punting
and paying a cabbie to drive us down there. He was nice, and stopped
speaking italian to us once he realized that we were american.
Anywho, that first night was a bit of a trial for my need to have all
our trips go perfectly, but hey, in the end it worked out fine.
Lesson learned.
We arrived late on Thursday night, and since the Italians have a more
typical schedule - finding a place to eat dinner at 11 pm was a little
more challenging then here in Madrid. However, after finally finding
our hotel, we were able to find a local restaurant that was still
welcoming people at that hour. We had a wonderful meal. We had
fabulous bruschette to start with and then I had basic spaghetti
pomodora and Andy had one of his favorite Italian dishes - pasta
carbonara. I was just wonderful and very inexpensive. I was already
much happier there in Rome in one night than in Madrid.
The next day we journeyed into the old part of Rome and wondered
around on our own for several hours. As our pictures indicate, we saw
the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. We saw
other fabulous things and again had a wonderful lunch. We both tried
calzones in a local restaurant. Also, the basic salad in Italy is
actually meat free - no tuna , no jamon, etc. It was sooooooo
wonderful. Eating there was just as easy as finding any place that
served food. Much more like the bay area. It was a welcome break
from Madrid.
Friday afternoon, we took a tour of the ruins - for those of you who
have been there, you know how great and amazing it is. For those of
you who have not made it there, it was amazing. Very surreal,
especially the coliseum. Between hearing what the tour guide was
saying, what I could remember from history in school, and from
movies, it just seemed impossible that a city or a place could be
that old and have so much violence and progression at the same time.
I can't even imagine how difficult life was back then. I'm also
amazed at the amount of wealth and power a few people had in the world
at that time. Anyway, many pictures and very tired legs later, we
went back to our hotel to rest a little before dinner. As for
dinner, we ended up in some small restaurant owned and run by a
family. It was great. The food was good, the service was good, the
price was good, and they had a really bad, unidentifiable Sly Stallone
movie from the 80s on dubbed over in Italian playing in the background.
We tried to get to bed at a decent our as we were to tour the Vatican
in the morning........
So, we arrived Saturday morning outside the Vatican walls around 9 to
meet our tour group by 9:15. By the time we went in, we had all been
waiting for quite a while, but that's okay. The weather was sunny and
mild. We had a group of largely Americans and other ethnicities that
could speak English. I think we were about 30 in all and were only
one of many, many tour groups. Our guide was excellent. We spent
about 4 hours with her in the Vatican between the Vatican Museum, the
Sistine Chapel, and then St. Peter's Basilica. Again, just
breathtaking. So much history and to actually see works by great
Renaissance artists was amazing for me. The history was very
interesting to me and, of course, to Andy who was just thrilled the
whole time in Rome for obvious reasons. I can't even begin to
describe the magnitude of these places. Even the floors were
amazing. I think the pictures are the best way to convey what is
there, but they are a poor substitution for seeing it all in person.
However, they are better than nothing for those who have never been
and may never be able to go.
We wondered around the city that afternoon, went back to the hotel
briefly and then went out for a nice leisurely dinner our last night
in Rome. I had the best Arrabiata sauce ever that night, Andy enjoyed
his food as well. We ate outside right at dusk on a very lovely
street. We ended our dinner with limoncello and then a little later
- gelato. One can never have enough gelato in Rome. Did I mention we
had the best Tiramisu the first night?
Anyway, we flew out early Sunday afternoon to head back to Madrid. I
was sad to leave Rome. I'm still not quite sure why I did....I would
recommend it to anyone. If you have to choose between Rome and Madrid
- um, for me, it's Rome, hands down. We had even done our usual
internet search for veggie places, of which they had many. But, the
happy thing is that we didn't even get that far - we didn't need to.
The normal restaurants were perfectly veggie friendly.
The sheer number of pictures we took should indicate our time in
Rome. I'm impressed that we were able to see all that we did in 2.5
days, but that is not really enough time there. But it's better than
nothing and a great reason to go back.
Calle Santa Polonia, 8, 2-C
Madrid, 28014
Spain
EDIT: Zip code changed to 28014
We can receive packages here:
Address:
C/o TTMadrid
Calle General Yagüe, 70 1A,
28020
Madrid
España
Thanks, more soon!
Andy
Check them out!
Anyway, our time in Bordeaux was fairly short - about a day and a
half. We arrived on Friday afternoon in the fairly consistent rain
from St. Jean-de-Luz (French Basque area). We wandered around
Bordeaux for that night and then day tripped the next day to a little
town inland called St. Emilion. St. Emilion is a tiny little town in
the middle of serious wine country (hello - Bordeaux, France).
We did a little tasting and some wandering and some chilling out at a
cafe for a while. It was really nice to go out there. We actually
had a sunny day, although it was (and still is) freezing everywhere we
go. Wandering outside in the low 50s/upper 40s is not so fun if
you're only moderately prepared for the weather.
They seem to have the same early spring weather as most people in the
states do. Some days of nice, warm-ish weather paired with days of
what is left of winter. When we planned the trip, the forcast was
different - appreciably warmer. Oh well. C'est la vie, n'est pas?
Anyway, back to St. Emilion - the countryside was beautiful. Their
vineyards look different than what we know from Napa/Sonoma. The are
much lower to the ground. According to one the of the wine shops we
did tasting at, the lower vines produce higher quality grapes - which
means that they produce higher quality grapes compared to Napa/Sonoma
accordingly.
We have no idea if that is true or not. Nonetheless, it was fun, but
cold. It was nice to be under open skies for the day. We finally
headed back to Bordeaux for our second and final night there. We ate
at fabulous little Italian restaurant (recommended by an English
local) - called Le Bistro. I had one of the best Arrabiata pasta's
I've ever had and Andy had an excellent (which is high praise from
him) Calzone. If you are ever in Bordeaux - go there for dinner.
We left Bordeaux this morning, got delayed briefly in Toulouse (as
mentioned earlier) and finally headed to Albi. Just to give you an
idea of how cold it really is here - it snowed very lightly, but
definitely was snowing, three different times on us today. Once at a
train stop and twice here in Albi. We finally arrived here and
eventually settled into our hotel and headed out to the main site
here- the St. Cecile Catherdral - one of the most beautiful
Cathedrals I've ever seen. Everything was painted in it. In COLOR! A
bishop hired 7 Florentine painters to come and paint the ceilings, the
walls, the pillars - almost everything. It's just stunning. It was
also really cool to be there as it's Easter and all that.
We leave for Carcassone early tomorrow morning and are spending the
night there. It's supposedly quite the medieval town and full of
history. Andy will love it being the history guy he is. I'm hoping
for not raining and a little warmer than freezing point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcasonne
http://www.cntraveller.com/Guides/France/Bordeaux/Default.aspx
More soon. Picture uploading is slowed down, as the Net connections
have been spotty.
The ground has stickers on them (some are ads, and some are like the
Obey the Giant ads).
To be fair, some places are very clean, and we've seen certain
shopkeepers and others handwashing the sidewalk in front of their
store, their steps, or mopping outside their business.
I suspect it is less that Madrid has more graffiti than any other big
city, I just think that they have made the decision not to fight it.
There seems to be no abatement program, nor a longterm plan (or funds)
to systematically clean it up. They do have street sweepers (to pick
up the loose junk on the ground)
I've not lived in New York. I believe that one thing that Rudy
Guiliani did was fight the small crime first (vandalism, broken
windows, and graffiti) with the intent to not let neighborhoods
visually fall into dispair, possibly leading to bigger issues.
Madrid seems like a pretty safe city. To our eyes, we've not really
found places that are any sketchier than say parts of the Mission (and
we wouldn't even go into Hunters Point). Avoiding the pimps and their
employees, and keeping a wary eye about seems to help make you a
harder target for those that target tourists.
I am a proud American, but if I become the LOUD AMERICAN TOURIST that
is so common, I will start as a target, and end as a victim.
I don't prefer that, and to circle back, I think Madrid should
consider the image they are projecting by not cleaning up after their
residents.
Hasta proxima!
We kick off our travels with a two week journey up to the Spanish and
French Basque regions, then up to Bordeaux, then over to some tiny
medieval towns in southern France around Toulouse and then down to
Barcelona for a couple of days and finally over to Madrid.
We left our apartment in Madrid yesterday morning to catch a train up
north to San Sebastian. It was a 6 1/2 hour train ride, which is
about all the time I can handle on a train. I now know that I cannot
read on the train, whereas Andy can read on a ship in a storm in the
ocean and not have a problem. Anyway, not being able to read just
makes the journey longer for me. Thankfully, the scenery did change
periodically, especially as we started to get into the foothills of
the Pyranees to get to San Sebastian.
We arrived in San Sebastian yesterday late afternoon. It is a
beautiful city. It was nice to see an ocean again (Atlantic Ocean).
The most popular cite for San Sebastian is the promenade across their
beach and looking out onto their small inlet of water and out onto the
ocean. It was such a clean town too (nice change from Madrid). The
Basque region is known to have the best tapas in Spain (they call them
pinxtos here in the native Basque tongue of Euskara). The are also
known for the fresh Cider and a local wine called Txakoli. I was
fortunate to discover Txakoli before we left the states and am very
happy to be in the land of it. It's definitely one of my favorite
wines. Andy even likes it too. The cider is really good too. It's
different than the typical cider you would get at an Irish pub or
something like that. It's very fresh and apparently, you have to drink
it soon after it's poured or it goes bad. We did a txikiteo (tapas
crawl) last night in San Sebastian. I, of course, struggled to find
anything I could eat, so I had many samplings of Tortilla Espanol. (I
will be so sick and tired of Tortlla Espanol well before I even leave
Spain to return the states next year.) I think Andy enjoyed it, it's
different than Madrid. It's a tapas crawl at super speed.
We slept fairly well and woke up today, ate breakfast and got on a bus
to head to Bilbao - home of the Guggenheim Museum. We will be going
tomorrow to see that. In the meantime, we've so far wandered around
Bilbao (another beautiful, clean city) for the day. We were even so
fortunate to eat lunch at a vegetarian restaurant here (yay!!!!
finally, some vegetables and something other than Tortilla Espanol).
It was fabulous. Tonight we will do another txikiteo as Bilbao
competes with San Sebastian for the best pintxos/tapas in Spain.
Andy will have to tell you which town is better, as I will no doubt
have more Tortilla. We will end our day finding some Irish pub to
celebrate what is left of St. Patrick's day. We have both been very
good and have been wearing green all day :)
We're off to the Guggenheim tomorrow!!!
The hook was they were quickly called away to be a doctor in Africa
(or Nigeria <-- key point there) and had pictures that were WAY to
nice than the other places.
The fotos were like the ones already in the frames at the store (or
like the girlfriend that Napoleon Dynamite had)
We have responded to a few of these "housing ads" and got big long
letters asking for a bunch of info, and trying to pull at our heart
strings.
Well, Christians though we are, we are not going to fall for any
Nigerian scam, even if it is helping out someone helping orphans
Nigeria.
So a warning for those of you looking for apartments. The sites that
have the ads in english, have many more scammers on them. Use www.loquo.com
www.segundamano.es and www.sublet.com instead.
Buena Suerte,
Petronius
Shower, shave, and shine up, and we hit the street again, looking for
some food, and aiming for a long walk.
We went all over town, down the gran via again, the Plaza de Espana,
over to the Palacio Real (but not into it) and had lunch, on the Plaza
Mayor.
Thing were going great (although expensive on the plaza) until the
salad showed up with tuna on it, and the tortilla español (entera)
really was an entire plate sized pie, and everything went downhill.
The sad part was that they had two salads,
Ensalada Mixta y
Ensalad Mixta de Bonito
Spanish speaker that I am, I asked about the Bonito, and the camerera
mentioned that it was a nice piece of atún on top of the normal salad.
Since Nicci eats nothing with the face, I didn't even concieve that
the "normal mixta" would not be the "Bonito" without the bonito (no
atún)
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
So, that was a $60 lesson. Food on the plaza is not cheap, and with
the Euro being at 1.5 a dollar, our 40 Euro meal whacked us pretty good.
When y'all come visit we can eat on the plaza again, but beware the
ensalada mixta.
So, we were in a good mood right? We walked around some more, and
checked our book for a vegetarian restaurant. We were going to go to
the second location of our favorite veggie restaurant. We walked down,
turned the corner and the place was gone.
NOT SO GOOD.
We needed food, and spain was conspiring against us. We ended up going
the The Wok, near the Plaza de España, about 10 block walk from where
the first restaurant wasn't.
Thankfully the wok was good, and we managed to get to our beds safely.
We slept well that night, amazingly.
We got to our hotel, collapsed a bit and hit the streets. This is the
same hotel we stayed at last time we were here. Our room this time was
MUCH SMALLER. I think this was my fault, as I wrote them before we
arrived to ensure we are on the side street and not on the main street.
In case you hadn't heard the Spanish enjoy to party and drink and
smoke. The streets ring with el ruido late into the night, and poor
timechange suffering American's can take issue with those people en la
calle.
So, we showed up with our Three Bags (not 5) unpacked a bit, and did
the quick walk around town. I was still limbering up my lengua (or
tongue) as Nicci isn't very helpful in Spanish yet. I told the guy
downstairs to expect my bags the next day, and he seemed to think this
happened all the time. That encouraged me.
Bueno.
We went to the Plaza Mayor, the Puerta del Sol and started to figure
out the streets. I was armed with my map, my Moleskine. For dinner
that night, we went to the Irish bar for some Irish Breakfast for
Nicci and some fish and chips for me. Last time we were in this bar,
Nicci was deathly sick and we were at the end of our trip. Oh, and
someone puked on the floor that time, so we needed a better memory.
It was good, and on the way back to the Hotel, we got some Chocolate
con Churros (really thick chocolate in a cup, and fried dough sticks)
Yummy. Que delicioso!!
We slept and did ok. Our room was a bit hot, the bed a bit hard and
the pillows long and thin.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
Petronius
