After an unexpected tour of United's hub cities, I made it to Bethel, Maine this weekend to witness my sister-in-law's beautiful ski-inspired wedding.
But first, the travel. In the midst of last Thursday's rare San Francisco thunderstorm, I was supposed to fly out of SFO around 10:30. My flight was delayed for hours because both the plane before ours and the plane carrying our pilots were struck by lightning. The gate agents' computers were down because the central database had apparently also been struck by lightning. We boarded the plane around 2am, with instructions to hustle lest our pilots "go illegal" (meaning go over their maximum hours allowed to work in a day, per union rules). We hustled, but our wait time to take off was too long, and the pilots went illegal. We had to disembark and our flight was cancelled.
At 3 am, the line for the United customer service desk was over an hour long. Fortunately, Matt taught me a trick and I called up United customer service instead of waiting in line; they eventually got me on a 3-leg flight to Portland, ME. I had initially planned to arrive in Portland around 10 am EST. I ended up getting there, sans checked bag, at 7 pm, after stops in O' Hare and Newark. I got my rental car and drove another 2 hours to Bethel, freaking out at the "low battery" warnings my GPS gave me throughout the drive (I had had the wherewithal to pack the GPS in my carryon, but not its charger).
Finally, blessedly, I made it to the hotel, and my bag was delivered directly to Bethel the next morning by United. Matt had even scheduled me a massage. I had missed the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but fortunately made it and got my bag just in time for the wedding itself.
The whole series of events could not have reflected the bride and groom more. The ceremony took place on the mountain where the groom works as a ski patrolman. Wedding guests took the gondola up and sat facing downhill, then the wedding party -- in tuxes and ski boots -- processed. The bride and her father came in, also wearing ski boots. At the end of the ceremony, the fellow patrolmen gave a salute and the bride and groom drove off on a snowmobile festooned with a "Just Married" sign and PBR cans!
Then, the reception took place at the nearby ski bar where the bride is a bartender. The party was, as I heard said many times, the biggest party the county had ever seen. The bride and groom were definitely king and queen of the county for the night.
And now I have a new brother -- I gained two sisters when I married Matt, but Paul is my very first brother ever!
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
August 2005; or, the time I was smuggled into Poland
Marcin popped the question on a Tuesday, while we sat in the Alexanderplatz stereotypically eating Döner from the shop at the base of the Fernsehturm. "Want to go to the Baltic tonight?"
We were in Berlin. A trip to the Baltic meant driving 3 hours, across the border into Poland and up to the northern coast. I had never been to Poland and I knew hardly any Polish, except for the few curse words Marcin taught me the first night we went drinking. Did I want to get in the car of someone I'd only recently met, to visit a country whose language I didn't know, just to get a new stamp in my passport? Hell yes.
We started the trip around 6 after picking up our friend Ursula. Ursula was a Spanish transplant bumming around Berlin with the two of us. She and I had gone from being acquaintances to friends when we walked around Prenzlauer Berg one day looking for a piercing parlor on a whim. She got a nose stud. I got a tragus hoop. (A word to the wise for anyone who wants to get pierced in a foreign country: point at the spot you want pierced. Don't want anything to get lost in translation.)
By the time we hit the interstate, it was already dark. If I've learned anything about driving on foreign interstates, it's this: once you lose the visual cues around you, you might as well be anywhere -- Pennsylvania, Thailand, or the Czech Republic. For a while, it was a mostly silent ride, punctuated by the wind coming in through the driver's side window. (Marcin was a chain smoker and would not take a three hour trip without nicotine, so he'd rolled down the window an inch or so to ash his cigarette. Every once in a while he'd ask me to light him a new one. I never could figure out if this was his way of flirting.)
As we reached the border, Marcin asked us to hand over our passports. At his suggestion, Ursula and I stayed silent while Marcin spoke with the patrolman. There were a few tense minutes and looks, but eventually stamps were issued and we drove on into the dark, looking for a gas station to convert Euro to Zloty.
When we pulled in to the first station we saw, it was midnight. Marcin winced when he noticed a white van parked in a dark corner. He whispered a warning -- "don't look at them!" -- before heading inside. Ursula and I stared at our shoes, out of our element, and I couldn't help but smirk. In just a few hours, I'd gone from eastern Germany, reclaimed by the west for over a decade by the time I was living there, into the edge of the Eastern bloc. Of all the things I had expected to see upon entry, the Polish mafia was not one of them.
We were in Berlin. A trip to the Baltic meant driving 3 hours, across the border into Poland and up to the northern coast. I had never been to Poland and I knew hardly any Polish, except for the few curse words Marcin taught me the first night we went drinking. Did I want to get in the car of someone I'd only recently met, to visit a country whose language I didn't know, just to get a new stamp in my passport? Hell yes.
We started the trip around 6 after picking up our friend Ursula. Ursula was a Spanish transplant bumming around Berlin with the two of us. She and I had gone from being acquaintances to friends when we walked around Prenzlauer Berg one day looking for a piercing parlor on a whim. She got a nose stud. I got a tragus hoop. (A word to the wise for anyone who wants to get pierced in a foreign country: point at the spot you want pierced. Don't want anything to get lost in translation.)
By the time we hit the interstate, it was already dark. If I've learned anything about driving on foreign interstates, it's this: once you lose the visual cues around you, you might as well be anywhere -- Pennsylvania, Thailand, or the Czech Republic. For a while, it was a mostly silent ride, punctuated by the wind coming in through the driver's side window. (Marcin was a chain smoker and would not take a three hour trip without nicotine, so he'd rolled down the window an inch or so to ash his cigarette. Every once in a while he'd ask me to light him a new one. I never could figure out if this was his way of flirting.)
As we reached the border, Marcin asked us to hand over our passports. At his suggestion, Ursula and I stayed silent while Marcin spoke with the patrolman. There were a few tense minutes and looks, but eventually stamps were issued and we drove on into the dark, looking for a gas station to convert Euro to Zloty.
When we pulled in to the first station we saw, it was midnight. Marcin winced when he noticed a white van parked in a dark corner. He whispered a warning -- "don't look at them!" -- before heading inside. Ursula and I stared at our shoes, out of our element, and I couldn't help but smirk. In just a few hours, I'd gone from eastern Germany, reclaimed by the west for over a decade by the time I was living there, into the edge of the Eastern bloc. Of all the things I had expected to see upon entry, the Polish mafia was not one of them.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Freiburg, Zurich, Vienna
I'm about 2 weeks past deadline, but I visited these cities, too! Some quick highlights:
Freiburg
Zurich
Vienna/Schloss Wasserburg
Freiburg
- met up with a college buddy of mine who was studying at the Goethe Institut
- traveled to nearby Breisach, a German city on the Rhine River, and crossed the river into the Alsace-Lorraine region of France
- hiked into the Schwarzwald around Freiburg and climbed a lookout tower for an amazing bird's eye view of the city
Zurich
- joined a bus tour of the city and around "Heidi Land" (eastern Switzerland, where the book Heidi was set)
- got my passport stamped in Liechtenstein
- spent 5 hours in a train compartment talking with a grandmotherly German woman in german (I did more listening than talking, and it still made my brain hurt -- but it was successful!)
Vienna/Schloss Wasserburg
- toured the beautiful and enormous Wiener Staatsoper (SRO tickets for the last show of the season were ~$75 for Werther, so I didn't jump for 'em)
- stayed in an honest-to-God castle for a week, being fed and waited on by a maid and cook, lounging around the pool and various sitting rooms, catching up on reading (after 3 weeks of travelling around, living out of a backpack, this felt really good)
- attended the St. Polten city festival, complete with bratwurst (mmm) and brass bands marching through the streets
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Nürnberg
I got into Nürnberg (aka Nuremberg in English; that confused me for a while) in the afternoon. Once I found my hostel (awesomely situated right by the Alstadt/Old City wall and the opera house), I headed out to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, the largest collection of German historical artifacts in the country. Unfortunately, museums and other indoor activities seem to close at 5 all over Germany, so I only got to spend an hour or so in the museum.
I walked over to a tourist-directed reconstruction of old Nürnberg called the Handwerkerhof, where little shops sold cuckoo clocks and lebkuchen. I ate Nürnberger sausages with sauerkraut and had a dessert of warm lebkuchen with ice cream and strawberry jam! (YUM)
In Amsterdam and Hamburg, the sun set quite late -- around 10 or 10:30 -- which made for good sight-seeing. Even in Nürnberg, which is in the middle of the country, the sun set late, so I spent a while wandering around. I found Nürnberg's small red light district, totally by accident, when I saw a series of women in their windows and wondered what they were doing. (They had more clothes on than the ones in Amsterdam, so I made an honest mistake!) I also found a memorial set up with the humanitarian laws set up after the Nürnberg trials, one law each on a series of columns. Each column had the law in German and one other language, which ranged from English to Hebrew to Hopi, for a series of about 25 columns. Lastly, I ambled over to the Opera House to see what they were playing. You know what I'm missing by about 2 weeks? The Ring Cycle. In Nürnberg.
The next morning, I headed out to Luitpoldhain, a part of the city southeast of the old center where the Nazi rallies were held. The Kongressbau, which was to become the Nazi seat of power and whose architecture was meant to best the Colluseum in Rome, was never finished and is now the headquarters of the Dokumentzentrum (which just means "document center"). It's a museum that details Hitler's rise, the part Nürnberg played in his plans, and what happened to the leaders of the party after the war.
After the exhibit, I walked outside to see the Grosse Strasse ("Big (Main) Street") of Leni Riefenstahl fame ... think of old footage of Nazi soldiers marching in lines 50 people long. This street could easily hold such a number, and bystanders on either side of them. I could see on my map that the Meistersingerhalle was nearby, so I excitedly went to find it, but it was nothing but a 70s-style convention hall. Boo.
I went back into the old town, and with only a few hours before museums closed, I tried to figure out the Nürnberg bus system, but to no avail. Frustrated, I chose a museum nearby: the Verkehrsmuseum, which houses both the Deutsche Bahn (National Raiway) museum and the Post (Mail) museum. Each one led me through the history of the field in Germany. I started with the train museum, which had among its collection one of Ludwig II.'s coaches, dressed up as elaborately as his castles were. In fact, he called it "Neuschwanstein on wheels".
The Post museum's best (and most confusing) part was a side-by-side representation of the systems in East and West Germany through the latter half of the 20th century. The womens' uniforms, blue suits in the West, looked more like mumus in the East!
A heavy and sudden onset of rain made it hard to leave the area, even once the museum closed, so I went to a nearba sushi restaurant, which was served to me on a model train. (Yesss...) Once the rain let up, I took my chances and hiked around through the Altstadt, which really wasn't as big as I feared, and saw all the picturesque "stuff" one's supposed to see in Nürnberg -- the Hauptmarkt, the Schöne Brunnen, various churches. (Funny story: As you may know, Nürnberg was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, which categorically made it a Catholic town for many years. However, once Martin Luther started doing his thing, it eventually reached Nürnberg, which decided to incorporate it, and eventually the city lost its Catholic "backing." Near the middle of the city, one can see a Catholic and Lutheran church sitting side by side.)
The best part was hiking up to the Königsberg (King's Fortress) at the north end of the Altstadt (the old city's built on a hill). Although the castle itself was closed to the public for the day, the view from the top of the hill was marvelous -- I could see everywhere I'd just been.
Unforunately, all that hiking caused me to sleep through tickets to "Late Night Opera" (actually described as cabaret and musical theatre songs) at the Opera House at 10:30 pm (!). This trip is great, but at the pace I'm taking it, I may be ready for another vacation! Next stop, Freiburg.
I walked over to a tourist-directed reconstruction of old Nürnberg called the Handwerkerhof, where little shops sold cuckoo clocks and lebkuchen. I ate Nürnberger sausages with sauerkraut and had a dessert of warm lebkuchen with ice cream and strawberry jam! (YUM)
In Amsterdam and Hamburg, the sun set quite late -- around 10 or 10:30 -- which made for good sight-seeing. Even in Nürnberg, which is in the middle of the country, the sun set late, so I spent a while wandering around. I found Nürnberg's small red light district, totally by accident, when I saw a series of women in their windows and wondered what they were doing. (They had more clothes on than the ones in Amsterdam, so I made an honest mistake!) I also found a memorial set up with the humanitarian laws set up after the Nürnberg trials, one law each on a series of columns. Each column had the law in German and one other language, which ranged from English to Hebrew to Hopi, for a series of about 25 columns. Lastly, I ambled over to the Opera House to see what they were playing. You know what I'm missing by about 2 weeks? The Ring Cycle. In Nürnberg.
The next morning, I headed out to Luitpoldhain, a part of the city southeast of the old center where the Nazi rallies were held. The Kongressbau, which was to become the Nazi seat of power and whose architecture was meant to best the Colluseum in Rome, was never finished and is now the headquarters of the Dokumentzentrum (which just means "document center"). It's a museum that details Hitler's rise, the part Nürnberg played in his plans, and what happened to the leaders of the party after the war.
After the exhibit, I walked outside to see the Grosse Strasse ("Big (Main) Street") of Leni Riefenstahl fame ... think of old footage of Nazi soldiers marching in lines 50 people long. This street could easily hold such a number, and bystanders on either side of them. I could see on my map that the Meistersingerhalle was nearby, so I excitedly went to find it, but it was nothing but a 70s-style convention hall. Boo.
I went back into the old town, and with only a few hours before museums closed, I tried to figure out the Nürnberg bus system, but to no avail. Frustrated, I chose a museum nearby: the Verkehrsmuseum, which houses both the Deutsche Bahn (National Raiway) museum and the Post (Mail) museum. Each one led me through the history of the field in Germany. I started with the train museum, which had among its collection one of Ludwig II.'s coaches, dressed up as elaborately as his castles were. In fact, he called it "Neuschwanstein on wheels".
The Post museum's best (and most confusing) part was a side-by-side representation of the systems in East and West Germany through the latter half of the 20th century. The womens' uniforms, blue suits in the West, looked more like mumus in the East!
A heavy and sudden onset of rain made it hard to leave the area, even once the museum closed, so I went to a nearba sushi restaurant, which was served to me on a model train. (Yesss...) Once the rain let up, I took my chances and hiked around through the Altstadt, which really wasn't as big as I feared, and saw all the picturesque "stuff" one's supposed to see in Nürnberg -- the Hauptmarkt, the Schöne Brunnen, various churches. (Funny story: As you may know, Nürnberg was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, which categorically made it a Catholic town for many years. However, once Martin Luther started doing his thing, it eventually reached Nürnberg, which decided to incorporate it, and eventually the city lost its Catholic "backing." Near the middle of the city, one can see a Catholic and Lutheran church sitting side by side.)
The best part was hiking up to the Königsberg (King's Fortress) at the north end of the Altstadt (the old city's built on a hill). Although the castle itself was closed to the public for the day, the view from the top of the hill was marvelous -- I could see everywhere I'd just been.
Unforunately, all that hiking caused me to sleep through tickets to "Late Night Opera" (actually described as cabaret and musical theatre songs) at the Opera House at 10:30 pm (!). This trip is great, but at the pace I'm taking it, I may be ready for another vacation! Next stop, Freiburg.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Hamburg
I have to admit: when I first got to Hamburg, I was scared. I was travelling alone for the first time on this trip, and I had nobody to rely on -- or talk to -- but myself. I spent the first afternoon and evening ambling around, finding an internet cafe and buying a city guide out of which I lived for the next 2 days.
The first morning, I was at a loss. I headed for the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum for Arts and Crafts) because I had seen it on my way out of the main train station the previous night, and it looked big, and I didn't know where else to go. Over a cup of coffee and some delicious apple strudel, I planned out my next two days. I enjoyed the museum for a few more hours, especially an exhibit on photo portraits called Divas, before I headed on to the Deutsches Zollmuseum (German Customs Museum), which had an exhibit on smuggling attempts throughout the ages. Then, I headed over to the city park, found a combination Döner *and* pommes cone (eureka!) and munched happily until around 5:45, when I made my way to the Landungsbrücke -- the main port area of Hamburg. From there, a large yellow ferry with a lion's face on it took me across the ocean to ... Der König der Löwen (The Lion King)! It was the Broadway-style musical, but with lyrics and dialogue all in German. I understood about 30% of it, but it was such a spectacle I didn't care.
The next morning, I tried to take a tour around the Gruner + Jahr publishing house, but wasn't allowed in. So I took pictures of the supposedly ground-breaking architecture for a while before heading on, past St. Michaeliskirche, back to the Landungsbrücke, walking along it to take in the ships and the scenery. I moved along to the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's infamous red light district and home of various clubs in which the Beatles played early on). Nearby was the Museum für Hamburgischer Geschichte (Museum for Hamburg History), which had an exhibit on Biedermeyer clothing that was especially fun. That's the great part about being an actor -- you get to transport yourself to those times, and wear those clothes for a while, and no one thinks you're crazy!
I wandered around the town for a while after, visiting the Chilehaus, apparently an icon of 20s German architecture, and the Hamburgischer Staatsoper, which was locked but which screamed out early 60s architecture. And I ended with a night on the town, seeing Neil LaBute's Fat Pig. This show, however, was translated into german -- as Fettes Schwein. I understood even less this time -- about 15%.
My favorite part about Hamburg had to be all the well-fitted and good-looking suits that both men and women commonly wore. It made for a very attractive city!
The first morning, I was at a loss. I headed for the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum for Arts and Crafts) because I had seen it on my way out of the main train station the previous night, and it looked big, and I didn't know where else to go. Over a cup of coffee and some delicious apple strudel, I planned out my next two days. I enjoyed the museum for a few more hours, especially an exhibit on photo portraits called Divas, before I headed on to the Deutsches Zollmuseum (German Customs Museum), which had an exhibit on smuggling attempts throughout the ages. Then, I headed over to the city park, found a combination Döner *and* pommes cone (eureka!) and munched happily until around 5:45, when I made my way to the Landungsbrücke -- the main port area of Hamburg. From there, a large yellow ferry with a lion's face on it took me across the ocean to ... Der König der Löwen (The Lion King)! It was the Broadway-style musical, but with lyrics and dialogue all in German. I understood about 30% of it, but it was such a spectacle I didn't care.
The next morning, I tried to take a tour around the Gruner + Jahr publishing house, but wasn't allowed in. So I took pictures of the supposedly ground-breaking architecture for a while before heading on, past St. Michaeliskirche, back to the Landungsbrücke, walking along it to take in the ships and the scenery. I moved along to the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's infamous red light district and home of various clubs in which the Beatles played early on). Nearby was the Museum für Hamburgischer Geschichte (Museum for Hamburg History), which had an exhibit on Biedermeyer clothing that was especially fun. That's the great part about being an actor -- you get to transport yourself to those times, and wear those clothes for a while, and no one thinks you're crazy!
I wandered around the town for a while after, visiting the Chilehaus, apparently an icon of 20s German architecture, and the Hamburgischer Staatsoper, which was locked but which screamed out early 60s architecture. And I ended with a night on the town, seeing Neil LaBute's Fat Pig. This show, however, was translated into german -- as Fettes Schwein. I understood even less this time -- about 15%.
My favorite part about Hamburg had to be all the well-fitted and good-looking suits that both men and women commonly wore. It made for a very attractive city!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Amsterdam
The first day in Amsterdam was fairly brutal, thanks to our tight travel schedule and poor planning skills. My college roommate Matt and I flew from Berlin to Amsterdam, having woken up at 5 am to catch the bus to the airport, running on 2 hours of sleep and hangovers from the previous night's pub crawl.
While I wanted to sleep, Matt and our college friend Ruby, who met us at the train station, understandably wanted to pound pavement. So pound we did, first visiting a diamond-cutting warehouse with a little tour that Matt enjoyed the last time he was in Amsterdam.
Then we went to EnergeticA, which turned out to be Machines`R´Us, and Matt the mechanical engineer was gleefully led around by a middle-aged dutch man who loved machines just as much as Matt did, explaining their use in charmlingly-accented english.
It was already starting to sizzle when we headed out the next morning, so we hightailed it to an air-conditioned location: namely, the Van Gogh Museum.
From there, we bought tickets for an improv dinner show by Boom Chicago, whose Edinburgh troupe I had seen years ago and loved. In the interim, we headed to the Heineken Experience, where for €11 each, we learned a little about brewing beer, but mostly drank (3 free 0,5 L beers with entry) and played games (there were various mindless games one could play that seemed fun at the time).
The next morning, we took a day trip to Zaanse Schans, and toured around for a while before heading back (I bought a hunk of cheese!). Matt and I scrounged up one last set of "must see" activities for our final day, hitting the Anne Frank House in the morning and a children's science center called Nemo (shaped like a boat!) in the afternoon. Nemo had an entire floor devoted to teens about hormones, drugs and sexuality. My favorite part: a small 16-and-over section on condoms, birth control and favorite positions! Oh, those Europeans.
Then we went to EnergeticA, which turned out to be Machines`R´Us, and Matt the mechanical engineer was gleefully led around by a middle-aged dutch man who loved machines just as much as Matt did, explaining their use in charmlingly-accented english.
It was already starting to sizzle when we headed out the next morning, so we hightailed it to an air-conditioned location: namely, the Van Gogh Museum.
From there, we bought tickets for an improv dinner show by Boom Chicago, whose Edinburgh troupe I had seen years ago and loved. In the interim, we headed to the Heineken Experience, where for €11 each, we learned a little about brewing beer, but mostly drank (3 free 0,5 L beers with entry) and played games (there were various mindless games one could play that seemed fun at the time).
The next morning, we took a day trip to Zaanse Schans, and toured around for a while before heading back (I bought a hunk of cheese!). Matt and I scrounged up one last set of "must see" activities for our final day, hitting the Anne Frank House in the morning and a children's science center called Nemo (shaped like a boat!) in the afternoon. Nemo had an entire floor devoted to teens about hormones, drugs and sexuality. My favorite part: a small 16-and-over section on condoms, birth control and favorite positions! Oh, those Europeans.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Berlin
After a 10-hour train ride from Salzburg to Berlin via Munich, Justin and I found our way to St. Christopher's hostel, conveniently located right off one of the U-Bahn (subway) stations. There, we met up with another college friend, had some dinner and chilled out at the bar of what turned out to be a great hostel. (I haven't found its equal yet: the atmosphere was great, the beds were comfortable, and the room we stayed in was spacious and clean.)
We started our first full day at the oldest icon of the city, the Brandenburg Gate (which has about 150 years on the wall). We also walked around the glass dome of the Reichstag and visted the nearby Holocaust Memorial, neither of which I visited in my previous month-long stay in Berlin.
We meandered along to Postdamer Platz, where I had a "sauerkraut platter" (it had much more meat than sauerkraut), and proceeded along to Checkpoint Charlie and the corresponding museum. That night, after nice nap at the hostel, we went back out for more sightseeing, this time in west Berlin. We managed to find the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum, then walked along Kurfürstendamm to take artsy pictures of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche at night. (It was heavily bombed in 1943, and was left as it stood as a memorial to war victims. Here's how it looked until 1943.)
The next day, we visited the Story of Berlin museum, which included a look at the city since its inception (very interesting, since most people tend to forget everything before the wall, or at most, everything before the Nazis. Napoleon marched through the Brandenburg Gate at the turn of the 19th century!) We made a quick stop at the Museum für Fotographie, where a Helmut Newton collection of late 80's-styled nude models made me cringe about my own body. But, hey. I'm not expecting anyone to take pictures of me in the nude, posing with horses and in heels.
I ran off to the Deutsche Oper Berlin shortly thereafter to see a production of Puccini's Il Trittico. The Deutsche Oper Berlin is known for its avant-garde productions, and this one was no exception. Unforunately, these pictures on their site don't do the production justice, but suffice it to say that there was sadism, adultery and drug use. Awesome. I also picked up a book on how to be an opera singer -- written in german.
Our third and final day was a day trip to Potsdam (~30 min S-Bahn), which was, among other things, the summer residence of Berlin's one-time king. We saw the Palace Sanssouci, which was small but opulent, and ate at Der Butt, which is apparently german for halibut. We rounded out the night by coming back to Berlin and joining a bar crawl, which ended around 3 am, giving us just enough time to sleep and sober up before waking at 5 to catch an early flight to Amsterdam.
Tschüß, Berlin!
We started our first full day at the oldest icon of the city, the Brandenburg Gate (which has about 150 years on the wall). We also walked around the glass dome of the Reichstag and visted the nearby Holocaust Memorial, neither of which I visited in my previous month-long stay in Berlin.
We meandered along to Postdamer Platz, where I had a "sauerkraut platter" (it had much more meat than sauerkraut), and proceeded along to Checkpoint Charlie and the corresponding museum. That night, after nice nap at the hostel, we went back out for more sightseeing, this time in west Berlin. We managed to find the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum, then walked along Kurfürstendamm to take artsy pictures of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche at night. (It was heavily bombed in 1943, and was left as it stood as a memorial to war victims. Here's how it looked until 1943.)
The next day, we visited the Story of Berlin museum, which included a look at the city since its inception (very interesting, since most people tend to forget everything before the wall, or at most, everything before the Nazis. Napoleon marched through the Brandenburg Gate at the turn of the 19th century!) We made a quick stop at the Museum für Fotographie, where a Helmut Newton collection of late 80's-styled nude models made me cringe about my own body. But, hey. I'm not expecting anyone to take pictures of me in the nude, posing with horses and in heels.
I ran off to the Deutsche Oper Berlin shortly thereafter to see a production of Puccini's Il Trittico. The Deutsche Oper Berlin is known for its avant-garde productions, and this one was no exception. Unforunately, these pictures on their site don't do the production justice, but suffice it to say that there was sadism, adultery and drug use. Awesome. I also picked up a book on how to be an opera singer -- written in german.
Our third and final day was a day trip to Potsdam (~30 min S-Bahn), which was, among other things, the summer residence of Berlin's one-time king. We saw the Palace Sanssouci, which was small but opulent, and ate at Der Butt, which is apparently german for halibut. We rounded out the night by coming back to Berlin and joining a bar crawl, which ended around 3 am, giving us just enough time to sleep and sober up before waking at 5 to catch an early flight to Amsterdam.
Tschüß, Berlin!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Salzburg
After a plane/train/walking trek that started on Wednesday evening and ended in the wee hours of Friday morning, I finally made it to my bed in Salzburg.
The plane trips were largely unremarkable; thanks to some Sominex, I slept right through my LAX-Heathrow flight, and was served some yummy (and appropriate) Knodel on my Heathrow-Vienna flight on Austrian Airlines. On the train from Vienna to Salzburg, I kept stealing glances at a cute, young Austrian military man (I admit, I have a thing for men in uniform. Or a suit. Or, really, dressed up in any formal fashion.) as he ate canned peaches and shed pieces of his uniform. And I almost fooled him into thinking I was native by keeping my mouth shut until he asked me something I couldn't catch and, flustered, I blurted out that my native language was English. Smooth.
I've spent two days here with a college friend spending a semester abroad in Salzburg, and truthfully, much of the trip has been mundane: we went grocery shopping, and subsequently ate in most of the time. (Admittedly, this is much cheaper, so it looks like I'll be eating sandwiches for most meals until I meet up with the family.) We prepared Mint Juleps for a World of Drinks party at his dorm, which was no small feat, since Austrian shops do not sell bags of ice. (Most dorm-mates were having the same problem: when one asked a store owner where they might find bags of ice, he replied, "try Italy or Spain.") Eventually, a barista at a gas station coffee shop agreed to give us ice if we came back with bags; when we did, she didn't seem too pleased and we left with just one bag.
Today we walked around the Altstadt and "hiked" (steep grade, but ~5 minute walk) to the Festung ("fortress") at the top of the hill. From here, you can see in all directions, and as I remarked that Salzburg doesn't seem all that big, Justin replied that it's about 150,000 people -- "about 2 Palo Altos." Well, no wonder I'm underwhelmed. It's pretty, but it seems heavily divided between a nice center and very sleepy outlying residential areas. There seems to be very little to do after dark, especially in Justin's neck of the woods, except drink with the dorm mates. Hrm.
We also tried going to the major cathedral in town, but at noon on a Saturday, everyone else was trying to go, too -- for services. We got inside before we realized what was going on, and quickly made our way out again. There were also men and women dressed up in dirndls and lederhosen (which still seem rather unreal to me) and, as I looked back at the cathedral, I noticed large H&M advertisements draped on its walls. Odd.
Other noteables: when we stopped for a cup of coffee, I spotted a man calmly having a cuppa. He was wearing bland clothes and seemed in his mid-fifties, and would have been altogether unremarkable if his face hadn't been painted gold. I was too bashful to take a picture, but later we did see him doing his moving statue routine, complete with gold garb. I did snap a picture then -- brave me! Also, when we started our rounds this morning, there was a publicity stunt going for Magna ice cream bars. Women dressed up in skimpy tribal wear were dancing and bowing towards a large plastic Magna bar, and others were handing out fliers that said, "We worship it -- do you?"
I'm very anxious with my German. I'm trying to use it, but if I make one slip-up, it's very likely that the person I'm talking to switches to english in an attempt to make the transaction easier. Therefore, I've gotten very little practice in the very language I've spent X years trying to learn! Hmph.
Tomorrow I'm heading out to Berlin, a city that I think is much more exciting. Perhaps this is largely because it's a) bigger and b) more metropolitan. I'm meeting up with my housemate from college there, and we'll spend 4 days in Berlin before moving on to Amsterdam.
The plane trips were largely unremarkable; thanks to some Sominex, I slept right through my LAX-Heathrow flight, and was served some yummy (and appropriate) Knodel on my Heathrow-Vienna flight on Austrian Airlines. On the train from Vienna to Salzburg, I kept stealing glances at a cute, young Austrian military man (I admit, I have a thing for men in uniform. Or a suit. Or, really, dressed up in any formal fashion.) as he ate canned peaches and shed pieces of his uniform. And I almost fooled him into thinking I was native by keeping my mouth shut until he asked me something I couldn't catch and, flustered, I blurted out that my native language was English. Smooth.
I've spent two days here with a college friend spending a semester abroad in Salzburg, and truthfully, much of the trip has been mundane: we went grocery shopping, and subsequently ate in most of the time. (Admittedly, this is much cheaper, so it looks like I'll be eating sandwiches for most meals until I meet up with the family.) We prepared Mint Juleps for a World of Drinks party at his dorm, which was no small feat, since Austrian shops do not sell bags of ice. (Most dorm-mates were having the same problem: when one asked a store owner where they might find bags of ice, he replied, "try Italy or Spain.") Eventually, a barista at a gas station coffee shop agreed to give us ice if we came back with bags; when we did, she didn't seem too pleased and we left with just one bag.
Today we walked around the Altstadt and "hiked" (steep grade, but ~5 minute walk) to the Festung ("fortress") at the top of the hill. From here, you can see in all directions, and as I remarked that Salzburg doesn't seem all that big, Justin replied that it's about 150,000 people -- "about 2 Palo Altos." Well, no wonder I'm underwhelmed. It's pretty, but it seems heavily divided between a nice center and very sleepy outlying residential areas. There seems to be very little to do after dark, especially in Justin's neck of the woods, except drink with the dorm mates. Hrm.
We also tried going to the major cathedral in town, but at noon on a Saturday, everyone else was trying to go, too -- for services. We got inside before we realized what was going on, and quickly made our way out again. There were also men and women dressed up in dirndls and lederhosen (which still seem rather unreal to me) and, as I looked back at the cathedral, I noticed large H&M advertisements draped on its walls. Odd.
Other noteables: when we stopped for a cup of coffee, I spotted a man calmly having a cuppa. He was wearing bland clothes and seemed in his mid-fifties, and would have been altogether unremarkable if his face hadn't been painted gold. I was too bashful to take a picture, but later we did see him doing his moving statue routine, complete with gold garb. I did snap a picture then -- brave me! Also, when we started our rounds this morning, there was a publicity stunt going for Magna ice cream bars. Women dressed up in skimpy tribal wear were dancing and bowing towards a large plastic Magna bar, and others were handing out fliers that said, "We worship it -- do you?"
I'm very anxious with my German. I'm trying to use it, but if I make one slip-up, it's very likely that the person I'm talking to switches to english in an attempt to make the transaction easier. Therefore, I've gotten very little practice in the very language I've spent X years trying to learn! Hmph.
Tomorrow I'm heading out to Berlin, a city that I think is much more exciting. Perhaps this is largely because it's a) bigger and b) more metropolitan. I'm meeting up with my housemate from college there, and we'll spend 4 days in Berlin before moving on to Amsterdam.
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