27 April 2008
Spring has finally come to Vienna! The birds are singing, the sun is shining, people are sitting outside their cafes, and I can hear the sounds of people screaming when I open my window (because I live a block away from an amusement park). Everyone people are coming out of their holes and spending more time outside or going to see things. Thus, I spent all of today outside café-hopping (as opposed to bar hopping).
This week was not particularly interesting. Most of it was spend working in some way or another. I did have an interesting “cultural experience” this week though. During a break in one of my philosophy classes, all of the students wandered over to the philosophy student lounge. Before that, I had not known that the room existed. There’s an entire lounge for just one department in the university?! Does each department get its own lounge? Everyone there was smoking and there were chairs to hang out in and a makeshift library. There was also food there—breads, spreads, coffee, etc.—but that’s only there on Wednesdays, apparently. Still, it’s a heck of a lot more than my philosophy department ever gets. In any case, someone heard me speaking English and asked where I was from. I said, “America,” and he said “America!” really loudly, and then started saying “George Bush! Bush! Do you like Obama? Obama! Do you like Obama?” I said that I liked Obama well enough, and then his companion (also a random Austrian man, too old to be students) said to me “I think you would prefer Clinton.” I asked him, “Why do you think that?” and he said, “Because of your haircut.”
Is that what the Austrians think of us? That you can look at an American person and tell their political beliefs from their physical appearance? It was slightly bizarre.
Then yesterday I went to Salzburg with my school group. The train ride there takes about 3 hours, and the countryside is beautiful and green, with many scattered small villages. Salzburg is in the Alps, near the German border (near Bavaria). You can walk across the town in around half an hour (maybe a little more) and it’s Austria’s third largest city (which gives you some idea about the size of the rest of them). Salzburg is best known to Americans as “that place in Austria where they filmed The Sound of Music” but is also the birthplace of Mozart. In our visit to Salzburg, we ignored this fact entirely, and went to see the castle (which is on top of a large hill and looms over everything) and a modern art museum. I quite liked seeing the castle but modern art isn’t really my thing. We also went to lunch at a restaurant which served Austrian, Italian, and Indian specialties, which seems like a very bizarre combination. For dessert, I had something called a Mohr im Hemd, which literally translates to “A Moor in a shirt.” It was a chocolate cake with whipped cream (presumably the cake is the Moor and the whipped cream is the shirt). Not only was it tasty, but it made me think about how a dessert would never be called something like that in the US—people would find it offensive. Yet here no one bats an eye at that, or at a chocolate called Mohrkpf—Moor’s head.
In any case, the weather has been beautiful here, and I’m enjoying the spring immensely. The next three weeks will give me little opportunity to take advantage of it, however. In a few days I’m leaving for Istanbul, and staying there for 5 days, and then a few days after my return I’m going to Paris for 5 days, and one day after that return I’m going on a mission trip to Romania for 4 days. Then, maybe, I will get a chance to breathe.
20 April 2008
Tuesday morning in class we watched a really strange yet highly entertaining movie called Wittgenstein, about the Viennese philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein. Suffice it to say that there was a midget dressed up as a green Martian. I met my mom and we went to see the Kunsthistoriches Museum (the Museum of Fine Arts). The museum is inside a beautiful neo-classical building, which in and of itself is worth a trip to the museum. They have a great coin collection, lots of Baroque and Renaissance art, and then two interesting exhibitions. One was on Arcimboldo (the Italian Renaissance painter who created people’s faces out of flowers or fruits), and the other was showing some ancient Chinese artifacts from the royal treasury (or something like that). Anyway, it was interesting getting to see a different kind of artwork from what I’ve gotten used to seeing in Europe. The antique porcelain they had was just gorgeous—it was so “typically” Chinese that now it would be considered kitschy, but since it was about 700 years old it was beautiful. The calligraphy and painting section was also incredible.
I had to return to class, but afterwards we went to Figl Müller, a restaurant in the Innere Stadt (inner city) which serves Wiener Schnitzels larger than your plate. That was pretty exciting.
Wednesday morning we made it over to Café Sperl for breakfast (Hitler’s former haunt, but, more importantly, a fantastic Art Nouveau café). I introduce my mom to the Wiener Frühstuck (Viennese breakfast). This consists of either coffee or tea, and kaiser rolls with butter and jam. Interestingly enough, they only call them kaiser rolls in Germany; here they are semmeln.
Later on we went to the Hofburg, which is right on the edge of the Innere Stadt. This is where the National Library, the Imperial Apartments, the Spanish Riding School, and the Center of Congress are located. Right next to the complex is Heldenplatz, the square where Hitler made speeches to the masses after the Anschluss in 1938. It’s a good area for concentrated sight-seeing. First we saw the Silberkammer (the Imperial Silver Collection of the Hapsburgs). It’s amazing how much china and silverware one family could accumulate. I know they were royal and had a lot of banquets, but it took us half an hour to simply get through the rooms showing all of these things. From here we went through the Sissi Museum. Sissi, or Kaiserin Elisabeth, was the empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the last half of the 19th century. She was married to Franz Joseph, and his nephew was Archduke Franz Ferdinand who got assassinated in Sarajevo and set off World War I. The museum was really great, because they had preserved so many of her personal items, and also showed excerpts of her poetry. She seems like a really fascinating woman, who hated court life and stayed away as often as she could, though her husband loved her dearly all the way until his death.
The Imperial Apartments (where Franz Joseph and Elisabeth lived when they were in Vienna) were really great. Of all the palaces I’ve seen (the Residenz in Munich, Neueschwanstein in Bavaria, Versailles in Paris, the Popes’ Palace in Avignon, etc) the Hofburg is definitely my favorite. They just managed to preserve so many personal items, pieces of furniture, original artwork, etc, that you could get a really good idea of how they must have lived. I really enjoyed it.
Later that night we went to a restaurant called Aromat, which was a lot of fun because there is only room for about 30 customers there, and the menu changes daily based on what the proprietor picks out at the Naschmarkt (the produce market) that day. It was a really cozy friendly place, and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. Best of all, we were the only tourists there!
The next day my program took a tour of the UN complex in Vienna, and my mom tagged along. First we listened to a talk about the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was really interesting. I learned about a number of good, peaceful uses for atomic energy, and about the safeguards the UN places on countries to keep them in line. Then we took a tour of the UN complex. Here are some fun facts:
That night my mom and I went to a restaurant called Beim Czaak, which was also cozy and non-touristy. My mom got Tafelspitz (a traditional Viennese meal of boiled beef, sort of like pot roast) and I got Fiaker Goulash (different from Hungarian goulash in that there are no egg noodles, just meat in paprika sauce, with boiled potatoes and a fried egg on top). Mmm…
On Friday we set out for Schönbrunn, another imperial palace that was more like a country home because it used to be outside the city limits. Now you can get there by U-Bahn from the Hofburg in 25 minutes. After you’ve seen the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg, Schönbrunn is sort of repetitive. It is, however, bigger, and it has very beautiful grounds that you can walk in, or you can just sit on the grass and take in the sun. It’s still beautiful, but I think it’s a little too perfect for me.
Then we went to the Belvedere, which was a Baroque palace originally built for Prince Eugene of Savoy (who aided the Austrians during the Thirty Years War), but now it’s an art museum. There are actually two building which make up the Belvedere—the upper building and the lower building. The two are connected by a large garden. We didn’t make it to the Lower Belvedere, but the Upper Belvedere has paintings from the 19th century. Most notable of all is Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss. Klimt was a Secession painter in Vienna. The Secession movement was Vienna’s version of Art Nouveau, and Klimt was at the head of it. I’ve really started to like his work, especially after seeing The Kiss. It’s a fairly famous painting, but only seeing it in person will do it justice, partly due to the large amount of gold he used in his “Gold Period.” There were some other works by Klimt there which were also good to see.
Then, of course, my mom and I went shopping—always a good thing to do. Most importantly, however, I finally found an English bookstore in Vienna! Vienna is just one step closer to being perfect.
From there we met up with a friend of mine and went to a Heuriger. This is a winegrower’s tavern, where they serve the new wine. A traditional Heuriger would be attached to a vineyard, and serve its own wine, but now this isn’t really expected. The best Heuriger are in the northwest of Vienna, in the area of Grinzing (there are quite a few vineyards there). We managed to find the one we were looking for (Mayer am Pfarrplatz) without too much difficulty, especially since we were off my map. The Heuriger was great—it had a wonderful, genuine ambiance, and fabulous wine. Traditionally, you’re supposed to drink a lot of wine and then you get food from a buffet, but we were all so hungry that we ordered food brought to our table—much more plentiful.
Saturday my mother and I went to the Flohmark (flea market). We combed through the junk and such and had a great time doing it. Then we went to the Naschmarkt (produce market) and got some lunch. We walked over to the Secession, which I had not been inside before. The building itself is really worth looking at. It’s all white, except for gold embellishments and a huge globe made of golden leaves at the top. Unfortunately, when we got inside we discovered that only the permenant part of the museum was open, because the exhibitions were being prepared. Normally that’s not a big problem, but the Secession movement wanted this building to be always dedicated to whatever art was contemporary at the time. This means that the museum has basically one piece of art in the permanent collection, and the rest is ever-changing exhibitions. This sole piece of art is Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, which is very beautiful. It wasn’t meant to be a permenant piece of art, but fortunately someone save it and now it’s in the museum. It’s a very cool piece; I enjoyed looking at it.
Finally we went back to Demel so that my mom could experience some Sacher torte before she left. Sacher torte is a chocolate cake with apricot jam and a chocolate top. It’s quite tasty. In fact, I think that my mom and I did an informal survey of the torten in Vienna. So far, I’ve tasted Kokostorte, Mozarttorte, Sachertorte, Truffelstorte, Kaffeenusstorte, Karottentorte, Esterhazytorte, Marrokanertorte…I think that’s it. Esterhazytorte is my favorite.
That night, I got ready for a ball. Yes, a real honest to goodness ball! It was a charity ball held at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. The dress code was strict: either evening wear or national dress. This means that there were people in kilts there, or a woman in a Dindl (a typical Austrian dress), or men in Lederhosen. Which got me thinking…if I had to wear national dress, what would that be? Older people in Vienna still wear national Austrian dress on a daily basis. Would it be like what Martha Washington would wear?
The ball opened with some musical performances by students of the Academy. The opening number was two people singing “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. The reason for this was unbeknownst to us. Then there was another song, and a violin performance. Then the band started up, and 8 couples did the opening dance. All of the women had to wear floor-length white dresses, and the men suits. They started with the Polonaise, and then segued into the waltz (to Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz, of course). Of course, there was a miniature orchestra to play all of this classical music. It was a really great experience, just to see that part of old Viennese culture that is still kept alive today. Plus, I got to go to a ball. Need I say more?
Sadly, my mother departed the next morning. I met up with some friends afterwards and we wandered up to the Augarten. This is a sizable park in the north of Vienna, between the Danube and the Danube Canal. There were tons of people there, playing with footballs or with their dogs, or just sitting and enjoying a picnic. I felt like I had stumbled on a secret Viennese hideout, unbeknownst to any tourists. What I found most fascinating about it, however, were the two large anti-aircraft towers from World War II in the middle of the park. They were enormous concrete structures, vast towers, and just looked so incongruous and out of place. They were especially out of place because Vienna has gotten rid of almost all physical evidence left over from World War II, so seeing these huge towers reminded me that the war was here as well. In Paris, there are numerous plaques detailing incidents of French resistance, or Jewish ghettos, but there is nothing like that here.
All in all it was a pretty amazing week, because I got to see parts of Vienna that I hadn’t seen before. It reminded me that there are still things left for me to discover here! Luckily, I have another 2 and a half months to do it. Onward and upward!
Barcelona
I feel a little bit like a chicken whose head has been cut off. I returned home from Easter break and immediately was thrust back into classes. That first week back I almost never left my room, partly because I had come down with some sort of wonderful virus thing, but also because I was completely drained, hopping from city to city and sleeping on trains and planes and not so comfortable beds with dirty showers. I just spent time basking in the wonderfulness of familiarity, sleeping my way back to health, and reading Zorba the Greek (a solidly good book).
Of course classes have been interesting—my French class more than any other. I signed up for a course, which, according to the course description, was taught in French, and was on morality in French philosophy. That’s right up my alley! How was I supposed to know that the professor would actually teach in German, even though everyone’s French is good enough that he could speak in French and we would understand, and even though I have told him several times that I am in beginning German and that I don’t understand anything he says. The only way I know what’s going on in the class is that he has the other students translate his German sentences into French, and that’s my only insight into whatever he’s saying. Every once in a while I play the role of the token English speaker and translate some things into English. It seems clear to me that he can’t fathom what I’m doing in the class, and keeps asking me if I can understand. No, Professor, my grasp of German is about at the same level as last week. I’ve tried addressing the issue with him, but he won’t even acknowledge my questions. He just keeps talking as though I’ve said nothing. Worst of all, he’s an incompetent teacher. The German speakers (everyone else) are learning barely more than I am. Incompetency is just one thing I won’t forgive.
Sigh. Enough of things that make me angry. My other philosophy course is actually quite good. As in the US, the number of men in the class is vastly larger than the number of women. Unlike in the US, the students are almost always actively engaged, and it’s normal for the other students to continue the discussions during break, after class, or to schedule extra time with the professor to go over things. In the US, we just put our heads down and plow through the work, I think, though there is some of that teacher hounding. This also contrasts with the initial reports I received of Vienna; that the Austrian university students don’t really put a lot of effort into their courses and they aren’t as rigorous as US courses. The intensity of the course seems to vary; my French course has absolutely no homework and no reading, ever, while my other two courses have about the same amount of reading (one a little less) as US philosophy courses. So I’m not really sure on that account.
Then, last Friday, I went to the airport and got my mother. She’s come for a visit! We only got a few hours in Vienna before we took a train to Bratislava, a taxi to the Bratislava airport, and then a flight to Barcelona. I didn’t really get to see any of Bratislava, but it’s amazingly near by, and cheap (1 hour; 9 euros for a one way ticket).
We were in Barcelona for Saturday, Sunday, and half of Monday. We made our way to the Cathedral, the Picasso Museum, the Chocolate Museum, the Dali Museum, the National Museum of Catalan Art, the Museum of Catalan History, and Sagrada Familia. The Picasso Museum was very interesting because you got to see the progression of Picasso’s art from the very beginning to the end. I especially liked his Blue Period pieces. The Chocolate Museum was incredible. Not only was it on a topic near and dear to my heart, but it was impeccably done. The museum went through the discovery, processing, and consumption of cacao, and was full of large sculptures made from chocolate (including many famous monuments of Barcelona). At the end of the museum you can sit down in the café and have a number of chocolate candies or hot chocolate. The hot chocolate there was definitely the best I have ever had—in the US, Paris, or Vienna (excepting my mother’s home made hot chocolate, of course). Barcelona is officially the new chocolate capital of Europe. There were also confiseries all over the city, with many many tasty treats. The Cathedral was also very beautiful (as was all of the Gothic city in Barcelona) but the façade was under construction so we couldn’t see it very well. We went up to the roof and got a great view of the city.
The Dali Museum was also very interesting, with a great collection of his works. I particularly liked seeing his series of religious works, or his interpretations of Les Fables de La Fontaine. The National Museum of Catalan Art is in the old palace on top of a hill rising up above the medieval city core, and is very beautiful and majestic. They have a great Gothic Art collection, as well as a lot of modern works. We saw a couple of Gaudi’s works (a architect from Barcelona at the turn of the century), including Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is one of the landmarks of Barcelona, and is that big church with the four spires…unfortunately the entire interior and part of the exterior were under reconstruction so it was hard to get a good feel about it. The Museum of Catalan History was also very well done, and gave a great overview of Catalan history basically since the beginning of time. It was fascinating to read about all of the struggles between the different areas of Spain, and about traditions specific to Cataluyna. Nowadays, we just think of Spain, not of Cataluyna, Andalucia, etc.
To explain further this whole thing, Cataluyna is a region of Spain in the northeast, and Barcelona is its biggest city. The language spoken there is Catalan, and Catalan is somewhere between Castilian and French, linguistically. Almost everything there was written first in Catalan, then in Castilian (what we would call Spanish), and then in English. I knew that there were different languages spoken in Spain, especially in the Basque region, but it never really occurred to me that Spanish was a language specific to one region in Spain, or that it even had another name. In the schools in Barcelona, all of the children study Catalan and Castilian, but at home and with their friends they usually stick with Catalan. Like many other countries in Europe, this seems to indicate a greater attachment to a region of the country rather than to the country as a whole. One friend I have even goes so far as to say that he is not from Spain, not from Cataluyna, but from Barcelona—that’s what he identifies himself with.
Anyway, Barcelona is a beautiful city. I wish I had gotten to spend more time there. We flew back to Bratislava and got back to Vienna.
So I’ve likely turned everyone away with my very long (and perhaps uninteresting) accounts of my Easter break travels. However, a picture says a thousand words, so I guess looking at these photos will tell you far more than I ever could.
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Larnaka 28-31 March 2008
We were exhausted getting to Larnaka (a city on the southern coast of Cyprus). For those who don’t know (and I didn’t), Cyprus is not actually in the area of the Greek islands, but is south of Turkey, and closer to Turkey and Syria and Lebanon than to Crete. The climate isn’t lush and green like in Greece, but is closer to a desert climate (somewhat like the Great Plains, except with more hills). We took a taxi to our hotel and discovered that there was no one at the front desk. There was, however, a sign saying that we should go to the house next to the Lithos Bar (right next to the hotel). We must have looked very lost and out of place because some little old Cypriot woman came up to us and started speaking Greek. The only English words she knew were “yes” and “hotel.” Yes, hotel! She called someone out of the house (who turned out to be her grandson), and he checked us in. Apparently it’s a very family run business—they own the bar and the hotel, and will do anything and everything for their guests.
Nevertheless, we took a nice long nap, and then decided to walk to Larnaka. The hotel clerk had told us that there was a bus going between Oroklini and Larnaka. When reserving the hotel, we thought it was in Larnaka (which the address reinforced) yet upon our arrival discovered we were actually in a little village called Oroklini (apparently Larnaka is a region as well as a city of Cyprus) Nevertheless, we didn’t think that was a big deal. We could walk to Larnaka without a problem.
Two hours later in the occasional rain, my feet begged to differ. It takes approximately two hours to walk between the two places, and a great deal of it was either following the highway or going cross country between the patches of new suburban neighborhoods. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, and this January switched from the Cypriot pound to the Euro. I think this is the reason that real estate in Cyprus seems to be such a big industry now—Cyprus is developing very quickly. Nevertheless, I wish I could have observed this from inside instead of outside for 10 kilometers (okay, not that far away, but it was much further than I had anticipated and it threw me completely off guard). By the time we got to Larnaka we were both tired, a little wet and cranky, and had finished an entire rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” We walked around the city some, got dinner, and then took a taxi back to the hotel (the last bus to Oroklini leaves at 5:45 in the afternoon).
The next morning we went downstairs to ask where a good place to have breakfast would be. The hotel owner (a very boisterous Greek type) told us that we would have trouble finding somewhere to have breakfast because it was a Saturday (Cypriots don’t seem that concerned with convenience). So, he called his wife in and told her to make breakfast for us. She made a fantastic breakfast, complete with scrambled eggs, halloumi (the Cypriot cheese, made from goat’s milk), village bread and honey, tea, and coffee. We did end up having to pay for it, of course. From breakfast we marched straight to the bus stop—we weren’t going to Larnaka by foot today, by golly!
According to the bus schedule, the bus to Larnaka leaves Oroklini at 10:30 Monday-Saturday. It was a Saturday, but by 11 it became abundantly clear that sometimes the Cypriots do whatever they feel like when it comes to the transportation system. So we walked to Larnaka again.
Trouble was, it was only upon arriving in Larnaka that we consulted our makeshift guide book (some pages ripped out of a over-large brochure in the tourism office) that we realized little to no tourist sights in Larnaka were open on a Saturday, and even fewer of those are open after 2 (we arrived at 1:30). Exhausted and defeated by the Cypriot gods, we got ice cream, walked on the beach with our shoes off, and wandered every little street of Larnaka we could find, until it was an acceptable time to eat dinner.
We went to this really cute restaurant right on the water and decided to get a meze. A meze is basically a quick overview of Cypriot cuisine for two or more people, and it’s usually 20 dishes or so. We got 3 kinds of sauce (tzatziki, tahini, and something else made with fish roe), French fries, olives, and then two miniaturized versions of all the classic Cypriot meat dishes—sausages, meat prepared this way and that way, breaded ground lamb, Greek salad, grape leaves stuffed with ground lamb and rice (my favorite!) and on and on. It was so so tasty and a really fun experience. It was literally hard to move afterwards due to all of the food that we had eaten.
The next morning we got up early—we were going scuba diving! The scuba diving instructor was due to pick us up at the hotel, but we didn’t realize that the clocks “sprung forward” that morning so we were actually an hour late to meet him, but it worked out okay anyway. We talked about all of the gear, suited up in wetsuits, flippers, and goggles, as well as lead weights (otherwise you would float too much). I think it’s impossible to look good in a wetsuit, by the way (at least it’s really really difficult). The feeling of being in a wetsuit is something like what you felt when you were little and your parents bundled you up for winter. All of your limbs stick out straight, and it’s difficult to bend anything; you just sort of shuffle around stiffly. Once in some shallow water, I discovered that although Cyprus itself is quite warm in March—I got so sun-burned blowing on it hurt—the water is not as warm. Fortunately the wetsuits do a lot to keep you from freezing. We practiced breathing with the oxygen tank and all that good stuff, and what to do in cases of emergency. We had to add a lot of extra lead weights to me to make me sink—apparently I’m a very buoyant person. Then we put our flippers on, which made it really hard for me to stand upright in the chest deep water, because the waves kept buffeting me, and with all that extra weight and flippers a feather could have knocked me over. The waves knocked me over a couple of times and the instructor had to pick me up again. That was fun.
We finally headed out into the water. It was so amazing! I got to see all of these fish up close, an armored car that had sunk (we were near a British military base), a sea urchin, some anenomes, etc. It was a very cool experience, being able to look and see all of this water above you, and yet still be able to breath. Every once in a while I would remember that I was underwater, and then I would freak out and hold my breath, but then I just forced myself to take deep breaths and everything was okay.
Scuba diving really takes a lot out of you, so we headed back to the hotel very tired and thirsty. We went to one restaurant in Oroklini, but the family that owned the restaurant was celebrating someone’s birthday, and so all of the extended family had come over and was hanging out in the restaurant. It was nice to see that kind of family togetherness, but we felt like we were intruding, so we went somewhere else. After lunch we climbed the hills that back up to Oroklini. Of course, once we were at the top of the hills it started to rain, and during the worst of it we scurried into a hunter’s hideout on the game preserve which turned out to be on the other side of the hill, but there were spider webs in there so I left as soon as the rain let up even a little bit.
That night for dinner I had a really great sea bass (mm, seafood) in a taverna, where one of the other customers had gotten rather inebriated and was loudly singing along to the Greek songs our waitress was playing off her computer. By the end of the night though, she must have gotten fed up with him, because she started playing a DVD of Shania Twain in concert. He got the picture and left with his friends soon after.
The next day we were determined to catch the bus to Larnaka, and then after a couple of hours catch a bus to a village called Lefkara which is supposed to be very picturesque. The bus did come after all (joy) and we made it to Larnaka. We first went to Saint Lazaros Church. After his resurrection by Christ, Lazarus made his way to Cyprus and became the first bishop of Kition, the ancient town where Larnaka now is. In the 6th century the Cypriots built St Lazaros church in his honor after discovering his (second) grave. You can still see his gravesite in the crypt of the church, but Lazarus’ remains are no longer there—I think the pope did something with them; I’m not entirely sure what. The inside of the church is beautiful—many many Byzantine style icons and everything was gilded in gold. There were a good number of Greek Orthodox women who came in and proceeded to pray to and kiss every single icon in the church (probably about 30 of them). I was amazed to see this, because that would be so foreign to worshipers in an American church.
Next we made our way to the ruins of the ancient city of Kition, which was inhabited since 1300 BC. 33 hundred years ago, there were people living and building temples in that very spot. That fact was just so hard to get into my head. I would have to live my life 165 more times to get to 3300 years. That’s a lot. The ruins were interesting to think about, but not that impressive.
From there we went to the bus stop, where the bus schedule we had said that we could catch the bus to Lefkara. We got there and waited…waited…no bus. The buses to Lefkara only run one a day on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and we were pretty sure it was Monday, so why wasn’t the bus there? It just never showed up. That soured the tone of our day a little because we were both excited about getting to see a little village. Instead, we took a bus to Kiti, a town about 7 kilometers away from Larnaka, where there was a church with famous mosaics. They were fairly pretty, but didn’t blow me away. We returned to Larnaka, did a little shopping, and caught the bus back to Oroklini.
In conclusion, I hate the public transportation in Cyprus. Everyone there has cars, so I guess they feel no need to pay attention to the public transportation since they don’t use it. If we had rented a car in Cyprus, then it would have been so much more interesting, and we would have gotten to see many more things. The stores and museums also keep very limited hours, even in comparison to continental Europe. The whole system in Cyprus seems very arbitrary, as though each individual person gets to decide what to do everyday. I did, however, enjoy the scuba diving, the warm weather, and the little village of Oroklini.
Athens 24-27 March 2008
I arrived in Athens around three in the afternoon, but it took me nearly two hours to get to my hotel because I had so much confusion with the transportation system. Not only were most of the signs in a different alphabet (transcribed as well, but still confusing), but the hotel had given me directions to them that you can’t actually take. Needless to say, some improvising was in order. Interesting note: the Athens metro is the only one I have encountered where they do not allow you to take food into the metro station with you. How do the Americans eat breakfast?
I eventually arrived at the hotel and met my friend outside. I was a little overwhelmed, so we just stayed in the room and napped and talked for a bit. When it was dark out, we struck out for the Acropolis (that big rock in the middle of Athens with the ruins and temples on it—you can’t miss it). The Acropolis itself was closed since it was late, but we wandered in and around the tiny alleys of the houses bordering the Acropolis, and saw the various houses and people and stray cats there were to be seen. I kept wondering whether or not these houses would be considered prime real estate or not, because while they were near the most beautiful sight in Athens, there were almost always tourists, the houses were small, and there were many that were abandoned or in disrepair. That kept us occupied for a good amount of time, and then we managed to climb our way onto the Areopagus, which is a big white slippery rock right next to the Acropolis (and not fenced off at night). You can see most of the city from up there, which is probably one of the reasons that the ancient Athenians gathered there for democratic councils or voting, and why St Paul went there to preach to the Athenians. Of course, it is also the ideal place to see the Acropolis all lit up at night from.
The next day we woke up not sure of what the day would be like, because while we knew that it was Greek Independence Day, we didn’t know if that meant that all of the monuments would be closed or not. As soon as we stepped out of the hotel, we could huge numbers of military personnel being bussed in from all over Greece, and roads were being blocked off left and right for the parade later. We walked to Kerameikos (where the city walls of classical Athens are, and some other old stuff), and found it closed, so that pretty much sealed the deal for us. We wandered over to the flea market at the foot of the Acropolis, and did some wandering around there. All of the people who had legitimate stores instead of booths or blankets were watching the parade on TV, so we decided to go and see it for ourselves. The Air Force did several fly-bys (I never realized how loud they are!) and we just followed the loud sounds to part of the parade route. In order to see the parade above the people, I had to perch myself on a step somewhere, but I managed to see most of it from there.
The whole thing was just a huge military parade. In my neighborhood, all of the kids get up early and ride their bikes (which have been decorated with red, white, and blue ribbons) in the streets and the fire truck comes by and then everyone has a barbeque in their backyards. Last, you watch fireworks. To me, the military isn’t much involved in it, but maybe it is in Washington DC, as opposed to the suburbs of Colorado. In any case, I saw every kind of military person—the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, the officers, the brass band, the Ski Patrol (you can ski in Greece?), the scuba divers (walking down the streets outfitted in wet suits and oxygen tanks), the fire fighters, the police, the mountain climbers, and on and on. It was a lot of fun to see all of the people cheering and waving Greek flags.
After the parade was over we headed back in the direction of the Acropolis, and walked near the Areopagus rock again. We scrambled up one side of the rock and down the other. On the other side, there are beautiful trees and lush grass, which made me wonder—how did the tourists not destroy it all? In any case, we started walking towards Filopappos hill (a hill opposite the Acropolis) only to find a fence between us and the road. We had climbed into forbidden, fenced off space without knowing it. Luckily, we managed to get out without attracting lots of attention (though I did have to scale a chain link fence). I wasn’t terribly worried about getting caught and punished though, since I knew that most of the people with the authority to do that had just finished a parade.
We went up to the top of Filopappos hill, where the remainder of a monument to the Muses stands. The fun thing about the hill is that there are ruins lying everywhere, like Greece just has too many to think about and they can only be bothered about the really important ones. When we got to the top, we could see all of Athens on one side and on the other Piraeus (Athens’ port town), and across the Aegean Sea the Peloponnese (the southern part of Greece). On the way down the hill, we searched and searched for one ruin in particular: the (supposed) prison of Socrates. Background story: Socrates used to wander around Athens during the democracy (5th century BC) and have philosophical conversations with people. In 399 BC, he was charged with corrupting the Athenian youth and blasphemy again the gods and was thrown in jail. He was put on trail and condemned. According to the dialogue Crito by Plato, Socrates was given the opportunity to escape from jail and refused it. He was executed by drinking hemlock. It took us a very long time to find it, but we finally did. It looks like three cells carved into a gigantic rock (please refer to picture). Being there was really special for both us, as philosophy majors.
We left our point of pilgrimage and wandered down the hill to the Pynx, which is a broad flat area of land where the Athenian democratic councils met every week. There were also some temple ruins in the area and a platform where the orators would stand to speak. Being tired from being out in the sun (finally—somewhere warm!) we went to get ice cream and then to nap.
The next day we got up early and caught a bus to Delphi. Background story: Delphi was the center of the ancient Greek world. There was a very important Temple of Apollo there, but more important was the Oracle of Delphi inside it. According to legend, the Sybil sat in a cavern underneath the Temple, chewing poppies and laurel leaves, and inhaling fumes from a chasm below her. The fate of nations hung on the prophecies she would give whenever she went into her trances, though she was only accessible by priests who mediated between the pilgrims and the Sybil. Everyone who was anyone consulted the Oracle on most important decisions, which is very interesting because it took us three hours by bus to get to Delphi from Athens. It must have taken more than a week to reach it by foot. I guess decisions just took longer to make back then.
The town of Delphi is very small and seated on the side of a mountain, plunging down into a picturesque valley. The scenery is gorgeous, and the town is very quaint. We went to the Archaeological Museum of Delphi first to get some background, and then went to the first set of ruins (there are two sets, about 2 km apart). To get to the Temple of Apollo, you go on the very windy Sacred Way, which passes by a number of houses and treasuries (cities would dedicate treasuries full of treasure to the Oracle) and small temples. There’s not much to the Temple of Apollo anymore, just a few standing columns, the entrance ramp, and the roof, but you can clearly see how huge it was. Up the mountain from the temple is a Roman stadium, built after the Romans conquered Greece and the temple complex ceased to have the same significance.
About two kilometers away on the hill are a second set of ruins. There is a fountain where pilgrims would cleanse themselves before setting foot on the Sacred Way, a Roman gymnasium, and a pre-temple to Athena. A “pre-temple” (my terminology) is a smaller temple that pilgrims visit before going to see the more important temple.
The visit to Delphi was probably my favorite part of Greece, because you got to combine scenery with ancient ruins, and there was certainly enough there to keep us occupied for the better part of the day.
The next day in Athens (Thursday) was our last day for sight-seeing in Athens. Naturally, we climbed up the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon, the Temple to Athenian Nike (Victory), the Theatre of Dionysus, and other less notable ruins. While we were there, it gradually dawned on me how much of the ruins are reconstructed. Even the few columns of the Parthenon that are now standing didn’t used to be standing—people put them back up and replaced stones in their original positions. So few of these ruins actually survive intact that people just have to guess and hope for the best. The theatre of Dionysus didn’t look like that to the ancient Greeks, but only to the Romans who came and altered it later. The pots and statues that you see in museums don’t look anything like that when they come out of the ground—most of the pots are missing pieces and somebody has to reconstruct those missing pieces. Nevertheless, museums showcase them as complete items. It really made me think about how little survives to the present day. When we say that something really lasts, like the Parthenon, how much of it would have lasted it we had left it completely alone, from Socrates to us? Would it be more or less intact? Is the destruction due more to the elements or to people? Just some thoughts.
From the Acropolis we wandered down into the Agora (the marketplace of democratic Athens), saw the Temple of Hephaestus, and then we went to Hadrian’s Library, the Tower of the Winds, and the Roman Forum. I got to see an ancient stone toilet seat that was about 2000 years old! My neck and my upper back also got hideously sun-burned and it was quite hot, so we tried some tzatziki sauce (yougurt and cucumber) with bread—an excellent dish to cool down with. Then we walked over to the Benaki Museum, which traces Greek history from the Stone Age to the 20th century. That was really cool—I especially liked seeing some of the artifacts from the Byzantine Empire.
As far as Greek food goes, we had souvlaki, lamb stew, white beans in tomato sauce, baklava, Greek salad, pittes (like cheese pies)…all pretty tasty. We also tried ouzo, which is a liquor distilled from anise. When you get it it’s clear, but after you add some ice and water to it it turns a cloudy white color. I did not enjoy it that much.
Our flight out of Athens was at 6:10 in the morning, and instead of trying to take a taxi around 3:30, we decided to try to get to the airport late the night before using the metro. My guidebook told me that the trains stopped working at 12:30 am, so we left around 11:30 am. We got about halfway to the airport when we were told to get off the train. It was there we discovered that they sort of stop the trains running when they feel like it (say, 11:45 pm) and that there are different closing times for the trains which go to the airport anyway. We had to take a taxi the rest of the way and spent a few hours trying to sleep on the metal benches with arm rests at the airport. No fun. Needless to say when we got to Cyprus we were not bright eyed and bushy tailed.
Budapest/Vienna 22-23 March 2008
My experience in Budapest was somewhat different than my experiences in the other cities I visited. Mostly, I have my brother’s friend from school and his father to thank for that. We got to be picked up at the train station, stay in a real house, with real beds—and rooms to ourselves! Budapest was also rainy so I saw many things from the inside of the car. Actually, to be frank, my brother and his friend were more into hanging out than sight-seeing, so I just sort of went along for the ride.
We did go to see the House of Terror, which is a museum about the pro-Nazi regime in Hungary and the time under the Soviets. It was a really interesting museum, but far too little of it was in English for me to really get a good understanding of it. We also went inside Saint Stephen’s Basilica, and we saw Heroes’ Square and Parliament. We explored the Castle Hill some (not nearly as much as I would have liked). Castle Hill has a lot of wonderful medieval remnants and a beautiful view of the city. Last, but not least, I saw fast driving through Budapest’s narrow streets and no less than three shopping malls. Ah, Europe at it’s best.
From what I understand, Hungary as an Eastern European nation is somewhat unique because it is not Slavic. It’s surrounded by Slavic cultures, but the language is actually closer to Finnish than any other European language. And, strangely enough, it sounds a bit like Japanese.
Being in Hungary for less than 36 hours didn’t give me a great chance to explore Budapest, but I think I saw enough to get me back there someday. Moreover, it gave me a much needed rest after all of the non-stop traveling I had been doing. And, I got to play with dogs. So it was all fine with me.
On Easter Sunday my brother’s friend and his father drove us back to Vienna. We got here late, and decided to eat dinner around my dorm rather than going into the city center. We went into this little Italian place right down the street from me which had really great gnocchi and someone playing the piano. That was nice. I also liked getting to shower in my shower, and sleep in my bed. In the middle of the night I put my brother into a taxi to the airport, and a couple of hours later I was there myself, on the way to Athens.
Krakow 20-21 March 2008
The next stop on our trip was Krakow in Poland. Krakow is unique as a sizable Polish city because it virtually escaped destruction during WWII, so it still has the majority of its older buildings.
I must admit that I am completely biased about Krakow. I just absolutely loved it. It was cold, yes, and it snowed and rained intermittently, but it was such a beautiful city. Our hostel was less than a five minute walk from the town square, with lots of shops and restaurants on our street (if anybody is curious, it’s the Hocus Pocus Hostel—quite nice). In the town square was another Easter market, with tons of pigeons that tried to steal the tasty sausage and potatoes I got for lunch. For dessert they had square waffles either covered in whipped cream or in jam. Right on the square was St. Mary’s Church. Every hour on the hour someone sounds a bugle call from the top of the church towers. The tune used to be played in medieval times whenever there was a threat to the city. Unfortunately, one bugle player in the 13th century was not paying very good attention, and only got through part of the tune before a Tartar arrow stuck him in the throat. Now, the tune breaks off suddenly to symbolize that time.
From the Easter market we went to see Wawel Hill—Krakow’s castle district. We didn’t get to see many of the sights though, because we went around 2 in the afternoon. Why should this be a problem if Wawel Hill doesn’t close until 4? All tickets were given out according to a unique system—there are a limited number of tickets available for each attraction each day. Thus, if you go later in the day, you risk having some portion of the hill being sold out. Thus, the Royal Chambers, the Royal Private Apartments, the Dragon’s Cave, and Lost Wawel were all sold out when we got there. The only things left to us were the Wawel Cathedral and the Treasury and Armoury. The Treasury didn’t measure up to the treasury in Munich, but the Armoury was really interesting. We tried going into the cathedral, but there was a man inside who said the cathedral was closed. We went to a nearby ticket office, and someone there told us the cathedral was closed on Mondays (well, it was Thursday, so that confused us). We also consulted the opening hours listed on the fence outside the cathedral, which said it would be open until 4 (it was 2:30). We finally gave up and walked back to Krakow. However, this was not an uncommon phenomenon—there was something in every city which was supposed to be there or supposed to be open but wasn’t. It was probably good for me to get used to changing my plans, which usually makes me very upset, but I would have preferred to learn the lesson while not on vacation.
Other than the beautiful old town and the great stores, I also loved the exchange rate. In Prague, you need 25 Koruna to equal 1 Euro. It takes about 5.5 Polish złoty to equal 1 Euro. Nevertheless, even though the currency is weaker, Prague is still more expensive than Krakow. This is probably because Prague is a very popular, trendy place to go, and Krakow is less so. For two people for two days, with food, accommodations, transportation, and sightseeing, it was about 300 US dollars. Really quite good.
Polish food is much the same as other Eastern European food—dumplings, cabbage, and meat. Quite tasty.
The next day we got up early and caught a bus to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. It’s about 20 minutes to a half hour outside of Krakow, so it’s pretty easy to get to. The trouble is, you aren’t allowed in the mine unless you are part of a tour group, and we had just missed the last tour group by 5 minutes, so we had to wait for about an hour until the next English tour left. We went to look at some booths outside while we were waiting, which had every kind of salt souvenir you could wish for. There were salt lamps, salt rosaries, salt jewelry, metal trees with salt leaves, bags of salt, salt rocks, etc. The other big souvenir item in both Krakow was amber. In Prague the items of choice were amber, Bohemian crystal, wooden marionettes, and absinth. In Munich you should go for cuckoo clocks, nutcrackers, and beer steins. Of course, everywhere offered chocolate bunnies, Easter treats, and hand painted eggs for Easter.
When we finally got into the Salt Mine, it was absolutely incredible. Here are some fun facts:
1) To get to the first and highest level of the mine, we went down 52 flights of stairs (with 7 stairs each). Starting out at the top of the stairs, you could not actually see the bottom.
2) We went on a 2.5 hour tour, and we only saw 1% of the mine.
3) The mine has been in use over 300 years.
4) Since it was a pain to lower horses in every day to lug around the salt, they had stables for up to 100 horses that just lived in the mines full time.
5) Inside the salt mine is the largest underground chapel in the world, the Chapel of the Blessed Kinga (a medieval Polish Queen), which is entirely carved out of salt—from the altar to the pews to the chandeliers to the floor—all salt. INCREDIBLE.
6) I was 135 meters below the surface of the earth, though the salt mine goes much deeper.
7) I got cell reception when I was 135 meters below the surface of the earth.
All in all the salt mine was one of the most amazing things I saw on my vacation. Definitely a MUST SEE! It’s amazing how something so common can be so beautiful and awe-inspiring if you just look at it in a different way.
From the salt mine we went back to Krakow, and caught a bus to Oświęcim (a town about three hours away, better known as Auschwitz). As we woke up later than we intended to and had to wait so long to get into the salt mine, we only had an hour to see Auschwitz. Going into former concentration camp with the knowledge that it was the largest camp of its kind during WWII, I was surprised to see that I could walk the across the shorter length of the camp in about 5 minutes, and the longer length in 10 to 15 minutes. Later I learned that we only visited Auschwitz I, and more than forty sub-camps were established before the end of the war. Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and all of the other sub-camps are counted together to comprise the largest camp of the Holocaust, even though most of them aren’t that near to one another. Auschwitz I and II are the closest together (I believe) and they are 3 km apart.
The size was only one of my assumptions that did not match up to reality. It did have one gas chamber, but it was outside the barbed wire, and was originally a crematorium. It only became a converted gas chamber later. It was not until Birkenau that there were buildings make for this express purpose. Upon first arrival in the camp, I did see the sign “Arbeit macht frei” (work makes us free) over the entrance, but what I initially thought were the crematoria was actually the kitchen. I had always pictured the barracks as one story brick buildings, which they were originally (they were once Polish army barracks) but as the camp expanded the prisoners where forced to add second stories to nearly all of the buildings. Also, the original occupants of the barracks where Polish prisoners of war, not Gypsies or Jews. I additionally learned that the Polish people (as part of a Slavic race) were almost as abhorrent to Nazi Germany as the Jewish people, and were persecuted in much the same way. Another interesting thing about the camp is that each nation once represented by the prisoners of Auschwitz was also represented in museum displays. One barrack housed a display on Polish people in Auschwitz, one on the French, one on the Romanian, the Austrians, the Jews, and so on and so forth. It really brought home the fact that more than simply Jews were “undesirable” to the Nazi ideology. I also found it very interesting that the train station where all the new prisoners arrived was so far away from the camp—at least a couple of kilometers. Since we only had an hour, we spent all of our time at Auschwitz I, and did not make it over to Birkenau.
Once we made it back to Krakow, we were both very hungry and went to find something to eat immediately (food is an affirmation of life). Our train that night to Budapest was an incredible luxury—a non-stop train with sleeping compartments. We both had a bed, and inside the compartment was a little sink, table, and closet. There was even a ladder so I could climb up onto my bunk. Finally, I got a decent night’s sleep on the train and didn’t have to worry about stops or deal with other people. It’s probably the best way to travel.
Prague 18-19 March
No more the worse for wear than cranky, cold, and sleep deprived, we finally made it to Prague on Tuesday morning. The first thing we did was make our way towards Hradčany—the Prague Castle district. It’s a little tricky to find, but we made it eventually. While the view over Prague from Hradčany was incredible, and the sights very interesting, I was most enraptured by the Czech weather. Outside of Colorado, I have never seen the weather change that quickly. When we arrived, it was sunny. Then it started snowing a little, then a lot, then a little, then it rained, then it was sunny again. This occurred in the course of about 45 minutes. The weather continued in the fashion for the rest of our stay. Initially, we headed towards St Vitus Cathedral in the center of the castle district, but discovered we couldn’t get in due to a funeral that was being held there—I can only assume someone really important was being interred. So we went to see an exhibition on military hats, which was pretty funny. Not so long ago, the military wore hats meant to impress, but I’m sure they really got in the way during battle and made you an easy target. We also saw the Old Royal Palace, and thus were right near the window where the fateful Defenestration of Prague took place. We also saw Lobkowitz Palace, which has a museum of Czech history—this was my favorite part. We came down from the Castle Hill and wandered in the Old Town some—there was an Easter Market in the Old Town Square, and I got some fried dough that was wrapped around a pole to cool and then slid off and covered with cinnamon sugar—can’t remember what it was called though. At the hour, we watched the Gothic astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall go off—a skeleton rings a bell. It’s not that exciting, especially when you compare it to the antics of the Glockenspiel in Munich. The next day we set off for Vyšehrad, the ruins of a castle in which the Princes of Bohemia used to reside in medieval times. I love seeing ruins of castles, so I thought the whole thing was very interesting. I wanted to see the inner passageways, but you could only go on a guided tour and we would have to wait around for a half an hour—my brother was hungry. We also saw the cemetery where all notable Czechs are buried, and surmised that Rodina is the most popular name for a Czech woman—or else they all got buried in the same cemetery. There were a lot of them. Next we headed back to the old town, and went to the small and not very well known Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments. I found it a very interesting museum, because there was so much information provided about each instrument. I also learned that there were about 2-4 years back in the 1700s when torture was a recommended form of interrogation in Austria, during the last couple of years of Maria Therea’s life. After this we went to the Sex Machines Museum—it was open when all the other sights were closed. Seeing that right after the Medieval Torture Instruments Museum really got me thinking about the very interesting ways people use their creativity. All in all both museums were quite fascinating and revealing. I even got to watch one of the oldest surviving pornographic films, which is from 1920s Spain. Wow… We next headed to dinner, where I got a succulent duck with potato dumplings and Bohemian cabbage. SO SO GOOD! Interesting note about cabbage: dumplings and cabbage seem to be paired often in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland, but cabbage is less common in Austria, though the dumpling still retains its significance. After dinner I insisted upon heading back to the Vltava (river running through Prague) to get some night photos of Prague Castle and Charles Bridge. That, combined with getting lost trying to find the metro, made us miss our train to Poland. Fortunately, we got on another train a hour and a half later, which wasn’t non-stop, but at least let us stay inside during our layover.
Munich 15-17 March 2008
I arrived in Munich on a Sunday night, set myself up in a hostel room (which was me and 5 men…little awkward). I was very hungry, so I went to this restaurant called Café am Beethovenplatz, which I HIGHLY recommend. The ambiance was great—live music, not too big, not too small, all the furniture and floors were dark wood, columns, good service, etc. The Schweinbraten (pork chops with Bavarian cabbage and an enormous potato dumpling the size of two fists) was very tasty. The next morning I got up early to pick my brother up at the airport. My brother had not been to Europe since the fateful family trip to Germany back in the spring of 1999 (or something like that). Ever since then he has had this image of Europe as a place where there is too much walking and very boring museums. Nearly 10 years later, he was finally willing to give it a chance again in order to visit me. I got him at the airport without a hitch, and the first thing we visited was BMW Welt (BMW World). This wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but my brother loves cars, and BMWs in particular, so we went to check it out. Unfortunately, BMW Museum was undergoing renovation, so we say instead a huge glorified showroom with displays on the science behind BMWs. Some of it was interesting but most of it went straight over my head. Next we made our way to the Deutsches Museum, which is a museum of science and technology. It was absolutely enormous, and was interesting even to a humanities person like me. There were sections on glass, physics, nuclear energy, aviation, outer space, steam engines, etc. And those were only the sections we got to see. My guide book says there are 13 km (Lonely Planet: Central Europe) of corridors in the museum, and I believe it. Tons of fun stuff to play with and see. After this we returned to the hostel to get my brother a jet-lag nap. The next day our hostel offered a free walking tour of the city. Our hostel was pretty good like that—they had a bar and a nap room downstairs, and all of the 6-person rooms with dorm beds in them got their own washrooms. I jumped at the chance to go on this walking tour, and my brother followed along. We got to see the majority of the old city (though so much of it was rebuilt following the mass destruction of WWII) and heard a great deal of anecdotes about the city. After the tour, we saw the Residenz (the palace) and the Schatzkammer (the treasury). The treasury was just incredible. How do they justify all this opulence? Doesn’t it become gaudy? Everything was diamond studded and covered in seed pearls and gold and silver. After seeing the decadence which inevitably accompanies palaces, we discovered a problem: it was Monday. Americans don’t normally think of this as a problem, but it was—many museums in Europe close on Mondays, depending on the country. For example, Monday is the day to close tourist attractions in Austria, Germany, and France. France sometimes switches this to Tuesday though. Pretty much all European countries close shops (but not museums) on Sundays, though in Cyprus they close almost everything on Sundays and pretend to have things open on Saturdays (but they end up keeping whatever hours they please). Thus, being tourists in Munich on a Monday was a problem. The Residenz was the only sight which was open, plus it was raining on and off, and so we were really at a loss with what to do with ourselves until dinner time. We ended up exploring almost every square meter of the old town by foot, and doing a lot of tourist shopping. We had dinner a traditional Munich beer hall (Augustiner Bierhalle). As our train did not leave until midnight, we didn’t get there until 9, and spent an hour nursing a Bavarian beer (which I found detestable—the only thing I could stomach was a Radler, a beer with lemonade) with pretzels. Then we ordered dinner, which was sausages, of course. Towards the end of our time, a table near us filled up with 16 year old boys downing pints and singing really obnoxious songs, which I suppose is a risk you run in a beer hall. Nevertheless, I was not a fan, so we let for the train station. Upon arrival in the train station, I took my tickets to the counter to try to figure out the times on my tickets. The nice thing about most train tickets here is that they are valid for a certain period of time, and you can take any train during that time to get from one place to another. After getting a time table from the information counter, we learned that we would have a 4 hour layover between 1:30 and 5:30 am in some German town named Regensburg. While I was not especially pleased by this, I didn’t start tearing my clothes either. We got on the first train, made it to Regensburg, got off the train, and walked towards the train station. Upon reaching the door however, we discovered it was locked. With my rudimentary German, I read the sign on the door—the train station closes between 1 am and 4 am. I immediately went into panic mode. Here we are, two kids who don’t speak the language, somewhere in Germany in the middle of the night in winter temperatures, and we have to catch a train in 4 hours, but we can’t get into the train station for another 2 and a half. I don’t know if my mood has ever soured so quickly. We lugged our suitcases over to a hotel we saw nearby, and asked if we could sit in their lobby. No. Went to another hotel—no. The MacDonalds was closed. The only open thing was a gentleman’s club, which I refused to go in. In the end we ended up back at the train station, sitting in an atrium type thing which was neither inside nor outside. To make matters worse, there was a bakery downstairs making fresh rolls and croissants, taunting me, but they weren’t opening until 5. The whole thing definitely had to be the low point of the week.
