.
So, something I totally forgot to mention from when I was in Athens back in April. As Kirizabeth and I walked around, there were all these guys sitting along the sides of the streets selling little toys and knickknacks. You know how McDonald's conducts studies to figure out how closely they can space their restaurants so that they don't interfere with each other's business? These guys don't do that. Then again, the sales on gummy-esque toy tomatoes that re-form after you splat them down on a surface is probably already so low that they don't have much more to fear business-wise. So, as you walk, you'll see almost a dozen guys lining a given street, sitting in front of cutting boards, and relentlessly throwing these toy tomatoes down onto them, stopping only to look up as you pass with the identical (and identically delivered) line "Hello my friend!"
Funniest visual of 2010.
(188) is Tuesday, 13 July 2010.
And speaking of visuals, here are a few more photos from the last few days.
The last couple days have been awesome. Bastille Day (French independence day*) was on Wednesday, so there was lots to do. Tuesday night featured a HUGE rave (that's techno for "dance party") on the beach at Cannes. Right on the beach. Good DJ and several hundred people just there to enjoy. It was great...!
I got home after a few hours and caught fireworks over the bay here in Juan-les-Pins. And my nifty new camera has a special 'Fireworks' mode.
(189) is Wednesday, 14 July 2010.
Wednesday was a national holiday, so no class got in the way of my sleeping in. My roommate Tiziano and I really didn't do much... We mostly hung out at the house because everywhere with air conditioning (namely the library) was closed for the holiday and my fan was the best we could do in the brutally hot weather.
But that night, I got a great bistro dinner and went back over to Cannes for their fireworks. They have an international fireworks festival going on now, with one entry per week. The next one is next Wednesday (the 21st), and I would go see it, but I have jazz tickets (more on that shortly). But suffice it to say that the display that I did catch (from a team representing the Czech Republic) featured some of the most dazzling pyrotechnics I have ever seen.
Also, just a note on the peculiarity of American film release dates in other countries. Today, Toy Story 3 was released in France. Compare that with the 17 June release date in the Czech Republic.
(190) is Thursday, 15 July 2010.
Class again today, followed by lunch at the CIA cafeteria (which is actually a good deal and very convenient). I met a few new people and hung out with them at the (open and air-conditioned) library for a bit. They're in intro-level French classes, which is cool because I get to help them out and practice being a teaching assistant for the coming school year. Also, they're very nice and a group of us are all going out tomorrow (Friday/(191)) night.
I then got dinner at Wich, a basically gourmet sandwich stand located here, not far from the center of Old Town Antibes. I took it and waited in line for one of the best concerts I've ever attended.
I don't know how well I've explained this, but Juan-les-Pins is famous for its annual jazz festival, one that consistently attracts the biggest names in jazz each year. There are 10 days of concerts on their main stage, which is set up with the audience overlooking the water (that is, if they can take their eyes off the performers). I bought very reasonably-priced tickets** to five shows. Tonight's bill had two acts, the first of which was a trio formed of saxophonist David Sanborn, drummer Steve Gadd, and organist/vocalist/trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco. They were quite good (DeFrancesco was my favorite). And their finale featured a guest appearance by jazz guitarist John McLaughlin.
The second act was George Benson and his band. They blew me away.
After this epic 3-hour concert, I left and, as I passed the town's big casino hotel, I ran into Steve Gadd and Joey DeFrancesco coming out. I told them they were fantastic, thanked them for the evening, and shook both their hands. I then got a crepe with Nutella and Grand Marnier to finish the evening. To quote Ray Charles:
Let the good times roll.
--------------------------------------
Footnotes
* Just a historical note: Bastille Day was when the French citizens desperately broke into the Bastille prison/fortress in Paris (I don't know that it's still standing) on 14 July, 1789. A new constitution was in the works, but the people had reason to believe that they and their representatives were in danger from the absolutist regime. So, in an effort to free unjustly detained political prisoners and gather arms against the attack they so feared, a huge mass of people stormed the Bastille in what has become emblematic of French pride and tradition. And, emblematic of this lovably contradictory culture, there were exactly 7 prisoners in the Bastille that day. And none of them really mattered. And they certainly didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
** This is one thing I will certainly miss about Europe. France in particular is very good to its students. In the United States, on the other hand, a movie theater will give you 50 cents - maybe - off of an overpriced evening ticket, and no discount during the day. But French museums will let students in for 50-100% off, and I got my jazz tickets for about a third of their "starting from" prices in the brochures.
Showing posts with label recommendation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recommendation. Show all posts
16 July 2010
06 July 2010
(162-166): Prague Blog!
.
It rhymes! Get it...? Why, yes, I am six years old.
There is one small but significant event I have to open with. While I was in Prague, somebody bumped into me and knocked my camera out of my hand. It then ceased to turn on.
Now, reading that, you'd think most sane people wouldn't make such a big deal about such a little thing. There are, however, three things I ask you to consider about what you'd think:
1.) This is a blog. What function do these poor little rambling websites have other than making a big deal about little things?
2.) I openly confess to being an American tourist. However, I also take great pleasure in framing my shots as well as I can and taking pictures of little reminders and oddities, in addition to the popular sites. Picture-taking has become my favorite hobby while I've been travelling.
3.) I am not sane.
The long and short of it is that my touristic habits were rather disrupted by my efforts to repair/replace my 2½-years-faithful Canon SD1000. As a result, I didn't get to know or photograph this beautiful old city* as well I would have liked. But, also as a result, I am now packing a beautiful new camera that is just like the old one, only better in virtually every way.
Here are the photos from Prague.
(162) was my mother's birthday: Thursday, 17 June 2010.
PlusPrague is a sweet hostel... very cheap (8 USD per night), clean and bright, great staff, welcome drinks and other niceties... the only problem is its relatively remote location, exacerbated by the early-to-bed-early-to-rise subway system.**
I made my way to Dancing House, located here. This is the other Frank Gehry building I foreshadowed in the Berlin entry. The building (which I love) was designed to evoke an image of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. I also understand that the former Czech president used to live in the adjacent building. As I continued walking, I decided I was already taken with this beautiful city; its weather and buildings are beautiful (so many gorgeous facades).
One thing I forgot to mention about the transportation system in Prague is that a hefty part of it is a network of above-ground trams. I have a love-hate relationship with trams. On one hand, I find them incredibly charming, and Prague's are particularly quaint (in a good way). I have no problem with the trams themselves, but the suspended wires required to power them are constantly in the way of my building facade pictures.
My next stop was The Globe, located here. This is an English-language bookstore and cafe. I know you think I'm silly for getting into Prague and basically heading right for something I could find in the states, but I can defend this one. This is a pretty famous expat spot, and browsing books and eating at their cafe made me really feel like an expat (in the cool, literary way) for the first time since I'd been abroad. Also, their food is quite good; I hadn't had a bacon cheeseburger that good (or that reasonably priced) in a while, and the peanut butter cheesecake I ordered after was outstanding. I didn't necessarily mean to stay long, but from book browsing to eating to book browsing to starting a conversation with a cute Czech girl to listening to live music in the cafe to more book browsing... I left around 10 PM, smiling from a great evening.
(163) is Friday, 18 June 2010.
One reason I chose to go to Prague was to celebrate the birthday of Kaysey Grard, a friend I met through Kirill in Paris. She had been getting a group together and I figured it would be fun to have a core group of people to hang out with for a change. So, when Kaysey and Kristi showed up, we went to the Chinese Market near our hostel. Kallie, just showing up from the train station, joined us and we browsed. This market is another place to haggle and they have a lot of knickknacks and stuff.
We got some food and drinks before going out to a few bars that night in the name of Kaysey's birthday. And one place played an amazing remix of "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty. The remix is here.
Honestly, the biggest thing that happened the next day was that I realized I would be in Antibes in a week's time.
(165) is Sunday, 20 June 2010.
I got up early to go look for a new camera. The stores all said the damage would be as expensive to fix as a new camera, and while I didn't believe them, I doubted any store was going to tell me differently and I needed to start taking pictures again STAT. Plus, if I was going to buy a new camera in a store in Europe, chances are good I wouldn't get much better prices than I would in Prague.***
I ultimately didn't find a camera I liked, but while wandering around the area near the big camera shop, I found this really cool shopping mall that reminded me of the railway station in the beginning of Spirited Away. It had a really cool, eerie feel to it on a cloudy Sunday morning. It has an antique feel the color of old paper and several cool stores (including a store full of old cameras). Also, I don't think its layout obeys Euclidean geography, because the various exits spit you out onto streets you don't expect in a downright baffling way.
At one point today, I felt like I was running out of steam... I've been on the road for a month, going to several extremely different places for a few days at a time. When I travel, I keep up a certain professionalism about it, a certain courtesy toward each city and the time I spend there. I plan as much as I can: how to get to the hostel, a few things I want to see while I wander, a few restaurants TripAdvisor says are good... I try to minimize the time spent online because I shouldn't waste my precious time in X-ville or Y-lin. But I am ready to spend some time doing nothing and not feel guilty about it.
On the other hand, Ristorante Carmelita was great. It may not be traditional fare, but it's cheap and the Gnocchi al Forno was filling and absolutely delicious. Find it here.
Back at the hostel, we all had a final drink before Kaysey made her way to the airport and everyone prepared to disperse the next day. It was a nice ending note.
(166) is Monday, 21 June 2010.
I got my new camera. It's wonderful. The pictures are amazing. And I had about 6 hours to take pictures of everything I wanted to document in Prague.
This included the Magical Mystery Mall (where I wandered Sunday morning), the nearby rose garden, bridges, metronome and panorama of the city, town square, a store selling crazy stuff, and trams. I took the least efficient and most touristy route possible, but I had time and a 24-hour transit pass. I also had lunch at NOI, whose delicious Phad Thai has convinced me that I love Thai food. It's here, just up the street from Ristorante Carmelita.
I had another overnight train to catch.
------------------------------------
Fruit by the Footnotes
* I'm told that Prague is so architecturally diverse because it's the only city in Europe that wasn't demolished by the Nazis during WWII. And be warned: you're in for another photo album with lots of buildings (but more people this time).
** And I don't get why they don't go 24 hours... Prague is something of a party city, so why don't they keep it open when people will need it most? DC is kind of the same way...
*** You have no idea how satisfying it is to go from the Euro (which, granted, isn't as bad as it was in January) and the Pound - both of which dominate the dollar - to the Czech Kurona. It's so much fun to look at the price of something, divide it by 20, and THEN decide if it's reasonable.
It rhymes! Get it...? Why, yes, I am six years old.
There is one small but significant event I have to open with. While I was in Prague, somebody bumped into me and knocked my camera out of my hand. It then ceased to turn on.
Now, reading that, you'd think most sane people wouldn't make such a big deal about such a little thing. There are, however, three things I ask you to consider about what you'd think:
1.) This is a blog. What function do these poor little rambling websites have other than making a big deal about little things?
2.) I openly confess to being an American tourist. However, I also take great pleasure in framing my shots as well as I can and taking pictures of little reminders and oddities, in addition to the popular sites. Picture-taking has become my favorite hobby while I've been travelling.
3.) I am not sane.
The long and short of it is that my touristic habits were rather disrupted by my efforts to repair/replace my 2½-years-faithful Canon SD1000. As a result, I didn't get to know or photograph this beautiful old city* as well I would have liked. But, also as a result, I am now packing a beautiful new camera that is just like the old one, only better in virtually every way.
Here are the photos from Prague.
(162) was my mother's birthday: Thursday, 17 June 2010.
PlusPrague is a sweet hostel... very cheap (8 USD per night), clean and bright, great staff, welcome drinks and other niceties... the only problem is its relatively remote location, exacerbated by the early-to-bed-early-to-rise subway system.**
I made my way to Dancing House, located here. This is the other Frank Gehry building I foreshadowed in the Berlin entry. The building (which I love) was designed to evoke an image of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. I also understand that the former Czech president used to live in the adjacent building. As I continued walking, I decided I was already taken with this beautiful city; its weather and buildings are beautiful (so many gorgeous facades).
One thing I forgot to mention about the transportation system in Prague is that a hefty part of it is a network of above-ground trams. I have a love-hate relationship with trams. On one hand, I find them incredibly charming, and Prague's are particularly quaint (in a good way). I have no problem with the trams themselves, but the suspended wires required to power them are constantly in the way of my building facade pictures.
My next stop was The Globe, located here. This is an English-language bookstore and cafe. I know you think I'm silly for getting into Prague and basically heading right for something I could find in the states, but I can defend this one. This is a pretty famous expat spot, and browsing books and eating at their cafe made me really feel like an expat (in the cool, literary way) for the first time since I'd been abroad. Also, their food is quite good; I hadn't had a bacon cheeseburger that good (or that reasonably priced) in a while, and the peanut butter cheesecake I ordered after was outstanding. I didn't necessarily mean to stay long, but from book browsing to eating to book browsing to starting a conversation with a cute Czech girl to listening to live music in the cafe to more book browsing... I left around 10 PM, smiling from a great evening.
(163) is Friday, 18 June 2010.
One reason I chose to go to Prague was to celebrate the birthday of Kaysey Grard, a friend I met through Kirill in Paris. She had been getting a group together and I figured it would be fun to have a core group of people to hang out with for a change. So, when Kaysey and Kristi showed up, we went to the Chinese Market near our hostel. Kallie, just showing up from the train station, joined us and we browsed. This market is another place to haggle and they have a lot of knickknacks and stuff.
We got some food and drinks before going out to a few bars that night in the name of Kaysey's birthday. And one place played an amazing remix of "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty. The remix is here.
Honestly, the biggest thing that happened the next day was that I realized I would be in Antibes in a week's time.
(165) is Sunday, 20 June 2010.
I got up early to go look for a new camera. The stores all said the damage would be as expensive to fix as a new camera, and while I didn't believe them, I doubted any store was going to tell me differently and I needed to start taking pictures again STAT. Plus, if I was going to buy a new camera in a store in Europe, chances are good I wouldn't get much better prices than I would in Prague.***
I ultimately didn't find a camera I liked, but while wandering around the area near the big camera shop, I found this really cool shopping mall that reminded me of the railway station in the beginning of Spirited Away. It had a really cool, eerie feel to it on a cloudy Sunday morning. It has an antique feel the color of old paper and several cool stores (including a store full of old cameras). Also, I don't think its layout obeys Euclidean geography, because the various exits spit you out onto streets you don't expect in a downright baffling way.
At one point today, I felt like I was running out of steam... I've been on the road for a month, going to several extremely different places for a few days at a time. When I travel, I keep up a certain professionalism about it, a certain courtesy toward each city and the time I spend there. I plan as much as I can: how to get to the hostel, a few things I want to see while I wander, a few restaurants TripAdvisor says are good... I try to minimize the time spent online because I shouldn't waste my precious time in X-ville or Y-lin. But I am ready to spend some time doing nothing and not feel guilty about it.
On the other hand, Ristorante Carmelita was great. It may not be traditional fare, but it's cheap and the Gnocchi al Forno was filling and absolutely delicious. Find it here.
Back at the hostel, we all had a final drink before Kaysey made her way to the airport and everyone prepared to disperse the next day. It was a nice ending note.
(166) is Monday, 21 June 2010.
I got my new camera. It's wonderful. The pictures are amazing. And I had about 6 hours to take pictures of everything I wanted to document in Prague.
This included the Magical Mystery Mall (where I wandered Sunday morning), the nearby rose garden, bridges, metronome and panorama of the city, town square, a store selling crazy stuff, and trams. I took the least efficient and most touristy route possible, but I had time and a 24-hour transit pass. I also had lunch at NOI, whose delicious Phad Thai has convinced me that I love Thai food. It's here, just up the street from Ristorante Carmelita.
I had another overnight train to catch.
------------------------------------
Fruit by the Footnotes
* I'm told that Prague is so architecturally diverse because it's the only city in Europe that wasn't demolished by the Nazis during WWII. And be warned: you're in for another photo album with lots of buildings (but more people this time).
** And I don't get why they don't go 24 hours... Prague is something of a party city, so why don't they keep it open when people will need it most? DC is kind of the same way...
*** You have no idea how satisfying it is to go from the Euro (which, granted, isn't as bad as it was in January) and the Pound - both of which dominate the dollar - to the Czech Kurona. It's so much fun to look at the price of something, divide it by 20, and THEN decide if it's reasonable.
04 July 2010
(153½ -155): Oh, Aye!
I feel I need to start with an apology to the city of Edinburgh. I seek pardon for two offences:
1.) I’m sorry I never learned how to pronounce your name correctly. Friends had told me it was “Ed-in-bruh,” it’s spelled “ed-in-burg,” I also heard “Ed-in-burrow”… My name has been pronounced poorly (and consequently chortled at) for a long time, so I know how it feels and wanted you to know I didn’t mean any harm.
2.) I’m even more sorry that I did not give you the time you deserve. I should have booked an earlier flight from Dublin to take better advantage of (153). At another point, I was considering cancelling Amsterdam to spend the time here. For reasons that will later become clear to the third-party readers of my apology to you, I should have made that change, and for not doing so, I’m sorry.
…So, with that preface and these pictures in mind, let’s investigate just what it was I loved about this city.
Even more than Paris, this place makes grey look good. Well, to be more precise, the weather in Edinburgh is a win-win situation. Either it’s sunny and gorgeous (as it often was these three days), or it’s cloudy/foggy/raining (some combination of the three) and you feel like you’re in a gothic mystery novel set in the 1700s.
The only problem I encountered on this first evening is that nothing's open after 10. The pizza place where I wound up was fine, but definitely not what I was in the market for.
(154) is Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Breakfast, on the other hand, was the market. A full Scottish breakfast is like a full Irish breakfast, only they give you slightly bigger portions of everything, and a helping of haggis. Now, I’ve been through this debate with my future housemates and I don’t hope to convince them on the issue, but I would like to outline why I love this traditional Scottish fare.
Haggis is basically what’s left when a butcher has taken the typically desirable cuts of meat from a given animal (sheep, typically). These scrapings are processed in the same fashion as sausage and presented as a patty and treated with spices and other flavorings. This is the original budget meal; when you couldn’t get good meat, you made this. But, even when I can get okay meat, I get this along with it because I like how it tastes, I like the consistency in spite of myself, and I like that there’s a categorically adventurous food of which – for once –I am enamored and several of the people I know are skeptical.
Scottish breakfast was even more filling (better) than Irish breakfast, BUT… never order your morning orange juice from a bar. Especially not when you’ve been to Marrakesh recently. After eating, I left.
Hey, look! There’s the free tour of Edinburgh that Claudia recommended to me! Let’s spend three hours!
Actually, this turned out to be a really good idea. A company called Sandeman’s New Europe runs these tours daily in several major European cities, and it’s tips-only, so you pay what you think it was worth (which can be nothing—they’re totally okay with that). In my opinion, the best part was the means of getting my bearings without wasting a lot of time getting lost in places that don’t interest me (the downside of my beloved wandering tactics). To me, the stories and history are gravy.
Or at least, that’s how I feel about tours in other places.
Big reason #2 why Andy loves Edinburgh: This is a city that eats, drinks, and bleeds stories. As my tour guide explained, a lot of writers (including Robert Lewis Stevenson) have been drawn here. I imagine it was for the mood (and probably the whisky), but also, this city is full of great stories.
For example, one woman was relieved of her legally restrictive widow status by waking up after her own hanging and thereby exploiting the infrequently noted “till death do you part” loophole of marriage. She happily married the man who had been her lover in secret, and she wouldn’t die again for another 40 years.
There’s the source material for the original novel of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A doctor — upstanding by day and debaucherous by night — abused his patients' trust by stealing their valuables with the keys with which they entrust him. Better yet, this doctor, a well-regarded citizen, is appointed head of the investigation committee to find the thief. The doctor has also, by this time, created copies of keys and a crime syndicate of underlings to accelerate their work. Andy the writer says: brilliant setup, especially when you’re the first person to make it famous.
And let’s not forget Greyfriar’s Bobby, the well-loved terrier of the well-loved night watchman of the Greyfriar’s Church graveyard. Cute little dog spent every hour of every day at his master’s grave for fourteen years after his master’s death: the symbol of loyalty and good luck in Edinburgh.
So, after-- … *Sigh*… Seriously? …All right, fine: the first couple Harry Potter books were written in Edinburgh as well… There, you happy?
I met a few travelers on the tour with whom I ended up exploring Edinburgh Castle. This is pretty much the big site in the city. One thing that gets me, though, is that the people running the place know that, and they know that you’d rather fork over an uncompromising 14 pound (there’s not even a student discount) than miss the place. In any case, it’s here you’ve got some incredible views of the city, some impressive and well-maintained ramparts, a few lovely chapels and memorials, and Scotland’s crown jewels: the crown, the scepter, and the Stone of Destiny.
And, yes, the story they told us about the Stone of Destiny is every bit as epic as its name.
There’s some history here that I should have probably started with, and I’m probably not going to do it justice, so I highly encourage you to do some digging of your own. Scotland and England have always had issues. Even centuries and centuries ago, when the two states were separate, England was always trying to invade.* It often succeeded, but Scotland would usually reclaim independence. Two such stories are those of William Wallace, otherwise known as Mel Gibson in Braveheart, and his more successful successor, William the Bruce. But, at one point, England succeeded and Scotland became part of the British Empire. Scotland has held a grudge about this long and less-than-friendly history. It’s, from what I’m given to understand, the basis of the sometimes less-than-friendly rivalry between England and Scotland today. But Scotland has made several significant strides recently toward independence, including establishment roughly ten years back of Scotland’s own Parliament.**
But a more symbolic stride toward independence was – around the same time as the parliament – the return of the Stone of Destiny to Scottish soil. The stone itself is, I would say, neither bigger nor smaller than the proverbial breadbox, but it is WAY heavier and imbued with an ancient prophecy: “Where this stone sits, Scotland shall rule.” Every historic Scottish king had his coronation upon that stone.
England took the stone at one point, placing it beneath the coronation throne in London’s Westminster Abbey. This did not sit well with Scotland. More particularly, this did not sit well with four university students in the 1950s who, during a wave of Scottish nationalist sentiment, got together for drinks one night and decided to break in to Westminster and steal back the Stone.
This is the setup for an actual heist movie that I have every intention of seeing.
ANYWAY, back to my narrative, I finished seeing the castle and went with my new friends over to another hilltop on the other end of the Royal Mile.*** The Royal Mile is where the National Monument (an unfinished attempt at a Parthenon replica) sits and you can take great panoramic views of the city that include the Castle, as well as Arthur’s Seat, the impressive-looking plateau to the city’s west. A few such images appear in the album.
My fellow travelers then talked me into joining a pub crawl sponsored by the tour company. Here’s how that one played out a couple hours later between me and the guy signing people up for the tour. With no quotation marks... because I don’t feel like using them just now.
-Hey! Pub crawl! Can I sign up?
-Sure! Passport.
-Passport?
-Passport.
-Can I put it back in my room after you check me in?
-No, you can’t put it back in your room after I check you in.
-So, I have to carry this vital and hard-to-replace document with me to a series of bars all evening?
-Yes, you have to carry this vital and hard-to-replace document with you to a series of bars all evening.
-Awww…!
-But we're not going anywhere you're liable to lose it. Also, pubs wanna’ see it, and the UK requires you to carry government ID at all times.
-So I have to carry it?
-You have to carry it.
Hey! No pub crawl!
(155) is Thursday, 10 June 2010.
I began today on an odd note, which was the purchase of a new pair of shoes. Not something I typically do, but I’d been wearing the old pair since early December, and with all the miles I’d been putting on around Europe, the fact is they were shot. I don’t usually like white shoes, because they do nothing but get dirty, but they were the best deal and I figured that, if they were going to get dirty, at least they’d get their start hiking to the summit and around the plateaus of Arthur’s Seat.
After buying shoes first thing in the morning, I got an especially good Scottish breakfast at The Mitre, a pub on the Royal Mile with great service and atmosphere. Yup… nothing sets the atmosphere of a Scottish pub quite like the group of four at the table next to you quietly enjoying their 2+ morning rounds of pints.
So, I climbed. Arthur’s Seat? More like ANDREW’s Seat.
And I don’t know whose idea that sofa was, but whoever put a seat on Arthur’s Seat is a genius… a genius with considerable upper body strength.
After my triumphant descent from that beautiful locale, replete with great views and fresh air, I bought the tasty title treat of The Fudge House on the Royal Mile. I tried a very good sample just up the street at The Fudge Kitchen as well. I saved it for later, though, as I was about to eat a (very late) lunch at World’s End, a pub on the Royal Mile. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that everything you could want is there.
It is here that I tried Scotch whisky for the first time (someone explained to me that “whisky” is only Scottish when spelled without the letter “e”). I tried Glenkinnchie, a local brand, and I actually kind of liked it: a little sweet at first before the burn hits. I like the stuff with a burn to it… One reason is that – and I don’t know how I learned to do this with so little experience – but I can down it without flinching. Two, if I’m drinking something strong, I like to be reminded of it. It’s like there’s a consideration for contract there: I know I won’t go for too much without realizing it.
But the real appeal for this place is the food: the fish and chips on which I’d been going crazy were at their absolute finest here. For dessert (this place was that good), I had a chocolate cake with a molten white chocolate core and a scoop of vanilla ice cream that had the texture of being homemade. The description kind of speaks for itself, I think.
To top it all off, the service was great; my waitress was a lot of fun to talk to. We traded travel stories and Edinburgh stories, she told me how to find the University of Edinburgh where Yevgeniya and Claudia took classes****, and she held onto the headphones that fell out of my pocket for an hour until I realized and came back for them.
I spent the rest of the day wandering. On a completely different note, props to Edinburgh for being the only major city I've been to this year without some major attraction under scaffolding. I had to look really hard for two days before I found this:
It’s in one of the closes. A close is a very cool and mysterious stairway tucked into the buildings (and often covered) that links the Royal Mile to lower Edinburgh. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to love this city’s architecture, they added secret passages. Awesome.
I eventually found the University of Edinburgh, got dinner someplace I absolutely can’t recall, and packed for my departure the next day while listening to somebody performing “Johnny B. Goode” in a Scottish accent in a nearby pub.
------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* --“Say, Brain, what are we going to do tomorrow night!?”
--“The same thing we do every night, Pinky…”
** Not that you’d identify the building as such, though: it looks like an art museum decorated on the outside with — of all the bloody things — bamboo.
*** The Royal Mile is the main street of Scotland, and yes, it’s about a mile long. My hostel’s on it, the Castle is at one end, and if you follow it, you come to the Parliament building. It’s also lined with several good taverns, official buildings, and many shops and kiltmakers. It follows the slope of the hill on which the Castle sits – Scotland was actually formed by a volcanic explosion millions of years ago: thus, its sloped design. Back in the old days, the Mile was the center of everything and people virtually never ventured outside the gates because you’d have to pay taxes for doing so. It expanded, however, when people without plumbing needed more (and more sanitary) space to live. Now, you’ve got a nice little spread of a town that’s walkable in terms of distance to cover, though not necessarily in terms of hills to climb.
**** I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this for the record or not, but Claudia Sanchez and Yevgeniya (a.k.a. “Jenga”) Sergeyenko, two very close Vassar friends (Raymond What WHAT!), were my motivation to come to Edinburgh. They both studied there in the fall and told me it was a cool place, so I figured I would see where they studied and spend a few days in a city where somebody could suggest things for me to do. I also spent a few moments during my stay pondering the irony of our being in the same places (Edinburgh and Vassar) at alternating times.
1.) I’m sorry I never learned how to pronounce your name correctly. Friends had told me it was “Ed-in-bruh,” it’s spelled “ed-in-burg,” I also heard “Ed-in-burrow”… My name has been pronounced poorly (and consequently chortled at) for a long time, so I know how it feels and wanted you to know I didn’t mean any harm.
2.) I’m even more sorry that I did not give you the time you deserve. I should have booked an earlier flight from Dublin to take better advantage of (153). At another point, I was considering cancelling Amsterdam to spend the time here. For reasons that will later become clear to the third-party readers of my apology to you, I should have made that change, and for not doing so, I’m sorry.
…So, with that preface and these pictures in mind, let’s investigate just what it was I loved about this city.
Even more than Paris, this place makes grey look good. Well, to be more precise, the weather in Edinburgh is a win-win situation. Either it’s sunny and gorgeous (as it often was these three days), or it’s cloudy/foggy/raining (some combination of the three) and you feel like you’re in a gothic mystery novel set in the 1700s.
The only problem I encountered on this first evening is that nothing's open after 10. The pizza place where I wound up was fine, but definitely not what I was in the market for.
(154) is Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Breakfast, on the other hand, was the market. A full Scottish breakfast is like a full Irish breakfast, only they give you slightly bigger portions of everything, and a helping of haggis. Now, I’ve been through this debate with my future housemates and I don’t hope to convince them on the issue, but I would like to outline why I love this traditional Scottish fare.
Haggis is basically what’s left when a butcher has taken the typically desirable cuts of meat from a given animal (sheep, typically). These scrapings are processed in the same fashion as sausage and presented as a patty and treated with spices and other flavorings. This is the original budget meal; when you couldn’t get good meat, you made this. But, even when I can get okay meat, I get this along with it because I like how it tastes, I like the consistency in spite of myself, and I like that there’s a categorically adventurous food of which – for once –I am enamored and several of the people I know are skeptical.
Scottish breakfast was even more filling (better) than Irish breakfast, BUT… never order your morning orange juice from a bar. Especially not when you’ve been to Marrakesh recently. After eating, I left.
Hey, look! There’s the free tour of Edinburgh that Claudia recommended to me! Let’s spend three hours!
Actually, this turned out to be a really good idea. A company called Sandeman’s New Europe runs these tours daily in several major European cities, and it’s tips-only, so you pay what you think it was worth (which can be nothing—they’re totally okay with that). In my opinion, the best part was the means of getting my bearings without wasting a lot of time getting lost in places that don’t interest me (the downside of my beloved wandering tactics). To me, the stories and history are gravy.
Or at least, that’s how I feel about tours in other places.
Big reason #2 why Andy loves Edinburgh: This is a city that eats, drinks, and bleeds stories. As my tour guide explained, a lot of writers (including Robert Lewis Stevenson) have been drawn here. I imagine it was for the mood (and probably the whisky), but also, this city is full of great stories.
For example, one woman was relieved of her legally restrictive widow status by waking up after her own hanging and thereby exploiting the infrequently noted “till death do you part” loophole of marriage. She happily married the man who had been her lover in secret, and she wouldn’t die again for another 40 years.
There’s the source material for the original novel of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A doctor — upstanding by day and debaucherous by night — abused his patients' trust by stealing their valuables with the keys with which they entrust him. Better yet, this doctor, a well-regarded citizen, is appointed head of the investigation committee to find the thief. The doctor has also, by this time, created copies of keys and a crime syndicate of underlings to accelerate their work. Andy the writer says: brilliant setup, especially when you’re the first person to make it famous.
And let’s not forget Greyfriar’s Bobby, the well-loved terrier of the well-loved night watchman of the Greyfriar’s Church graveyard. Cute little dog spent every hour of every day at his master’s grave for fourteen years after his master’s death: the symbol of loyalty and good luck in Edinburgh.
So, after-- … *Sigh*… Seriously? …All right, fine: the first couple Harry Potter books were written in Edinburgh as well… There, you happy?
I met a few travelers on the tour with whom I ended up exploring Edinburgh Castle. This is pretty much the big site in the city. One thing that gets me, though, is that the people running the place know that, and they know that you’d rather fork over an uncompromising 14 pound (there’s not even a student discount) than miss the place. In any case, it’s here you’ve got some incredible views of the city, some impressive and well-maintained ramparts, a few lovely chapels and memorials, and Scotland’s crown jewels: the crown, the scepter, and the Stone of Destiny.
And, yes, the story they told us about the Stone of Destiny is every bit as epic as its name.
There’s some history here that I should have probably started with, and I’m probably not going to do it justice, so I highly encourage you to do some digging of your own. Scotland and England have always had issues. Even centuries and centuries ago, when the two states were separate, England was always trying to invade.* It often succeeded, but Scotland would usually reclaim independence. Two such stories are those of William Wallace, otherwise known as Mel Gibson in Braveheart, and his more successful successor, William the Bruce. But, at one point, England succeeded and Scotland became part of the British Empire. Scotland has held a grudge about this long and less-than-friendly history. It’s, from what I’m given to understand, the basis of the sometimes less-than-friendly rivalry between England and Scotland today. But Scotland has made several significant strides recently toward independence, including establishment roughly ten years back of Scotland’s own Parliament.**
But a more symbolic stride toward independence was – around the same time as the parliament – the return of the Stone of Destiny to Scottish soil. The stone itself is, I would say, neither bigger nor smaller than the proverbial breadbox, but it is WAY heavier and imbued with an ancient prophecy: “Where this stone sits, Scotland shall rule.” Every historic Scottish king had his coronation upon that stone.
England took the stone at one point, placing it beneath the coronation throne in London’s Westminster Abbey. This did not sit well with Scotland. More particularly, this did not sit well with four university students in the 1950s who, during a wave of Scottish nationalist sentiment, got together for drinks one night and decided to break in to Westminster and steal back the Stone.
This is the setup for an actual heist movie that I have every intention of seeing.
ANYWAY, back to my narrative, I finished seeing the castle and went with my new friends over to another hilltop on the other end of the Royal Mile.*** The Royal Mile is where the National Monument (an unfinished attempt at a Parthenon replica) sits and you can take great panoramic views of the city that include the Castle, as well as Arthur’s Seat, the impressive-looking plateau to the city’s west. A few such images appear in the album.
My fellow travelers then talked me into joining a pub crawl sponsored by the tour company. Here’s how that one played out a couple hours later between me and the guy signing people up for the tour. With no quotation marks... because I don’t feel like using them just now.
-Hey! Pub crawl! Can I sign up?
-Sure! Passport.
-Passport?
-Passport.
-Can I put it back in my room after you check me in?
-No, you can’t put it back in your room after I check you in.
-So, I have to carry this vital and hard-to-replace document with me to a series of bars all evening?
-Yes, you have to carry this vital and hard-to-replace document with you to a series of bars all evening.
-Awww…!
-But we're not going anywhere you're liable to lose it. Also, pubs wanna’ see it, and the UK requires you to carry government ID at all times.
-So I have to carry it?
-You have to carry it.
Hey! No pub crawl!
(155) is Thursday, 10 June 2010.
I began today on an odd note, which was the purchase of a new pair of shoes. Not something I typically do, but I’d been wearing the old pair since early December, and with all the miles I’d been putting on around Europe, the fact is they were shot. I don’t usually like white shoes, because they do nothing but get dirty, but they were the best deal and I figured that, if they were going to get dirty, at least they’d get their start hiking to the summit and around the plateaus of Arthur’s Seat.
After buying shoes first thing in the morning, I got an especially good Scottish breakfast at The Mitre, a pub on the Royal Mile with great service and atmosphere. Yup… nothing sets the atmosphere of a Scottish pub quite like the group of four at the table next to you quietly enjoying their 2+ morning rounds of pints.
So, I climbed. Arthur’s Seat? More like ANDREW’s Seat.
And I don’t know whose idea that sofa was, but whoever put a seat on Arthur’s Seat is a genius… a genius with considerable upper body strength.
After my triumphant descent from that beautiful locale, replete with great views and fresh air, I bought the tasty title treat of The Fudge House on the Royal Mile. I tried a very good sample just up the street at The Fudge Kitchen as well. I saved it for later, though, as I was about to eat a (very late) lunch at World’s End, a pub on the Royal Mile. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that everything you could want is there.
It is here that I tried Scotch whisky for the first time (someone explained to me that “whisky” is only Scottish when spelled without the letter “e”). I tried Glenkinnchie, a local brand, and I actually kind of liked it: a little sweet at first before the burn hits. I like the stuff with a burn to it… One reason is that – and I don’t know how I learned to do this with so little experience – but I can down it without flinching. Two, if I’m drinking something strong, I like to be reminded of it. It’s like there’s a consideration for contract there: I know I won’t go for too much without realizing it.
But the real appeal for this place is the food: the fish and chips on which I’d been going crazy were at their absolute finest here. For dessert (this place was that good), I had a chocolate cake with a molten white chocolate core and a scoop of vanilla ice cream that had the texture of being homemade. The description kind of speaks for itself, I think.
To top it all off, the service was great; my waitress was a lot of fun to talk to. We traded travel stories and Edinburgh stories, she told me how to find the University of Edinburgh where Yevgeniya and Claudia took classes****, and she held onto the headphones that fell out of my pocket for an hour until I realized and came back for them.
I spent the rest of the day wandering. On a completely different note, props to Edinburgh for being the only major city I've been to this year without some major attraction under scaffolding. I had to look really hard for two days before I found this:
It’s in one of the closes. A close is a very cool and mysterious stairway tucked into the buildings (and often covered) that links the Royal Mile to lower Edinburgh. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to love this city’s architecture, they added secret passages. Awesome.
I eventually found the University of Edinburgh, got dinner someplace I absolutely can’t recall, and packed for my departure the next day while listening to somebody performing “Johnny B. Goode” in a Scottish accent in a nearby pub.
------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* --“Say, Brain, what are we going to do tomorrow night!?”
--“The same thing we do every night, Pinky…”
** Not that you’d identify the building as such, though: it looks like an art museum decorated on the outside with — of all the bloody things — bamboo.
*** The Royal Mile is the main street of Scotland, and yes, it’s about a mile long. My hostel’s on it, the Castle is at one end, and if you follow it, you come to the Parliament building. It’s also lined with several good taverns, official buildings, and many shops and kiltmakers. It follows the slope of the hill on which the Castle sits – Scotland was actually formed by a volcanic explosion millions of years ago: thus, its sloped design. Back in the old days, the Mile was the center of everything and people virtually never ventured outside the gates because you’d have to pay taxes for doing so. It expanded, however, when people without plumbing needed more (and more sanitary) space to live. Now, you’ve got a nice little spread of a town that’s walkable in terms of distance to cover, though not necessarily in terms of hills to climb.
**** I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this for the record or not, but Claudia Sanchez and Yevgeniya (a.k.a. “Jenga”) Sergeyenko, two very close Vassar friends (Raymond What WHAT!), were my motivation to come to Edinburgh. They both studied there in the fall and told me it was a cool place, so I figured I would see where they studied and spend a few days in a city where somebody could suggest things for me to do. I also spent a few moments during my stay pondering the irony of our being in the same places (Edinburgh and Vassar) at alternating times.
28 June 2010
(151-153): I can't really think of a clever title for Dublin.
I basically spent (150) flying to Dublin and taking care of logistics for the rest of the month, so let’s start with photos and:
(151) is Sunday, 6 June 2010.
Globetrotter’s/The Townhouse. You will never get a better included-in-price hostel breakfast in your life. Full Irish breakfast includes fried eggs, ham, sausage, beans, tomato slice, and hash browns. Plus juice and coffee/tea. Breakfast in Marrakesh was good, too, but protein for breakfast… Ireland just gets it.
I went sightseeing with Fraser, one of my several roommates. We saw many things by rain: the famous Ha’penny Bridge, a church we couldn't get into, a brief look into the Jameson whiskey distillery, all on the way to the Guinness storehouse.
I’m slowly cultivating an appreciation for beer, and the Guinness storehouse helped me along a good deal. While I did tire very quickly of their continuous propaganda for the Arthur Guinness legend, I was glad to learn what’s in beer and how it’s made. Perhaps my favorite part of the whole exhibit, though, was the little stand where they have roasted barley for you to taste. It’s kind of a nice flavor, actually, and if I hadn’t tasted it early on, I probably wouldn’t have found it so easily in the complimentary pint they give out at the end. I had a much better predisposition toward Guinness (which is now one of my favorite least favorite drinks) because the barley actually puts up a fight against the hops, and I now know how to search for other flavors than the hops I can’t stand.
So, after the panoramic view out of the storehouse’s Gravity Bar, Fraser and I kept walking… a few churches (we went into only one because the others wanted money), Dublin Castle was closed when we got there, and we had a late lunch at a café called Queen of Tarts, located here. The Bailey’s cheesecake I had was outstanding, and the food itself was decent, but it’s one of those cutesy Sunday afternoon café places (I think the name says enough) where you’re paying a hefty amount for the atmosphere as well. “Cute” is not enough to sell me products or movies, so I felt a tad overcharged, but then again, it might have been nice to lounge for a few hours if I’d had more time.
(152) is Monday, 7 June 2010.
Had to get that breakfast again. Mm-MM!
I also woke up to a fascinating email from the Vassar College Dean of Studies. Apparently the Vassar French Department has named me an Academic Intern — basically a Teaching Assistant — for the 2010/2011 year.
Cool. Let's go on a day trip.
We went to Glendalough, the “valley of two lakes,” according to the pamphlet I saved, which was a nice hike and some very pretty green scenery. This is why I wanted to come to Ireland. We also stopped at a big pile of rocks called Brownshill Dolmen, a Druid equivalent to pyramids, and finally, Kilkenny City*, home of the beautiful Kilkenny Castle.
Second to the scenery at Glendalough, Kilkenny Castle was the highlight. I bent the rules and took photos of the castle when no one was looking (if they charge money, I feel justified). I just wish I’d gotten pictures of the library room, which had these incredible eaves painted with tree branches and leaves and let the light in beautifully through tall side windows. There’s a sweepingly high two-story ceiling as well.
Also, it was raining the whole day except for Glendalough, so I was constantly at war with my crappy umbrella. Also, just before getting on the bus to return to Dublin, I honored Sam Seifman and I got a Magnum Gold?! It was okay… vanilla/caramel/stuff… I like their the strawberry and white chocolate one better.
Paddy Wagon Tours is a fun tour company; I thought the guide was funny (although I was often alone in that sentiment). The whole tour, he kept telling stories and cracking jokes... He had good impressions of Clinton and Bush despite an Irish accent. I’m telling you, he had a whole bloody standup act... The only thing I’d critique was an occasionally rushed delivery of some jokes and kind of heavy-handed pokes at the two presidents. But he explained about some of the history and superstitions and was entertaining about it.
Fraser and I got dinner at the famous Temple Bar. Sandwiches were surprisingly good and filling.
(153) is Tuesday, 8 June 2010.
Today’s goal was to kill a few hours before flying to Edinburgh. I was pretty much over Dublin… it was grey and doesn’t offer much to people who drink as little as I do. It does offer that great breakfast, though…
I walked around the city some more, including Trinity College, which is a beautiful campus. I couldn’t quite persuade myself to see the Book of Kells, though… they were asking 9 euro to see an ancient book I’d never heard of before I got to Dublin (and without the aid of Google, I can’t even tell you now what it is). I did find a park with a charming Oscar Wilde statue, however, as well as lunch at Gallagher’s Boxty House in the Temple Bar area. I would actually recommend against this one; the food tasted great, but I went all-out and ordered their special boxty (it’s a potato pastry filled with meat — I want to say lamb? — and gravy) with a side of potatoes. I ate it and was full and satisfied and then — I’m not kidding — I left the restaurant and was starving (not just Paris hungry) less than ten minutes later.
I had also been fighting a little homesickness that day. You’d be surprised what sorts of things can fix it, though. I passed by a comic book store and popped in to see if they had any new volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist, an excellent Japanese comic book series (manga) that I follow. They didn’t, but I ended up paging through some older volumes of another favorite series.** Manga beats homesickness like scissors beats paper.
----------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* I had really hoped Kilkenny would be home to Irish South Park characters, but I was disappointed.
** Death Note, true to its name, is pretty grim, but the characters and cat-and-mouse plot are incredibly intricate; the story as a whole is simply phenomenal. This series also provided a good deal of early inspiration for my pet project screenplay. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you like darker stories and don’t mind reading right-to-left, I strongly recommend it.
(151) is Sunday, 6 June 2010.
Globetrotter’s/The Townhouse. You will never get a better included-in-price hostel breakfast in your life. Full Irish breakfast includes fried eggs, ham, sausage, beans, tomato slice, and hash browns. Plus juice and coffee/tea. Breakfast in Marrakesh was good, too, but protein for breakfast… Ireland just gets it.
I went sightseeing with Fraser, one of my several roommates. We saw many things by rain: the famous Ha’penny Bridge, a church we couldn't get into, a brief look into the Jameson whiskey distillery, all on the way to the Guinness storehouse.
I’m slowly cultivating an appreciation for beer, and the Guinness storehouse helped me along a good deal. While I did tire very quickly of their continuous propaganda for the Arthur Guinness legend, I was glad to learn what’s in beer and how it’s made. Perhaps my favorite part of the whole exhibit, though, was the little stand where they have roasted barley for you to taste. It’s kind of a nice flavor, actually, and if I hadn’t tasted it early on, I probably wouldn’t have found it so easily in the complimentary pint they give out at the end. I had a much better predisposition toward Guinness (which is now one of my favorite least favorite drinks) because the barley actually puts up a fight against the hops, and I now know how to search for other flavors than the hops I can’t stand.
So, after the panoramic view out of the storehouse’s Gravity Bar, Fraser and I kept walking… a few churches (we went into only one because the others wanted money), Dublin Castle was closed when we got there, and we had a late lunch at a café called Queen of Tarts, located here. The Bailey’s cheesecake I had was outstanding, and the food itself was decent, but it’s one of those cutesy Sunday afternoon café places (I think the name says enough) where you’re paying a hefty amount for the atmosphere as well. “Cute” is not enough to sell me products or movies, so I felt a tad overcharged, but then again, it might have been nice to lounge for a few hours if I’d had more time.
(152) is Monday, 7 June 2010.
Had to get that breakfast again. Mm-MM!
I also woke up to a fascinating email from the Vassar College Dean of Studies. Apparently the Vassar French Department has named me an Academic Intern — basically a Teaching Assistant — for the 2010/2011 year.
Cool. Let's go on a day trip.
We went to Glendalough, the “valley of two lakes,” according to the pamphlet I saved, which was a nice hike and some very pretty green scenery. This is why I wanted to come to Ireland. We also stopped at a big pile of rocks called Brownshill Dolmen, a Druid equivalent to pyramids, and finally, Kilkenny City*, home of the beautiful Kilkenny Castle.
Second to the scenery at Glendalough, Kilkenny Castle was the highlight. I bent the rules and took photos of the castle when no one was looking (if they charge money, I feel justified). I just wish I’d gotten pictures of the library room, which had these incredible eaves painted with tree branches and leaves and let the light in beautifully through tall side windows. There’s a sweepingly high two-story ceiling as well.
Also, it was raining the whole day except for Glendalough, so I was constantly at war with my crappy umbrella. Also, just before getting on the bus to return to Dublin, I honored Sam Seifman and I got a Magnum Gold?! It was okay… vanilla/caramel/stuff… I like their the strawberry and white chocolate one better.
Paddy Wagon Tours is a fun tour company; I thought the guide was funny (although I was often alone in that sentiment). The whole tour, he kept telling stories and cracking jokes... He had good impressions of Clinton and Bush despite an Irish accent. I’m telling you, he had a whole bloody standup act... The only thing I’d critique was an occasionally rushed delivery of some jokes and kind of heavy-handed pokes at the two presidents. But he explained about some of the history and superstitions and was entertaining about it.
Fraser and I got dinner at the famous Temple Bar. Sandwiches were surprisingly good and filling.
(153) is Tuesday, 8 June 2010.
Today’s goal was to kill a few hours before flying to Edinburgh. I was pretty much over Dublin… it was grey and doesn’t offer much to people who drink as little as I do. It does offer that great breakfast, though…
I walked around the city some more, including Trinity College, which is a beautiful campus. I couldn’t quite persuade myself to see the Book of Kells, though… they were asking 9 euro to see an ancient book I’d never heard of before I got to Dublin (and without the aid of Google, I can’t even tell you now what it is). I did find a park with a charming Oscar Wilde statue, however, as well as lunch at Gallagher’s Boxty House in the Temple Bar area. I would actually recommend against this one; the food tasted great, but I went all-out and ordered their special boxty (it’s a potato pastry filled with meat — I want to say lamb? — and gravy) with a side of potatoes. I ate it and was full and satisfied and then — I’m not kidding — I left the restaurant and was starving (not just Paris hungry) less than ten minutes later.
I had also been fighting a little homesickness that day. You’d be surprised what sorts of things can fix it, though. I passed by a comic book store and popped in to see if they had any new volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist, an excellent Japanese comic book series (manga) that I follow. They didn’t, but I ended up paging through some older volumes of another favorite series.** Manga beats homesickness like scissors beats paper.
----------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* I had really hoped Kilkenny would be home to Irish South Park characters, but I was disappointed.
** Death Note, true to its name, is pretty grim, but the characters and cat-and-mouse plot are incredibly intricate; the story as a whole is simply phenomenal. This series also provided a good deal of early inspiration for my pet project screenplay. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you like darker stories and don’t mind reading right-to-left, I strongly recommend it.
27 June 2010
(147-149): I can't escape from Rupert Goold.
Here are the pictures.
DRAMATIS PERSONNAE
Andy: 21 years old, spending a few days in London as part of his loop around Europe. He is, among other things, a food and theater enthusiast.
Marshall: 22 years old, Andy’s classmate from elementary school who is hanging around London after a semester studying history at King’s College. He is, among other things, a self-described food, beer, and film enthusiast.
Weird Indian Guy: Mid-thirties, the man sleeping in the bed below Andy’s at the hostel.
I had actually seen Marshall in Paris a week or two prior (during the time between Berlin and my Music in Cinema exam). Marshall finished his exams around the time I finished most of mine and decided to hop down to Paris for a few days. He knew I was there, so we met up. I told him that I would be doing the same: and so I was now.
(147) is Wednesday, 2 June 2010.
After getting settled in and generally putting my life in order, Marshall and I went to Princi, a quasi-casual Italian eatery in Soho. You can find it here, and I highly recommend you do, because… how best to phrase this… I hadn’t had Italian food since Rome, and it was still delectable. Pretty reasonably priced too, given that it’s in, well, London. Interesting concept for this place: you order like a cafeteria, and then take your food on trays to tables or — if those are taken — to these stand-and-eat tables scattered around the restaurant. As Marshall explained, it’s a more flexible, casual take on a high-quality ristorante.
Afterward, Marshall took me to his favorite pub near King’s College where we had a pint (I found a wheat beer that was actually not the worst thing I’ve ever had) and discussed (among a few other things) world history, the nature of logic, our college experiences, and why we went abroad.
I’ve been making a slight effort in the last year or so to reconnect with people with whom I’ve either lost touch or with whom I’ve never been in touch as much as I’d like. My working theory (yes, science kids, I know it’s technically a “hypothesis”) is that I’ve known a lot of all-around fantastic people in my time, but in many cases it was the wrong time of my life to get to know them. Marshall is a case-in-point; in elementary school, he was one of the sports kids, and I was the kid who got knocked down each (very rare) time I decided to join in football… touch football. But here we are now — almost ten years later — having a substantive, genial conversation over a pint in an English pub. I love London (I went there with my folks back in 2008 and wrote some notes about it on Facebook - about as rambling as this blog!), but for all the sites and shows and good food, seriously getting to know a childhood classmate on better terms was probably the best part.
After the pint, we were both pretty tired, so I headed back to the hostel, where the lights in my room were on, three people were sleeping, and Indian Guy (for now he's just Indian Guy... wait for it) was in the bunk below mine reading a medical journal. I’m not trying to be one of those obnoxious, semi-ageist backpackers who thinks hostels should be 20-somethings only; if all you want (and want to pay for) is a bed to sleep in for a couple of nights, a hostel is a good solution for anybody. But, that said, a hostel guest in his mid-30s with a Blackberry and a medical journal in hand is a statistical anomaly. I shrugged and got ready for bed. When I got back from the bathroom and tucked myself in, Indian Guy’s Blackberry rang — full volume. He answers it. Without leaving the room. Despite 3 people asleep (and one Andy on the waiting list). Takes him maybe a minute to finish his call. Then he gets up, turns off the light, and goes back to his bed.
Now he’s Weird Indian Guy.
(148) is Tursday, 3 June 2010.
Marshall tried valiantly to get us groundling tickets to Macbeth at the Globe, but they were sold out for a week solid. I was disappointed, ‘cause that would have been sweet.
I got sushi at Pret À Manger, a French-named, English-run chain restaurant. They’re everywhere, and in my opinion, they give chains a good name. As a Vassar student, I inevitably encounter the local-versus-corporation discussion pretty often. Here’s my take: as long as a business charges reasonable prices for a good product that I want, I don’t usually care if most of the other such products are physically identical. Now, I’ll try to find a good local place if I’m travelling, but everybody eats at Pret: it’s a local chain. Get it?
London is where I first learned to love sushi, by the way. Last time, though, not now.
After eating, I spent 2+ sunny, blue-sky hours walking through the gorgeous Hyde Park listening to my favorite feel-good music.
I met Marshall at Trafalgar Square and we saw the National Gallery for a while. Afterward, it was getting on food time, so we stopped into a pub near Westminster for fish and chips (which I’d been craving) and a pint (which was a little too hopsy for me).
“Food time” is earlier than “dinner time” because I had to make a 7:30 curtain for All My Sons, an Arthur Miller play starring David Suchet. For those of you too lazy (or too sick of my linking you to things) to click on that IMDB shortcut, he played Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot on TV and — more importantly to me — the arms dealer in the 2003 remake of The In-Laws. It’s largely thanks to him that that movie is one of my favorite comedies of all time.
As for the show itself, I got student-priced (10-pound) seats on the side that had kinda’ crappy visibility (although I was close to the stage) and the first act was a little slow, but the performances were great and Act II was amazing.
It’s just such a treat to see my favorite actors live; one, they’re right there. Secondly, and more importantly I think, when they’re onstage, you’re not just being one of the hundreds of millions of numbers in their box office returns and you’re not worshiping them from afar. I always enjoy knowing that — for two and a half hours — your favorite celebrity has nothing better in the world to do than to entertain you in person. I think we often get lost in the reversal.
Back at the hostel, Weird Indian Guy takes another 11:30 PM phone call while half the room is asleep.
(149) is Friday, 4 June 2010.
I woke up at 8 to beat the line again at TKTS, the famous discount theater ticket booth in Leicester Square (and Times Square**). And Weird Indian Guy was gone.
…And then Weird Indian Guy came back from the bathroom.
So, after stopping by TKTS and another box office, I poked around the London Bridge area a bit before meeting Marshall. Our big event for the day was the Borough Market, home to many, many food vendors. Fish and chips (I was downright binging at this point, but it was wonderful), cheese, desserts, Turkish delight, bread, produce, meat, a place with a huge beer selection... whatever you want, it’s all there.
From here, we walked all over… the Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s, the Temple Church**, Marshall’s academic building at King’s college for a semi-panoramic (is that just “ramic”?) view of the city, and a bus mixup on our way back to Leicester Square. We had pub food (Shepherd’s pie this time) and discussed what it means to be a light spirits (versus dark spirits or beer) kind of guy. I learned a lot about beer this month, and I’m kind of glad.
Okay, so I think it’s time I finally explain the title of this entry. At the box office this morning, I picked up two tickets (Marshall accompanied me) to Enron, a brilliant play by Lucy Prebble about the rise and fall of the titular company. It’s basically a classical tragedy about the guys behind it all, which I knew almost nothing about beforehand (although Marshall told me they got the history pretty much right on). I got the tickets for good (student) prices that morning, I felt optimistic, and then I walked by the ads outside the theater. You know, the ones where they show a picture and somebody’s review. Well, one of these mentions Rupert Goold’s brilliant mise-en-scene.
Oh, bullocks…
Mr. Goold has directed many high-profile shows in the last few years. I have seen more plays under his direction than any other contemporary director I can think of (I can only name just one or two others).
And I hate his style. It usually involves loud, staticky TV screens, harsh fluorescent lighting, and enough self-reflexivity and general experimental theater tactics to make even Vassar theater majors nauseous.
Over two years ago, I went to see Macbeth at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with my Shakespeare class. Patrick Stewart was terrific as the title character. The directorial style didn’t get in the way that much, but it was still weird. Then, six months later, in London, my folks and I saw Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello's modernist play where six characters, whose play was never finished, come to a real-life play rehearsal and insist their story be staged. Goold did a big reworking of the original script (which I later read… not that good) and turned it into this bizarre, creepy, staticky-screen-filled self-reflexive trip of a play. My father still gets props for indulging me and sitting through the whole thing.*** So, when I saw that this show was the same director — making for three shows of his I’d seen in just over two years — I laughed, shook my head, and muttered the title of the entry.
BUT...
...I will have you know that everything about this production of Enron was outstanding. Sarah Rebell, my source on the Broadway world, tells me this same production wasn’t so popular in New York, which I think is a shame because now it's certain (as opposed to highly likely) that none of you will ever know what I'm talking about.
Not that's ever stopped me before.
I think Rupert Goold’s multimedia approach to theater works a lot better in a story that takes place in the 90s and 2000s and on the stock market, where screens and fluorescent lights play a natural part of the environment, anyway. It was just a much better fit of director and script, a script that is so tightly written, often quite funny, and encompasses a great story and character arc. It also does an outstanding, smooth job of bringing uninitiated viewers like me into the fold on complex economic ideas and business practices. I bought a copy of the script at the theater, so I highly encourage you to borrow it from me if you’re interested.
Marshall and I said our goodbyes after the show, agreeing to meet up again back in Washington.
I went back to the hostel to find Weird Indian Guy checking his email on his Blackberry.
--------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes are not a girl’s best friend. That’s because they aren’t diamonds.
* THERE’S ALSO ONE ON HARBOR STREET. It’s like it’s some big secret or something… you can go to this other location and get the same great deals but with far fewer lines. Granted, it’s a much less convenient location and it’s harder to leave and go right to the theaters and see what they offer. But if you don’t really care what you see and just want good prices, consider making the trip.
** My folks and I had tried to get into this one the last time, but it was closed when we visited. I got in just as they were closing, so I took a few shots before they ushered me back out. It’s in the album: nice church. I’m glad I didn’t miss it twice.
*** I didn’t love it, obviously, but I try to show respect and stick around. There are only two performances I’ve ever left early because I disliked them; one was an animated movie that scared me when I was three, and the other was the movie Serendipity when it was in theaters and my mother dragged me to it one day.
DRAMATIS PERSONNAE
Andy: 21 years old, spending a few days in London as part of his loop around Europe. He is, among other things, a food and theater enthusiast.
Marshall: 22 years old, Andy’s classmate from elementary school who is hanging around London after a semester studying history at King’s College. He is, among other things, a self-described food, beer, and film enthusiast.
Weird Indian Guy: Mid-thirties, the man sleeping in the bed below Andy’s at the hostel.
I had actually seen Marshall in Paris a week or two prior (during the time between Berlin and my Music in Cinema exam). Marshall finished his exams around the time I finished most of mine and decided to hop down to Paris for a few days. He knew I was there, so we met up. I told him that I would be doing the same: and so I was now.
(147) is Wednesday, 2 June 2010.
After getting settled in and generally putting my life in order, Marshall and I went to Princi, a quasi-casual Italian eatery in Soho. You can find it here, and I highly recommend you do, because… how best to phrase this… I hadn’t had Italian food since Rome, and it was still delectable. Pretty reasonably priced too, given that it’s in, well, London. Interesting concept for this place: you order like a cafeteria, and then take your food on trays to tables or — if those are taken — to these stand-and-eat tables scattered around the restaurant. As Marshall explained, it’s a more flexible, casual take on a high-quality ristorante.
Afterward, Marshall took me to his favorite pub near King’s College where we had a pint (I found a wheat beer that was actually not the worst thing I’ve ever had) and discussed (among a few other things) world history, the nature of logic, our college experiences, and why we went abroad.
I’ve been making a slight effort in the last year or so to reconnect with people with whom I’ve either lost touch or with whom I’ve never been in touch as much as I’d like. My working theory (yes, science kids, I know it’s technically a “hypothesis”) is that I’ve known a lot of all-around fantastic people in my time, but in many cases it was the wrong time of my life to get to know them. Marshall is a case-in-point; in elementary school, he was one of the sports kids, and I was the kid who got knocked down each (very rare) time I decided to join in football… touch football. But here we are now — almost ten years later — having a substantive, genial conversation over a pint in an English pub. I love London (I went there with my folks back in 2008 and wrote some notes about it on Facebook - about as rambling as this blog!), but for all the sites and shows and good food, seriously getting to know a childhood classmate on better terms was probably the best part.
After the pint, we were both pretty tired, so I headed back to the hostel, where the lights in my room were on, three people were sleeping, and Indian Guy (for now he's just Indian Guy... wait for it) was in the bunk below mine reading a medical journal. I’m not trying to be one of those obnoxious, semi-ageist backpackers who thinks hostels should be 20-somethings only; if all you want (and want to pay for) is a bed to sleep in for a couple of nights, a hostel is a good solution for anybody. But, that said, a hostel guest in his mid-30s with a Blackberry and a medical journal in hand is a statistical anomaly. I shrugged and got ready for bed. When I got back from the bathroom and tucked myself in, Indian Guy’s Blackberry rang — full volume. He answers it. Without leaving the room. Despite 3 people asleep (and one Andy on the waiting list). Takes him maybe a minute to finish his call. Then he gets up, turns off the light, and goes back to his bed.
Now he’s Weird Indian Guy.
(148) is Tursday, 3 June 2010.
Marshall tried valiantly to get us groundling tickets to Macbeth at the Globe, but they were sold out for a week solid. I was disappointed, ‘cause that would have been sweet.
I got sushi at Pret À Manger, a French-named, English-run chain restaurant. They’re everywhere, and in my opinion, they give chains a good name. As a Vassar student, I inevitably encounter the local-versus-corporation discussion pretty often. Here’s my take: as long as a business charges reasonable prices for a good product that I want, I don’t usually care if most of the other such products are physically identical. Now, I’ll try to find a good local place if I’m travelling, but everybody eats at Pret: it’s a local chain. Get it?
London is where I first learned to love sushi, by the way. Last time, though, not now.
After eating, I spent 2+ sunny, blue-sky hours walking through the gorgeous Hyde Park listening to my favorite feel-good music.
I met Marshall at Trafalgar Square and we saw the National Gallery for a while. Afterward, it was getting on food time, so we stopped into a pub near Westminster for fish and chips (which I’d been craving) and a pint (which was a little too hopsy for me).
“Food time” is earlier than “dinner time” because I had to make a 7:30 curtain for All My Sons, an Arthur Miller play starring David Suchet. For those of you too lazy (or too sick of my linking you to things) to click on that IMDB shortcut, he played Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot on TV and — more importantly to me — the arms dealer in the 2003 remake of The In-Laws. It’s largely thanks to him that that movie is one of my favorite comedies of all time.
As for the show itself, I got student-priced (10-pound) seats on the side that had kinda’ crappy visibility (although I was close to the stage) and the first act was a little slow, but the performances were great and Act II was amazing.
It’s just such a treat to see my favorite actors live; one, they’re right there. Secondly, and more importantly I think, when they’re onstage, you’re not just being one of the hundreds of millions of numbers in their box office returns and you’re not worshiping them from afar. I always enjoy knowing that — for two and a half hours — your favorite celebrity has nothing better in the world to do than to entertain you in person. I think we often get lost in the reversal.
Back at the hostel, Weird Indian Guy takes another 11:30 PM phone call while half the room is asleep.
(149) is Friday, 4 June 2010.
I woke up at 8 to beat the line again at TKTS, the famous discount theater ticket booth in Leicester Square (and Times Square**). And Weird Indian Guy was gone.
…And then Weird Indian Guy came back from the bathroom.
So, after stopping by TKTS and another box office, I poked around the London Bridge area a bit before meeting Marshall. Our big event for the day was the Borough Market, home to many, many food vendors. Fish and chips (I was downright binging at this point, but it was wonderful), cheese, desserts, Turkish delight, bread, produce, meat, a place with a huge beer selection... whatever you want, it’s all there.
From here, we walked all over… the Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s, the Temple Church**, Marshall’s academic building at King’s college for a semi-panoramic (is that just “ramic”?) view of the city, and a bus mixup on our way back to Leicester Square. We had pub food (Shepherd’s pie this time) and discussed what it means to be a light spirits (versus dark spirits or beer) kind of guy. I learned a lot about beer this month, and I’m kind of glad.
Okay, so I think it’s time I finally explain the title of this entry. At the box office this morning, I picked up two tickets (Marshall accompanied me) to Enron, a brilliant play by Lucy Prebble about the rise and fall of the titular company. It’s basically a classical tragedy about the guys behind it all, which I knew almost nothing about beforehand (although Marshall told me they got the history pretty much right on). I got the tickets for good (student) prices that morning, I felt optimistic, and then I walked by the ads outside the theater. You know, the ones where they show a picture and somebody’s review. Well, one of these mentions Rupert Goold’s brilliant mise-en-scene.
Oh, bullocks…
Mr. Goold has directed many high-profile shows in the last few years. I have seen more plays under his direction than any other contemporary director I can think of (I can only name just one or two others).
And I hate his style. It usually involves loud, staticky TV screens, harsh fluorescent lighting, and enough self-reflexivity and general experimental theater tactics to make even Vassar theater majors nauseous.
Over two years ago, I went to see Macbeth at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with my Shakespeare class. Patrick Stewart was terrific as the title character. The directorial style didn’t get in the way that much, but it was still weird. Then, six months later, in London, my folks and I saw Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello's modernist play where six characters, whose play was never finished, come to a real-life play rehearsal and insist their story be staged. Goold did a big reworking of the original script (which I later read… not that good) and turned it into this bizarre, creepy, staticky-screen-filled self-reflexive trip of a play. My father still gets props for indulging me and sitting through the whole thing.*** So, when I saw that this show was the same director — making for three shows of his I’d seen in just over two years — I laughed, shook my head, and muttered the title of the entry.
BUT...
...I will have you know that everything about this production of Enron was outstanding. Sarah Rebell, my source on the Broadway world, tells me this same production wasn’t so popular in New York, which I think is a shame because now it's certain (as opposed to highly likely) that none of you will ever know what I'm talking about.
Not that's ever stopped me before.
I think Rupert Goold’s multimedia approach to theater works a lot better in a story that takes place in the 90s and 2000s and on the stock market, where screens and fluorescent lights play a natural part of the environment, anyway. It was just a much better fit of director and script, a script that is so tightly written, often quite funny, and encompasses a great story and character arc. It also does an outstanding, smooth job of bringing uninitiated viewers like me into the fold on complex economic ideas and business practices. I bought a copy of the script at the theater, so I highly encourage you to borrow it from me if you’re interested.
Marshall and I said our goodbyes after the show, agreeing to meet up again back in Washington.
I went back to the hostel to find Weird Indian Guy checking his email on his Blackberry.
--------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes are not a girl’s best friend. That’s because they aren’t diamonds.
* THERE’S ALSO ONE ON HARBOR STREET. It’s like it’s some big secret or something… you can go to this other location and get the same great deals but with far fewer lines. Granted, it’s a much less convenient location and it’s harder to leave and go right to the theaters and see what they offer. But if you don’t really care what you see and just want good prices, consider making the trip.
** My folks and I had tried to get into this one the last time, but it was closed when we visited. I got in just as they were closing, so I took a few shots before they ushered me back out. It’s in the album: nice church. I’m glad I didn’t miss it twice.
*** I didn’t love it, obviously, but I try to show respect and stick around. There are only two performances I’ve ever left early because I disliked them; one was an animated movie that scared me when I was three, and the other was the movie Serendipity when it was in theaters and my mother dragged me to it one day.
25 June 2010
(142-146): The Marrakesh Express
So, I know I’ve renamed the blog once already, but do I have to rename it again to (195) Days of Europe if I spent four days in north Africa? (199) is a much nicer number…
CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)
--Andy
--Kirill
--Zohra
--Mustapha
--John
--Sally
--Tony
--Mike
--Laura
--Elaine
--Annelies
And I guarantee you’ll have a better reading (or, vicarious living) experience if you’re looking at these pictures at the same time.
(142) is Friday, 28 May 2010.
Kirill and I landed in the sunny evening and had a ride waiting for us to Riad Massin. Yeah— one sentence into the narrative and I’ve already got a recommendation. Find them on Hostelworld.com. If you go to Marrakesh (and you should), stay at this Riad. It’s a traditional house designed such that the outside is very plain: basically a stone wall, unlike the relatively ornate outsides of European and North American buildings. On the inside, however, is a charming open-air courtyard with a fountain, a chair and tables, and all of the rooms—rather than opening to the outside—open onto this courtyard. You get a very communal feel and the courtyard is much cooler than the outside (VERY important this time of year in Marrakesh). Funny enough, I had a frame of reference for this type of architecture; Cat’s Hostel in Madrid was designed the same way.
But more importantly, it is at the riad that we met so many wonderful people: fellow travelers with whom exploring the city became an adventure and passing the afternoon’s hottest hours in the courtyard became a highlight. And all that’s to say nothing of the staff, who are also incredibly kind and personable and know how to have fun with their jobs.
So: we sat down in the courtyard to a cup of mint tea (something else I encountered in Madrid)… I’m not normally a tea drinker, but Kirill and I fairly guzzled this stuff during our stay. So sweet, so warm, and so good. And the hostel staff will get you a pitcher whenever you like, free of charge. We had a brief Q&A about Marrakesh with a member of staff before going up to the rooftop for a bit.
It is here we meet Zohra, one of the (attractive) trilingual staff members, who signed me and Kirill up for a day trip the following day to the Ourika Valley in the environs of Marrakesh.
For dinner, Kirill and I went to the center of town, Place Jemaa el Fna (which I confused with “Danny Elfman” several times). This place is crazy at night: performers, crowds watching, brightly lit stalls selling food and spices and who knows what else. There are lots of bright lights from the stalls and smoke from the ones cooking meat; together, the visual effect is very cool. We weren’t brave enough to venture into that yet, so we found a terrace restaurant to eat. If you do eat at one of those terrace places (they’re okay, not great), make sure you pick one closer to the lit-up stalls and open square; the view is better.
As for the title of this entry, it takes its name from “Marrakesh Express,” one of my favorite songs by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I would link you to it, but I couldn’t find a decent studio version on YouTube. But here’s my counteroffer. As some of you know, I make a music video every year, and I’ve decided that this year’s will be that song and video footage I took in Marrakesh. So, stay tuned.
(143) is Saturday, 29 May 2010.
Today was a big day trip into the Ourika Valley and nearby waterfall outside of Marrakesh. We actually started at a Berber house. Berbers are the people who originally settled in Morocco, but who have since moved into the mountains and generally keep to themselves. They’re atheist and supposedly very shrewd hagglers; if you start haggling with a really low price, the seller will sometimes call you a Berber in good fun (hopefully). So, at the berber house, we watched them make bread and mint tea* and then consumed this very tasty breakfast. Their olive oil was about as good was what we had in the Greek islands.
Our tour guide, by the way, was the incomparable Mustapha, who constantly made jokes, pointed things out, and sang “Hotel California.” Wonderful human being. Speaking of wonderful human beings, it was on this tour that we also met a few fellow travelers staying with us at the riad: John, travelling from Philly, as well as Tony and Sally, two friends on a grand tour of Europe, originally from New Zealand. Anyway, After the Berber house, we stopped on the side of the road. There were saddled camels waiting for us.
Party like a rock star. The ride was about half an hour.
So, we drove through the Ourika Valley, along a river crossable by several rope bridges either from Indiana Jones or the lava scene in Shrek.** We made it to the base of the waterfall climb, which—by the way—neither of my parents would have opted to do. It’s steep and has many interesting challenges in terms of footing, but it’s mostly shaded by trees, and the whole route (about half an hour each way) is adorned with stands selling food, soft drinks, etc.
I wouldn’t mention these except that all of the bottles of soda and such are chilled with this ingenious system. We’re going up to a waterfall, right? So, that means there’s cold water coming down, and here there's a network of hoses channeling this water and pouring them over bottles to keep them cool. And the water doesn’t stop there; more hoses carry that water down to the next stand and their bottles in need of cooling. Brilliant system, really. On a similar note, there are also cool-looking (and I'm sure difficult to build) aqueducts built into the mountains carrying the water elsewhere.
So, the waterfall itself: very cold, very tall, very picturesque. I got my feet wet, and of course Kirill dove in. Most of the others did as well (except for Sally, the only other person on the tour as sensible as myself). After hanging out there for a while and taking some pictures with each other and the other people there that day, we made our way back to the bus and drove to a restaurant for late lunch. Couldn’t tell you the name, but I could tell you that the tajin and couscous were probably the best I’ve ever had. The fruit plate for dessert was also excellent (including some delicious oranges).
Anybody here feel like this entry is too much blatant description and not enough clever? Yeah? Well, at least I'm not the only one who thought so.
So, we got back to the riad around 6, where Mustapha and the other staff members decide it’s the perfect time for a belly dance party. ‘Cause, you know, that’s just what they do. So, we all danced. Mustapha put on a burqa at one point.
(144) is Sunday, 30 May 2010.
Today, we met Laura and Elaine, two friends traveling together who had met on a French program this past semester. The four of us went to find the Tanneries, which is where they make leather.*** This sounded a lot cooler than it actually turned out to be… first of all, it was hot that day, so the smelly tanneries were even worse than usual. On our way there, we met a tanner whose colleague showed us around the place and gave us mint leaves to hold to our noses to fight the smell. It helped, but we basically looked like we were doing lines of menthol the whole time. Of course, there are worse things for your hands to smell like all afternoon than mint.
Anyway, after a brief walk-around, the guy ushered us into his friend’s shop where Kirill was persuaded to bargain for a pair of sandals. When we left, the guy who showed us around the tanneries wanted a tip, so we gave him 5 euro for the two of us. Laura and Elaine had left before the tour because the latter wasn’t feeling well, so on our way to find them, the first guy wanted a tip for guiding us to the tanneries. We ignored him; we had our map and were one block away from the entrance when he offered to guide us. We didn't need his help, and he didn't have to offer it without consideration for contract. So there.
Oh, and Kirill later discovered that his sandals smelled like the tanneries.
It was hot, we wanted to meet up again with the girls, and we were feeling a little crummy about having been hassled like that, so we headed back to the hostel for a bit. On the way, Kirill decided to buy a huge freaking watermelon, which the whole hostel ended up sharing. At the hostel, we met Mike (travelling from the states) and Annelies (taking a few days off before her exams in Spain, although she’s Belgian).
We eventually got dinner with basically everybody we’d met so far and a few other girls at the hostel. Mike and Kirill fought over the rotisserie chicken they shared. I had front row seats to that deathmatch. Oh, and somewhere in here, we got delicious orange juice from a stand in Jemaa el Fna (25 and 28 were both good)... fresh-squeezed, so cold, and so sweet that even the pulp was welcome. We made it back to the hostel around 1 or so and hung out in the tent on the roof for a while. It was, in a word, idyllic. And it was, in a few more words, exactly what I had imagined the Marrakesh experience to be.
(145) is Monday, 31 May 2010.
Today, it was all about the Souks. This is the center of all wheeling-and-dealing in Marrakesh, and it is awesome. Not only are these winding streets covered and thus out of the blazing sun all day (we stayed out from noon to 7 without a siesta), but it's an experience all its own. Shops and vendors are everywhere on the delightfully boggling network of passages between old buildings, and haggling is a must. I had been a bit nervous about this before we got started, but once I took my first swing at it, I really got into it. I'll narrate. Oh, and the following interaction was all in French, by the way.
After Kirill and Mike both bargained for letter openers (their grandmothers collect them or something) at this one shop, I took my shot at an Aladdin lamp for a souvenir. Nothing fancy, and I'd seen several, but this one had an opening-closing lid, so what the hell. Guy's first price: 100 dirham (10-12 US Dollars).
Oh, HELL no. For a little souvenir?? I counter with 15. He insists it's worth at least 85. "Look at the workmanship!" he insists.
It's tin, dude. Just like all the others on this street. 15.
He puts it at 75.
Nope.
He can't stand it! "Last price!" he insists. This is a favorite saying in these parts: it’s part of the ceremony. You’re supposed to give the absolute highest you will go on it, even if that’s not always what actually happens. The real point is that it’s keeping things interesting, the part where the stakes are up and the chips are down. Again he insists, "Dernier prix!"
I feel like I've answered this one already, haven't I? Any guesses on what I say next? Stick to your guns, kids; only way to hit your target.
"15! 15! Always 15!" he comments with the all-important exaggeration in his exasperated tone, "Make SOME concession here! This is how it works."
Possibly the first fair point he's made. Fine. 20.
"OK."
We shake on it. We shake on one fifth of his asking price. I am a shark.
And I don't mean to sound contemptuous or condescending toward that shopkeeper. On the contrary: I had a firm respect for him almost as soon as we got started. You see, thanks to the whole bargaining culture, shopping is like a game. In the best games, the two opponents are worthy and well-matched and each, recognizing this, respects the other for it. Moreover, in a sport where victory is measured by whether or not you’re happy with your final score—a sport where your attitude determines whether you win or lose—it really is how you play the game that counts. I smiled at the guy and thanked him as he handed me the lamp for my 20-dirham note.
Onward we went to the heart of the souks. Mike had bought a Moroccan style cotton shirt the previous day for 120 dirham (about 12€), which everybody agreed looked good on him, and the look of which I sort of wanted to emulate. I found a similar shirt and a pair of cotton pants (with pockets, no less!) to go with it, both in white, for 200 dirham (about $25 USD). Best pajamas (or Matrix attire, if you add sunglasses) ever. Kirill copied me and, because we got the same thing, he got to copy my bargain, too.
My last deal of the day may have been my finest, but unfortunately, certain readers of this blog named Roger Weiner won't have the requisite security clearance to know what I got until his birthday in late July. But I'm sure he will be tickled that the quality of the product is good and that I—my father's son—got it down to 50% of the starting price. Here’s how:
See, it’s all about the story. It was the end of the day and I told the guy that, after a day in the Souks, I didn’t have much cash on me. It was true, but with that much conviction, the strategy would have worked even if I was lying. So, I just talked up how much I liked what I was holding but said I physically could not pay more than _____ dirham, which, to be fair, wasn’t much. He dismisses my offer as crazy talk and drops the price a little, but I stick to my story: “I agree; it’s well-made, and my father will love it, but _____ really is all I have on me. Oh, well. Thanks just the same, though.”
I put the belt back and go. This is the crucial moment.
For those of you who’ve never heard of low-balling, it’s when you’re in the car salesperson’s office and they give you an attractive price on the car you want: $28,000, for sake of example. Everybody in the room is on board. But, the salesperson says, they have to check with their manager first. Then, they go outside the office, come back a few minutes later, and say, “I’m sorry, but my manager says the lowest we can go is $30,500.”
Chances are they spent those few minutes outside the office talking to their manager about the finale of Lost. And chances are that you spent those few minutes feeling pretty jazzed about that good deal and great car you were about to get. When you get that invested in a product and/or the process of buying it, you’re a lot less likely to say “Forget it,” walk away, and give up this opportunity. That’s how they make an extra $2,500.
The great thing about bargaining in Marrakesh, as opposed to the Acura dealership in Bethesda, is that this works both ways. The merchants get really into the process as well, so when you talk up their products for a while, make them think they’ll make a sale, and then make it seem like you’re going to leave, they accept some losses to bring you back, and you low-ball them. And damn, does it feel good!
So, as I put the belt back and go see what Kirill’s buying for Liz, the guy says, “Look, if you can borrow a few dirham from your friends, I’ll drop it to 60 dirham.”
“Mike, can I borrow a few dirham?”
“Yeah, man!”
I turn back to the shopkeeper. “Deal.”
After Kirill got some more souvenirs, the three of us found our way out to Jemaa el Fna and stand #28, home to more delicious orange juice. One glass in basically any juice stand in Jemaa el Fna is 30 dirhams (in USD, that’s about a hell of a lot less than it's worth).
Somewhere in here, I decided that Marrakesh is actually a lot like Las Vegas. There's a unique culture to it (though Vegas’s is painfully hard to find) and the big draw is anticipated return on your money. The big difference, though, is that I love Marrakesh and hate Vegas.
We got back to the hostel to show off our purchases. Kirill and Mike were buying like crazy for their respective significant others. Laura and several others commented that they're "worse than girls." We hung out for a bit, during which time we decided to explore the new city (outside the medina walls) for dinner.
That decision that sets me up to explain a little (operative word) of Marrakesh's historical background.**** Morocco was a French colony for a long time (which is why they speak it and I used it to get probably slightly better starting prices while haggling). French and Arabic are the two big languages (as in most places, English comes in close behind). There are also two parts to the city. The medina is the center, including the Souks where we haggled, Jemaa el Fna, the central mosque tower nearby, the tanneries, and the riad. It's encircled by a tall stone wall with an arch entrance every so often. The other half is the 'new city', the European sector, established more when France moved in and which is — big shock — built more after the fashion of a less awesome and less culturally rich modern city.
So, we left the medina and wandered until we found Le Charlot, a classy little sit-down restaurant with patio seating and a smart Charlie Chaplin theme to the decoration. The food was quite good, and I cannot stress enough how good a value it was. I had the most expensive item on the menu—a very good steak-frites with mushroom sauce—for 110 dirham (about 11€ or $14 USD). The location is-- as best I can tell on Google Maps-- here.
And after dinner and an epic photo-shoot on the Medina wall, I watched, for the first time, the Surfing Bird episode of Family Guy.
(146) is Tuesday, 1 June 2010.
I’ve really suffered you through a long one, so you’ll be glad to know we spent today back in the souks and Jemaa el Fna… just more of the same great experience. Tony and Sally left, so we had lunch (at Le Charlot again, because it was that good) and said our goodbyes. It was Marrakesh. It was great.
That is, it was great until early (147), when Kirill and his Russian passport weren’t allowed to fly to London.
--------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* They call the tea “Moroccan Whiskey” because everybody drinks it, but nobody, being muslim, actually drinks whiskey or any other alcohol.
** They better be serious about Shrek 4 being the last one, by the way.
*** Been a while since you’ve had a French lesson, I reckon… Tanneur is the French word for a craftsperson who works with leather. Thus, tannerie is the place where they work. Come to think of it, English may have borrowed this word.
**** Because, of course, you haven’t read enough of me explaining things recently.
CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)
--Andy
--Kirill
--Zohra
--Mustapha
--John
--Sally
--Tony
--Mike
--Laura
--Elaine
--Annelies
And I guarantee you’ll have a better reading (or, vicarious living) experience if you’re looking at these pictures at the same time.
(142) is Friday, 28 May 2010.
Kirill and I landed in the sunny evening and had a ride waiting for us to Riad Massin. Yeah— one sentence into the narrative and I’ve already got a recommendation. Find them on Hostelworld.com. If you go to Marrakesh (and you should), stay at this Riad. It’s a traditional house designed such that the outside is very plain: basically a stone wall, unlike the relatively ornate outsides of European and North American buildings. On the inside, however, is a charming open-air courtyard with a fountain, a chair and tables, and all of the rooms—rather than opening to the outside—open onto this courtyard. You get a very communal feel and the courtyard is much cooler than the outside (VERY important this time of year in Marrakesh). Funny enough, I had a frame of reference for this type of architecture; Cat’s Hostel in Madrid was designed the same way.
But more importantly, it is at the riad that we met so many wonderful people: fellow travelers with whom exploring the city became an adventure and passing the afternoon’s hottest hours in the courtyard became a highlight. And all that’s to say nothing of the staff, who are also incredibly kind and personable and know how to have fun with their jobs.
So: we sat down in the courtyard to a cup of mint tea (something else I encountered in Madrid)… I’m not normally a tea drinker, but Kirill and I fairly guzzled this stuff during our stay. So sweet, so warm, and so good. And the hostel staff will get you a pitcher whenever you like, free of charge. We had a brief Q&A about Marrakesh with a member of staff before going up to the rooftop for a bit.
It is here we meet Zohra, one of the (attractive) trilingual staff members, who signed me and Kirill up for a day trip the following day to the Ourika Valley in the environs of Marrakesh.
For dinner, Kirill and I went to the center of town, Place Jemaa el Fna (which I confused with “Danny Elfman” several times). This place is crazy at night: performers, crowds watching, brightly lit stalls selling food and spices and who knows what else. There are lots of bright lights from the stalls and smoke from the ones cooking meat; together, the visual effect is very cool. We weren’t brave enough to venture into that yet, so we found a terrace restaurant to eat. If you do eat at one of those terrace places (they’re okay, not great), make sure you pick one closer to the lit-up stalls and open square; the view is better.
As for the title of this entry, it takes its name from “Marrakesh Express,” one of my favorite songs by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I would link you to it, but I couldn’t find a decent studio version on YouTube. But here’s my counteroffer. As some of you know, I make a music video every year, and I’ve decided that this year’s will be that song and video footage I took in Marrakesh. So, stay tuned.
(143) is Saturday, 29 May 2010.
Today was a big day trip into the Ourika Valley and nearby waterfall outside of Marrakesh. We actually started at a Berber house. Berbers are the people who originally settled in Morocco, but who have since moved into the mountains and generally keep to themselves. They’re atheist and supposedly very shrewd hagglers; if you start haggling with a really low price, the seller will sometimes call you a Berber in good fun (hopefully). So, at the berber house, we watched them make bread and mint tea* and then consumed this very tasty breakfast. Their olive oil was about as good was what we had in the Greek islands.
Our tour guide, by the way, was the incomparable Mustapha, who constantly made jokes, pointed things out, and sang “Hotel California.” Wonderful human being. Speaking of wonderful human beings, it was on this tour that we also met a few fellow travelers staying with us at the riad: John, travelling from Philly, as well as Tony and Sally, two friends on a grand tour of Europe, originally from New Zealand. Anyway, After the Berber house, we stopped on the side of the road. There were saddled camels waiting for us.
Party like a rock star. The ride was about half an hour.
So, we drove through the Ourika Valley, along a river crossable by several rope bridges either from Indiana Jones or the lava scene in Shrek.** We made it to the base of the waterfall climb, which—by the way—neither of my parents would have opted to do. It’s steep and has many interesting challenges in terms of footing, but it’s mostly shaded by trees, and the whole route (about half an hour each way) is adorned with stands selling food, soft drinks, etc.
I wouldn’t mention these except that all of the bottles of soda and such are chilled with this ingenious system. We’re going up to a waterfall, right? So, that means there’s cold water coming down, and here there's a network of hoses channeling this water and pouring them over bottles to keep them cool. And the water doesn’t stop there; more hoses carry that water down to the next stand and their bottles in need of cooling. Brilliant system, really. On a similar note, there are also cool-looking (and I'm sure difficult to build) aqueducts built into the mountains carrying the water elsewhere.
So, the waterfall itself: very cold, very tall, very picturesque. I got my feet wet, and of course Kirill dove in. Most of the others did as well (except for Sally, the only other person on the tour as sensible as myself). After hanging out there for a while and taking some pictures with each other and the other people there that day, we made our way back to the bus and drove to a restaurant for late lunch. Couldn’t tell you the name, but I could tell you that the tajin and couscous were probably the best I’ve ever had. The fruit plate for dessert was also excellent (including some delicious oranges).
Anybody here feel like this entry is too much blatant description and not enough clever? Yeah? Well, at least I'm not the only one who thought so.
So, we got back to the riad around 6, where Mustapha and the other staff members decide it’s the perfect time for a belly dance party. ‘Cause, you know, that’s just what they do. So, we all danced. Mustapha put on a burqa at one point.
(144) is Sunday, 30 May 2010.
Today, we met Laura and Elaine, two friends traveling together who had met on a French program this past semester. The four of us went to find the Tanneries, which is where they make leather.*** This sounded a lot cooler than it actually turned out to be… first of all, it was hot that day, so the smelly tanneries were even worse than usual. On our way there, we met a tanner whose colleague showed us around the place and gave us mint leaves to hold to our noses to fight the smell. It helped, but we basically looked like we were doing lines of menthol the whole time. Of course, there are worse things for your hands to smell like all afternoon than mint.
Anyway, after a brief walk-around, the guy ushered us into his friend’s shop where Kirill was persuaded to bargain for a pair of sandals. When we left, the guy who showed us around the tanneries wanted a tip, so we gave him 5 euro for the two of us. Laura and Elaine had left before the tour because the latter wasn’t feeling well, so on our way to find them, the first guy wanted a tip for guiding us to the tanneries. We ignored him; we had our map and were one block away from the entrance when he offered to guide us. We didn't need his help, and he didn't have to offer it without consideration for contract. So there.
Oh, and Kirill later discovered that his sandals smelled like the tanneries.
It was hot, we wanted to meet up again with the girls, and we were feeling a little crummy about having been hassled like that, so we headed back to the hostel for a bit. On the way, Kirill decided to buy a huge freaking watermelon, which the whole hostel ended up sharing. At the hostel, we met Mike (travelling from the states) and Annelies (taking a few days off before her exams in Spain, although she’s Belgian).
We eventually got dinner with basically everybody we’d met so far and a few other girls at the hostel. Mike and Kirill fought over the rotisserie chicken they shared. I had front row seats to that deathmatch. Oh, and somewhere in here, we got delicious orange juice from a stand in Jemaa el Fna (25 and 28 were both good)... fresh-squeezed, so cold, and so sweet that even the pulp was welcome. We made it back to the hostel around 1 or so and hung out in the tent on the roof for a while. It was, in a word, idyllic. And it was, in a few more words, exactly what I had imagined the Marrakesh experience to be.
(145) is Monday, 31 May 2010.
Today, it was all about the Souks. This is the center of all wheeling-and-dealing in Marrakesh, and it is awesome. Not only are these winding streets covered and thus out of the blazing sun all day (we stayed out from noon to 7 without a siesta), but it's an experience all its own. Shops and vendors are everywhere on the delightfully boggling network of passages between old buildings, and haggling is a must. I had been a bit nervous about this before we got started, but once I took my first swing at it, I really got into it. I'll narrate. Oh, and the following interaction was all in French, by the way.
After Kirill and Mike both bargained for letter openers (their grandmothers collect them or something) at this one shop, I took my shot at an Aladdin lamp for a souvenir. Nothing fancy, and I'd seen several, but this one had an opening-closing lid, so what the hell. Guy's first price: 100 dirham (10-12 US Dollars).
Oh, HELL no. For a little souvenir?? I counter with 15. He insists it's worth at least 85. "Look at the workmanship!" he insists.
It's tin, dude. Just like all the others on this street. 15.
He puts it at 75.
Nope.
He can't stand it! "Last price!" he insists. This is a favorite saying in these parts: it’s part of the ceremony. You’re supposed to give the absolute highest you will go on it, even if that’s not always what actually happens. The real point is that it’s keeping things interesting, the part where the stakes are up and the chips are down. Again he insists, "Dernier prix!"
I feel like I've answered this one already, haven't I? Any guesses on what I say next? Stick to your guns, kids; only way to hit your target.
"15! 15! Always 15!" he comments with the all-important exaggeration in his exasperated tone, "Make SOME concession here! This is how it works."
Possibly the first fair point he's made. Fine. 20.
"OK."
We shake on it. We shake on one fifth of his asking price. I am a shark.
And I don't mean to sound contemptuous or condescending toward that shopkeeper. On the contrary: I had a firm respect for him almost as soon as we got started. You see, thanks to the whole bargaining culture, shopping is like a game. In the best games, the two opponents are worthy and well-matched and each, recognizing this, respects the other for it. Moreover, in a sport where victory is measured by whether or not you’re happy with your final score—a sport where your attitude determines whether you win or lose—it really is how you play the game that counts. I smiled at the guy and thanked him as he handed me the lamp for my 20-dirham note.
Onward we went to the heart of the souks. Mike had bought a Moroccan style cotton shirt the previous day for 120 dirham (about 12€), which everybody agreed looked good on him, and the look of which I sort of wanted to emulate. I found a similar shirt and a pair of cotton pants (with pockets, no less!) to go with it, both in white, for 200 dirham (about $25 USD). Best pajamas (or Matrix attire, if you add sunglasses) ever. Kirill copied me and, because we got the same thing, he got to copy my bargain, too.
My last deal of the day may have been my finest, but unfortunately, certain readers of this blog named Roger Weiner won't have the requisite security clearance to know what I got until his birthday in late July. But I'm sure he will be tickled that the quality of the product is good and that I—my father's son—got it down to 50% of the starting price. Here’s how:
See, it’s all about the story. It was the end of the day and I told the guy that, after a day in the Souks, I didn’t have much cash on me. It was true, but with that much conviction, the strategy would have worked even if I was lying. So, I just talked up how much I liked what I was holding but said I physically could not pay more than _____ dirham, which, to be fair, wasn’t much. He dismisses my offer as crazy talk and drops the price a little, but I stick to my story: “I agree; it’s well-made, and my father will love it, but _____ really is all I have on me. Oh, well. Thanks just the same, though.”
I put the belt back and go. This is the crucial moment.
For those of you who’ve never heard of low-balling, it’s when you’re in the car salesperson’s office and they give you an attractive price on the car you want: $28,000, for sake of example. Everybody in the room is on board. But, the salesperson says, they have to check with their manager first. Then, they go outside the office, come back a few minutes later, and say, “I’m sorry, but my manager says the lowest we can go is $30,500.”
Chances are they spent those few minutes outside the office talking to their manager about the finale of Lost. And chances are that you spent those few minutes feeling pretty jazzed about that good deal and great car you were about to get. When you get that invested in a product and/or the process of buying it, you’re a lot less likely to say “Forget it,” walk away, and give up this opportunity. That’s how they make an extra $2,500.
The great thing about bargaining in Marrakesh, as opposed to the Acura dealership in Bethesda, is that this works both ways. The merchants get really into the process as well, so when you talk up their products for a while, make them think they’ll make a sale, and then make it seem like you’re going to leave, they accept some losses to bring you back, and you low-ball them. And damn, does it feel good!
So, as I put the belt back and go see what Kirill’s buying for Liz, the guy says, “Look, if you can borrow a few dirham from your friends, I’ll drop it to 60 dirham.”
“Mike, can I borrow a few dirham?”
“Yeah, man!”
I turn back to the shopkeeper. “Deal.”
After Kirill got some more souvenirs, the three of us found our way out to Jemaa el Fna and stand #28, home to more delicious orange juice. One glass in basically any juice stand in Jemaa el Fna is 30 dirhams (in USD, that’s about a hell of a lot less than it's worth).
Somewhere in here, I decided that Marrakesh is actually a lot like Las Vegas. There's a unique culture to it (though Vegas’s is painfully hard to find) and the big draw is anticipated return on your money. The big difference, though, is that I love Marrakesh and hate Vegas.
We got back to the hostel to show off our purchases. Kirill and Mike were buying like crazy for their respective significant others. Laura and several others commented that they're "worse than girls." We hung out for a bit, during which time we decided to explore the new city (outside the medina walls) for dinner.
That decision that sets me up to explain a little (operative word) of Marrakesh's historical background.**** Morocco was a French colony for a long time (which is why they speak it and I used it to get probably slightly better starting prices while haggling). French and Arabic are the two big languages (as in most places, English comes in close behind). There are also two parts to the city. The medina is the center, including the Souks where we haggled, Jemaa el Fna, the central mosque tower nearby, the tanneries, and the riad. It's encircled by a tall stone wall with an arch entrance every so often. The other half is the 'new city', the European sector, established more when France moved in and which is — big shock — built more after the fashion of a less awesome and less culturally rich modern city.
So, we left the medina and wandered until we found Le Charlot, a classy little sit-down restaurant with patio seating and a smart Charlie Chaplin theme to the decoration. The food was quite good, and I cannot stress enough how good a value it was. I had the most expensive item on the menu—a very good steak-frites with mushroom sauce—for 110 dirham (about 11€ or $14 USD). The location is-- as best I can tell on Google Maps-- here.
And after dinner and an epic photo-shoot on the Medina wall, I watched, for the first time, the Surfing Bird episode of Family Guy.
(146) is Tuesday, 1 June 2010.
I’ve really suffered you through a long one, so you’ll be glad to know we spent today back in the souks and Jemaa el Fna… just more of the same great experience. Tony and Sally left, so we had lunch (at Le Charlot again, because it was that good) and said our goodbyes. It was Marrakesh. It was great.
That is, it was great until early (147), when Kirill and his Russian passport weren’t allowed to fly to London.
--------------------------------------------
Footnotes
* They call the tea “Moroccan Whiskey” because everybody drinks it, but nobody, being muslim, actually drinks whiskey or any other alcohol.
** They better be serious about Shrek 4 being the last one, by the way.
*** Been a while since you’ve had a French lesson, I reckon… Tanneur is the French word for a craftsperson who works with leather. Thus, tannerie is the place where they work. Come to think of it, English may have borrowed this word.
**** Because, of course, you haven’t read enough of me explaining things recently.
23 June 2010
(132-134): Andy and Sam go to Berlin
(132) is Tuesday, 18 May 2010.
Here are the photos. I refer to several of them this time around, so you might want to take a look if you don't typically.
Sam and I actually filled the time in Berlin. In fact, I’d say we should have gotten an earlier flight out of Vienna the day before. Oh, well.
We got breakfast at this really good pastry place, but tracking down the exact location again is proving quite difficult. Best I can do is tell you that it's near Weinmeisterstrasse metro.
We then hit the New Museum, which ironically housed ancient Egyptian artifacts (among other cool old stuff). Best part was the building though, which probably explains the name. There’s a big, gorgeous exposed-brick atrium in the middle if you look at my pictures. We also saw some 17th-19th century art in the next door museum, which was kind of average… and for some reason, the security guard really didn’t want me carrying my jacket in my arm. Huh.
Afterward, we wandered down Friedrichstrasse, which is the main street in Berlin (our hostel, BaxPax Downtown, was right off said street: huge bonus). We mostly found run-of-the-mill fancy shops, but then there was the VW dealership… Sam’s more of a car connoisseur than I, so he was floored when we saw a Bugatti (I'm told they're legendary, but I just see a car from a sci-fi movie) and a Bentley. There's a picture in the album of a motor almost the size of a nearby child. Cool store, though; big enough to be its own museum.
So, I’m really happy my camera battery held out for a few more minutes, because our next stop was the well-recognized Brandenburg Gate. What I liked even more, however, was the DZ Bank just to the left side in that plaza. This business building, as you’ll see in the picture, looks entirely ordinary from the outside. But go inside, and you find the work of American architect Frank Gehry, who is well known for his mind- (and metal-) bending designs. I wish I’d gotten more angles of this, but they don’t let you in past the reception.
Lunch was less remarkable than Sam’s attempt to get a recommendation. My approach: go on TripAdvisor or Zagat or something beforehand. But, since I hadn't, we were left with Sam’s approach:
“Hey, there’s the American Embassy! Why don’t we ask somebody there?”
“Sam, what the—”
“Dude, they speak English, and they probably know what’s around here.”
“Alright…”
We approach the security guard just outside the building. This is the closest I’ve been to American soil in four and a half months. Sam poses his question to the security guard outside the building.
“Well, that’s one I don’t think I’ve gotten before…!”
Sam laughs. Not that he needs a prompt to do so.
“Well, if you go through the gate, and go round the corner?” The guard instructs, “There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Dunkin’ Donuts?? Really??? Supporting American interests to the end… somebody needs to give this guy a raise.
“…And next to the Dunkin’ Donuts—”
Ohhhh, okay!
“—is a noodle box place," the guard finishes, "that’s where I usually get lunch.”
Good work, Sam.
There’s really no point to that story—we got lunch somewhere forgettable. But it was right next to the Holocaust memorial just a few steps from Brandenburg Gate, the DZ bank, and the American Embassy. The memorial is a sizeable expanse of square monolithic blocks.* The whole thing is on uneven ground, so some blocks are knee-height, while others down the slope are a good 8+ feet high. They're not all the same height, though. And it’s a grid, so each monolith is pretty close to those surrounding it, so if you were feeling uniquely disrespectful, you could hop across the top of these blocks all the way around.
By the way, if you’re wondering why this the design for a Holocaust Memorial, Sam and I weren’t sure either. I think the best explanation we got was something about how, wandering through them, you feel lost amid a grey, stone cold maze of sameness. I don't think it's one block for each person who ____ .
We then walked a ways to the Technikmuseum, a technology museum. With LOTS of boats. And, thanks to an interactive installation, we learned that Sam has no idea how to steer one.
For dinner, we were in the mood for sushi (largely thanks to a TripAdvisor suggestion on a great place moderately priced). I had sake for the first time and I actually really liked it.
(133) is Wednesday, 19 May 2010.
There’s another bakery just down the block from where we ate the day before. It’s a more impressive display of tarts and such. They had bagels and meats as well; it was a good deal for very attractive food. I’d recommend the first place over this one, but it’s still worth a stop if you’ve got more than a few days. Or if you can actually FIND either of these places...
Today’s big event was Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp north of Berlin. The weather was grey and depressing (that is, perfect). There’s not much to Sachsenhausen; just old empty buildings, maybe a spot of museum here and there, and the pervasive mood of paying respects on a huge flat expanse of land. I was observant and respectful, but I didn’t feel particularly shocked or that my world had changed. I think two things explain this; the first is that Sachsenhausen was more of a holding facility than a death camp. Thus, its horror is not quite as dramatic as, say, Auschwitz.
Now, of course, me being me, I feared for a bit that I should have been feeling something I wasn't... the shock and horror, etc. But then I thought, Sam and I knew what we were in for with this visit. It's not like we studied the holocaust as a footnote of the military history of WWII. And I think that’s a silver lining of sorts; we were already cognizant of the horrors, thanks to the help of teachers (be it in school or family) starting at a far younger age. Since speaking two languages doesn’t make me or Sam especially well-educated or cultured, maybe this does.
The other silver lining was that we saw this place with Fabio and Paul, two travelers we ran into on the way to the camp (and they had met at their hostel that morning). Fabio was from South America (I want to say Argentina, but I’m not sure) and Paul was from New Zealand. Both nice guys, and they made one of the better odd couples I’ve ever met. Paul has a pretty thick accent, so Fabio wouldn’t always understand his intonation or might not hear a word. I’ll illustrate:
PAUL: “So, where are you going tomorrow?”
FABIO: “Yes.”
[Awkward silence for a moment]
But they were fun. It was nice to have someone else to talk with on that train back to the city… I just did not have it in me to spend another hour and a half convincing Sam that he was wrong: that there was no such thing as a ninja administration office, and that even if there was, it would be hidden and so he couldn’t simply move in with millions of American dollars and recruit the ninjas for the U.S. military.
We decided we couldn’t leave Germany without hitting a beer garden, so despite the weather and consequent poor attendance, we ate at Prater Garten, which you can find here.** I didn’t like the hop-loaded beer I ordered, but the veal Wiener Schnitzel was top-notch: great meat deliciously prepared.
(134) is Thursday, 20 May 2010.
Another TripAdvisor tip was Sowol Als Auch, a café in a very picturesque neighborhood (not far from the Sushi place and Prater Garten, actually) that reminded me somewhat of the more walkable residential streets in Manhattan. Anyway, the cafe had cute waitresses, patio dining, and delicious food. I had fried eggs with shrimp and salmon and a vanilla milkshake with a hint of banana. Both were great.
And we couldn’t leave Berlin without seeing the remains of the Berlin Wall. This is one of my favorite things that I’ve seen (which explains why about a third of the Berlin photos on my computer are of this site). Not only is there so much history behind it, but it’s kind of fitting that this dark, gritty landmark with a dark, gritty past is in the middle of a gritty factory area of the city. And of course, the artwork on the wall is pretty incredible, as the photo album for this entry exhaustively proves. I don’t know if there’s a turnover rate for murals, but many were marked to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall last November.
After the wall, we booked it to one last recommendation, Opern Palais, for a delicious lunch. It's right here. Anyway, my sausages with mashed potatoes and kraut were very good, but Sam’s dark horse order of Currywurst stole the show. And, as the guidebooks and sites (and I) will tell you, the real reason to eat here is for the dazzling selection of homemade cakes. I had something called ‘Tree Cake’ (there’s a photo), which was tasty, but I’m sure any of it would have been good.
Sam had to book it to his flight, so we got our bags from the hostel. And of course the sun started to come out as we walked from the hostel to the metro with our suitcases. We said our goodbyes on the train platform.
But I had one more stop to make, since my flight wasn’t until the evening. As you may have guessed from my Frank Gehry comments (or maybe just knowing me), I’m an architecture and design enthusiast. So, I wanted to make a stop at the Bauhaus, a museum to the famous mid-20th century school of architects. It was a tiny little exhibit, but I liked looking at all the geometric drawings and models and examples of furniture.*** Too bad it was half under renovation and they didn’t allow pictures (that didn’t stop me). But for 3 euro, it was a nice visit. I also learned about Walter Gropius, another man mentioned in the Tom Lehrer song I linked you to in the last entry.
I left, satisfied with my last stop, the week’s travels, and my state of being in general. As I walked down the ramp from the Bauhaus, the cloudy sun and soft breeze sang through the stark green leaves—softly, and more or less in tune—and reminded me: this is what spring could be.
-------------------------------------
Footnotes
* Think 2001: A Space Odyssey… That is, think 2001: A Space Odyssey if you’ve seen it and are still capable of sensical thought. Most people aren’t afterward. It took me months to recover, and if I hadn’t been folding laundry at the time and thereby distracted, I honestly doubt you’d be reading this now.
** I’m starting to wonder if it’s still worth it to point out my recommendations to you, as I am going almost exclusively by TripAdvisor from this point forward, and you can go on their website much more easily than sifting through my blog again. But you know what? I’m a creature of habit. And perhaps when I get to the French Riviera, I’ll discover my own favorite places again.
*** My parents have a Bauhaus chair at home, and there was one just like it on display. My father was matter-of-fact when I told him about this. Not that I knew it was a Bauhaus chair… to me, since I was four, it’s just been the cool-looking but impossibly uncomfortable and unwieldy black leather-strip chair in the living room that your butt slips through the back of because you’re four and not tall enough to sit in the chair properly.
...I suppose "Bauhaus Chair" is a tad more concise, even if some of the meaning is lost.
Here are the photos. I refer to several of them this time around, so you might want to take a look if you don't typically.
Sam and I actually filled the time in Berlin. In fact, I’d say we should have gotten an earlier flight out of Vienna the day before. Oh, well.
We got breakfast at this really good pastry place, but tracking down the exact location again is proving quite difficult. Best I can do is tell you that it's near Weinmeisterstrasse metro.
We then hit the New Museum, which ironically housed ancient Egyptian artifacts (among other cool old stuff). Best part was the building though, which probably explains the name. There’s a big, gorgeous exposed-brick atrium in the middle if you look at my pictures. We also saw some 17th-19th century art in the next door museum, which was kind of average… and for some reason, the security guard really didn’t want me carrying my jacket in my arm. Huh.
Afterward, we wandered down Friedrichstrasse, which is the main street in Berlin (our hostel, BaxPax Downtown, was right off said street: huge bonus). We mostly found run-of-the-mill fancy shops, but then there was the VW dealership… Sam’s more of a car connoisseur than I, so he was floored when we saw a Bugatti (I'm told they're legendary, but I just see a car from a sci-fi movie) and a Bentley. There's a picture in the album of a motor almost the size of a nearby child. Cool store, though; big enough to be its own museum.
So, I’m really happy my camera battery held out for a few more minutes, because our next stop was the well-recognized Brandenburg Gate. What I liked even more, however, was the DZ Bank just to the left side in that plaza. This business building, as you’ll see in the picture, looks entirely ordinary from the outside. But go inside, and you find the work of American architect Frank Gehry, who is well known for his mind- (and metal-) bending designs. I wish I’d gotten more angles of this, but they don’t let you in past the reception.
Lunch was less remarkable than Sam’s attempt to get a recommendation. My approach: go on TripAdvisor or Zagat or something beforehand. But, since I hadn't, we were left with Sam’s approach:
“Hey, there’s the American Embassy! Why don’t we ask somebody there?”
“Sam, what the—”
“Dude, they speak English, and they probably know what’s around here.”
“Alright…”
We approach the security guard just outside the building. This is the closest I’ve been to American soil in four and a half months. Sam poses his question to the security guard outside the building.
“Well, that’s one I don’t think I’ve gotten before…!”
Sam laughs. Not that he needs a prompt to do so.
“Well, if you go through the gate, and go round the corner?” The guard instructs, “There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Dunkin’ Donuts?? Really??? Supporting American interests to the end… somebody needs to give this guy a raise.
“…And next to the Dunkin’ Donuts—”
Ohhhh, okay!
“—is a noodle box place," the guard finishes, "that’s where I usually get lunch.”
Good work, Sam.
There’s really no point to that story—we got lunch somewhere forgettable. But it was right next to the Holocaust memorial just a few steps from Brandenburg Gate, the DZ bank, and the American Embassy. The memorial is a sizeable expanse of square monolithic blocks.* The whole thing is on uneven ground, so some blocks are knee-height, while others down the slope are a good 8+ feet high. They're not all the same height, though. And it’s a grid, so each monolith is pretty close to those surrounding it, so if you were feeling uniquely disrespectful, you could hop across the top of these blocks all the way around.
By the way, if you’re wondering why this the design for a Holocaust Memorial, Sam and I weren’t sure either. I think the best explanation we got was something about how, wandering through them, you feel lost amid a grey, stone cold maze of sameness. I don't think it's one block for each person who ____ .
We then walked a ways to the Technikmuseum, a technology museum. With LOTS of boats. And, thanks to an interactive installation, we learned that Sam has no idea how to steer one.
For dinner, we were in the mood for sushi (largely thanks to a TripAdvisor suggestion on a great place moderately priced). I had sake for the first time and I actually really liked it.
(133) is Wednesday, 19 May 2010.
There’s another bakery just down the block from where we ate the day before. It’s a more impressive display of tarts and such. They had bagels and meats as well; it was a good deal for very attractive food. I’d recommend the first place over this one, but it’s still worth a stop if you’ve got more than a few days. Or if you can actually FIND either of these places...
Today’s big event was Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp north of Berlin. The weather was grey and depressing (that is, perfect). There’s not much to Sachsenhausen; just old empty buildings, maybe a spot of museum here and there, and the pervasive mood of paying respects on a huge flat expanse of land. I was observant and respectful, but I didn’t feel particularly shocked or that my world had changed. I think two things explain this; the first is that Sachsenhausen was more of a holding facility than a death camp. Thus, its horror is not quite as dramatic as, say, Auschwitz.
Now, of course, me being me, I feared for a bit that I should have been feeling something I wasn't... the shock and horror, etc. But then I thought, Sam and I knew what we were in for with this visit. It's not like we studied the holocaust as a footnote of the military history of WWII. And I think that’s a silver lining of sorts; we were already cognizant of the horrors, thanks to the help of teachers (be it in school or family) starting at a far younger age. Since speaking two languages doesn’t make me or Sam especially well-educated or cultured, maybe this does.
The other silver lining was that we saw this place with Fabio and Paul, two travelers we ran into on the way to the camp (and they had met at their hostel that morning). Fabio was from South America (I want to say Argentina, but I’m not sure) and Paul was from New Zealand. Both nice guys, and they made one of the better odd couples I’ve ever met. Paul has a pretty thick accent, so Fabio wouldn’t always understand his intonation or might not hear a word. I’ll illustrate:
PAUL: “So, where are you going tomorrow?”
FABIO: “Yes.”
[Awkward silence for a moment]
But they were fun. It was nice to have someone else to talk with on that train back to the city… I just did not have it in me to spend another hour and a half convincing Sam that he was wrong: that there was no such thing as a ninja administration office, and that even if there was, it would be hidden and so he couldn’t simply move in with millions of American dollars and recruit the ninjas for the U.S. military.
We decided we couldn’t leave Germany without hitting a beer garden, so despite the weather and consequent poor attendance, we ate at Prater Garten, which you can find here.** I didn’t like the hop-loaded beer I ordered, but the veal Wiener Schnitzel was top-notch: great meat deliciously prepared.
(134) is Thursday, 20 May 2010.
Another TripAdvisor tip was Sowol Als Auch, a café in a very picturesque neighborhood (not far from the Sushi place and Prater Garten, actually) that reminded me somewhat of the more walkable residential streets in Manhattan. Anyway, the cafe had cute waitresses, patio dining, and delicious food. I had fried eggs with shrimp and salmon and a vanilla milkshake with a hint of banana. Both were great.
And we couldn’t leave Berlin without seeing the remains of the Berlin Wall. This is one of my favorite things that I’ve seen (which explains why about a third of the Berlin photos on my computer are of this site). Not only is there so much history behind it, but it’s kind of fitting that this dark, gritty landmark with a dark, gritty past is in the middle of a gritty factory area of the city. And of course, the artwork on the wall is pretty incredible, as the photo album for this entry exhaustively proves. I don’t know if there’s a turnover rate for murals, but many were marked to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall last November.
After the wall, we booked it to one last recommendation, Opern Palais, for a delicious lunch. It's right here. Anyway, my sausages with mashed potatoes and kraut were very good, but Sam’s dark horse order of Currywurst stole the show. And, as the guidebooks and sites (and I) will tell you, the real reason to eat here is for the dazzling selection of homemade cakes. I had something called ‘Tree Cake’ (there’s a photo), which was tasty, but I’m sure any of it would have been good.
Sam had to book it to his flight, so we got our bags from the hostel. And of course the sun started to come out as we walked from the hostel to the metro with our suitcases. We said our goodbyes on the train platform.
But I had one more stop to make, since my flight wasn’t until the evening. As you may have guessed from my Frank Gehry comments (or maybe just knowing me), I’m an architecture and design enthusiast. So, I wanted to make a stop at the Bauhaus, a museum to the famous mid-20th century school of architects. It was a tiny little exhibit, but I liked looking at all the geometric drawings and models and examples of furniture.*** Too bad it was half under renovation and they didn’t allow pictures (that didn’t stop me). But for 3 euro, it was a nice visit. I also learned about Walter Gropius, another man mentioned in the Tom Lehrer song I linked you to in the last entry.
I left, satisfied with my last stop, the week’s travels, and my state of being in general. As I walked down the ramp from the Bauhaus, the cloudy sun and soft breeze sang through the stark green leaves—softly, and more or less in tune—and reminded me: this is what spring could be.
-------------------------------------
Footnotes
* Think 2001: A Space Odyssey… That is, think 2001: A Space Odyssey if you’ve seen it and are still capable of sensical thought. Most people aren’t afterward. It took me months to recover, and if I hadn’t been folding laundry at the time and thereby distracted, I honestly doubt you’d be reading this now.
** I’m starting to wonder if it’s still worth it to point out my recommendations to you, as I am going almost exclusively by TripAdvisor from this point forward, and you can go on their website much more easily than sifting through my blog again. But you know what? I’m a creature of habit. And perhaps when I get to the French Riviera, I’ll discover my own favorite places again.
*** My parents have a Bauhaus chair at home, and there was one just like it on display. My father was matter-of-fact when I told him about this. Not that I knew it was a Bauhaus chair… to me, since I was four, it’s just been the cool-looking but impossibly uncomfortable and unwieldy black leather-strip chair in the living room that your butt slips through the back of because you’re four and not tall enough to sit in the chair properly.
...I suppose "Bauhaus Chair" is a tad more concise, even if some of the meaning is lost.
22 June 2010
(128-131): Vienna, Out of Context
Ever wonder how far you can take a conversation into the realm of absurdity? Ever wonder what it would be like to have a laugh-track playing over your entire life? And do you ever wonder what it would be like if that laugh-track provided most of its own ridiculous jokes and, by laughing at its own jokes, made them the funniest things you’ve ever heard?
I often do. That’s why I spent a week traveling with Sam Seifman.
And—as if Sam’s and my brand of humor and inside jokes weren’t absurd enough already—there is one thing I need to explain about Vienna. In the various places I’ve been this semester, I understand most things I see: signs, posters, ads, you know. The cultures are reasonably close to my own, so I find most of the visual logic and cues are pretty intuitive.
Not here.
I don’t know why, when, or how this happened, but Vienna has developed into a place where, if you can’t read the captions, the pictures and ads you see virtually everywhere are bizarre and incomprehensible. This city makes no sense out of context. But you know something?
Sam and I can jam to that.
(128) is Friday, 14 May 2010.
Now that I’ve explained my angle on Vienna, you’ll probably have a much better time understanding why I took these particular photos. Key word there is “probably.”
Sam and I found our way to our Hostel in Hütteldorf (called Hostel Hütteldorf), a Viennese* suburb. The hostel was fine—best part was definitely the name “Hütteldorf”—but it was kind of far out from central Vienna. We got lunch at a place near the hostel called Weinbrunnen (which you should go to if you do stay at that hostel… not that any of you, my audience, are actually likely to, I realize).
Before our trip, we didn’t know much about Austrian/German cuisine (“brautwurst” and snickering at the term “Wiener Schnitzel” were more or less the list). But Sam has this great culinary motto, which is: “Eat where you are.” So, if you’re in a restaurant in a place by the sea, get the flounder and hold off on the steak. Similarly, don’t get flounder in Grinnell, Iowa, which is home to more corn (and corn-fed cows) than people. With this strategy, Sam always wins the “who ordered the best” game, and he did it at lunch by ordering something he couldn’t pronounce. I ordered half of a fried chicken. I’ve gotten better about trying new food, but I was really tired from staying up late to pack and didn’t feel like branching out this time.
Still, I was rather chagrined when Sam got a huge plate of delicious meats prepared in the traditional style and served with sauerkraut and I got chicken tenders. Freaking chicken tenders! I’m in Vienna and I get the food standby from when I was seven. Sam couldn’t get enough of it (and I bet you’re laughing again now, you old dog, you).
After a siesta, we wandered into Vienna proper with a map, but no real sense of orientation yet. We walked and, well, stuff snuck up on us. We saw some nice building façades, but nothing stunning until the huge cathedral at Stephansplatz just appeared! We were in the city center now, so there were plenty more cool old buildings to find, scattered about the many pedestrian streets. The twilight was nice, too, so we had a generally nice walk.
At dinner, Sam ordered this drink called a Radler, which I recommend because I’m typically not a beer drinker. This brand combination of blond beer and lemonade was delicious (does wonders to counteract the hops I hate). It came in a sizeable bottle that would last Sam the meal. I, more the cocktail drinker, ordered an aperitif described as warm and apple with whipped cream and delicious. And it was all that. But the glass wasn’t quite as big as Sam’s.
As he put it: “It’s the perfect size for a leprechaun!”**
But I had sausage and sauerkraut, which made up for it. That, and the man performing whatever words he could remember of “If I Were a Rich Man” and “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” on an instrument whose exposed strings you hit with mallets.
(129) is Saturday, 15 May 2010.
My daily on-the-fly planning took us to the Schönbrunn Palace and gardens. It’s roughly Austria’s answer to Versailles, and it’s no mere snarky retort.
We walked the gardens (free, and definitely a good idea if the weather’s good) and shelled out a few Euro to walk the equally rewarding garden labyrinth.*** After the labyrinth and utter tangent of a footnote, it was lunchtime because hostel breakfasts aren’t all that filling. We hopped into the restaurant on premises, where we indulged in really good hamburgers (called “hapsburgers!” Get it???) with a great sauce. We decided to get dessert, too: Sam had Sacher Torte (more on that in a bit) while I had their delicious homemade apple strudel. See the word “homemade”? That means I won at “who ordered the best.”
Back in Vienna proper, Sam and I got tickets for a tour of the Vienna Opera House. I was kind of hoping for more of a backstage/behind-the-scenes tour, but it was still really cool: that’s a beautiful building; I highly recommend you walk around there at somepoint, be it for a show or on that same tour. We got to see the tech crew putting up the set for the evening’s show, so that was something. They basically told us the history of the opera house. I liked learning more about Gustav Mahler (of whom I first heard in this song by Tom Lehrer, who sings “The Vatican Rag”), and I liked what he did with the opera. Until he became the guy in charge in the 50s, performers would just stand in place and sing an aria. “Not good enough,” says Gus. “This is a story. Y’all have to act.” So, from that point on, they do.
We got dinner at an off-the-beaten-path place (yay TripAdvisor!) called Schöne Perle (it’s German for “precious pearl” and located HERE). It’s where locals go, for good food and lighting that is low, reddish-yellow, and gives a great gritty city atmosphere. I had a pot-au-feu soup and—get ready—Wiener Schnitzel. Now, I used to think this food was funny, so I understand your instinct to laugh, but take me seriously (or as seriously as you ever can, I suppose) for just a second and read this next sentence. Wiener Schnitzel is a large, thin cut of chicken, pork, or veal breaded and pan-fried to delicious perfection and served with some kind of potatoes (often delicious as well).
Not so funny anymore, eh? Kinda’ awesome? Yeah. That’s what I thought.
So, about 154 food descriptions ago, I mentioned Sam had Sacher Torte and that I’d come back to it. Well, here we are. Our next stop was dessert at the famous Sacher Hotel, where they’ve made famous a rich, semi-dry chocolate cake with a hint of tangerine. Sam and I had delicious coffee and hot chocolate, respectively. I think Sacher Torte is decent, but you only need to get it once, and you only should get it from them.
(130) is Sunday, 16 May 2010.
“So,” Sam and I reasoned that morning, “Because we aren’t crazy enough, and because our laughter isn’t crazy enough, and because the signs around us aren’t crazy enough, let’s add more absurdity to this experience in Vienna.”
“Let’s start the day at this absurd city’s finest modern art museum.”
No decade did modern art better than the 80s. Televisions looked awful, and so the avant-garde people decide they were beautiful and a perfect medium. Films were campy but made sense, so filmmakers had to go back to black and white and film a dude standing on a rock flapping his arms, trying and failing to fly (no joke… it was hilarious). There were also 10-second films at which we laughed hysterically.
Also, the European clothing chain Humanic turned out some of the finest commercials I've ever seen. Here's one of them, and here's another!
Well, it was fun for a while, but that trip went on a little too long. When we finally came off it we were… in the rain again. Damn. We ate and wandered. I think it was somewhere in here that one of the… tentacles? of my umbrella broke. You know, one of the six parts that hold the fabric outstretched. Sam’s umbrella had broken at least a day back. I was stubborn.
By this time, we’d made a few observations about Vienna:
1.) It doesn’t really feel like a city: not many residential buildings in the main part of town, all businesses and old buildings… it feels more like a place to visit.
2.) No matter where in town you are or which way you’re walking, the city center seems to have a gravity-like effect. You always find your way back there. What helps this phenomenon along is that the city center isn’t all that big.
3.) The city’s biggest draw are its buildings and parks, both of which require you to walk around outside. Not a pleasant prospect when it was raining.
So, with these things in mind, we decided it was time to kill a few hours. Soapman hadn’t seen Iron Man 2, so we found an English-language movie theater showing it on their big screen. It was a very cool place, actually, with lots of old projectors and stuff on display. Also, they assigned seats, like in a theater theater. And you know something? After a lukewarm reaction to it in Paris, I actually liked the movie better the second time I saw it.
Dinner was an obscurely-located (not even Google can find it) place called Gäuzchen, an tavern of sorts with lots of good food at student prices. It was here that Sam and I laughed over how people from most other countries speak English better than we do. Looking at the menu, I saw a combo appetizer platter with all your standard American diner-food cravings, and I was food-homesick: fries, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, etc. I ordered it, but the waitress gave me a tip to get something else.
“Not good?” I asked.
“Well, it’s alright; it’s just a little… uninspired.”
Good enough for me. I didn’t write down what I actually got… probably Wiener Schnitzel.
But can we go back to the part where this woman described a dish as “uninspired”? Brilliant use of the word! Most Americans (myself included) typically wouldn’t think to use that phrasing. I was going to wait on this, but I might as well go ahead into a philosophical matter now, since it’s relevant and will break up the food descriptions.
I was with Mom and Dad at dinner back in March, and after ordering everyone’s food in French, they glad-handed me about how great it was that I could do that so easily and that it was the mark of a truly educated person to be able to speak so well in two languages. And, as I’ve travelled a bit, I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t disagree with them; most Americans can’t even speak English well. But this waitress, like the many other bilingual people I’ve meet this year, got me thinking:
She’s German.
She’s bilingual, one language being English.
She’s normal.
I’m American.
I’m bilingual, one language being English.
I’m well-educated.
That doesn’t seem fair.
(131) is Monday, 17 May 2010.
It stopped raining! Everybody’s in the play! And don’t you know… that I got carried away into my favorite song by Electric Light Orchestra. But it did stop raining, so Sam and I finally got to see some of the gardens, where we walked, swapped story ideas, and sang "The General" by Dispatch.****
So, can anybody explain why there are an obscene number of links in this entry? I can't.
Lunch today was at Trzesniewski, and the place gets my award for best meal in Vienna. It’s easily found here, just off one of the main streets in the city center (there’s even a sizeable sign pointing you into the right side street). This place does just one thing: little pieces of bread with different puréed spread combinations, one euro apiece. We ordered five each and were euphorically full for the cost of 5 euro. All of these “sandwiches” were delicious… our favorites were liver, salmon and cream cheese, and egg. So, to answer your question, yes I was Jewish for the duration of the meal.
Since we were just killing hours until our flight to Berlin that evening, we decided to try the Ferris Wheel. So, we made it to that end of town and discovered not just the wheel, but a SECOND wheel. But, hold on a tick… what’s all this stuff here around the second wheel? Is that—an AMUSEMENT PARK?!?!
Um… this was kinda’ necessary.
We walked around, but despite its being mid-May, most rides were closed. We did see these huge funhouses that were several stories high and glorified obstacle courses, most of whose perils you could see on front-facing balconies. It was so much fun to just stand and watch grown men—who paid good money to do this!—walking through these ridiculous, embarrassing sets of bumpers and rollers and rotating crawl-on-your-knees tunnels and who-the-bloody-hell-knows what else. Watching was way more fun than doing would have been: I’m sure of it
We found an operating roller coaster, which was surprisingly good. I then stepped in a puddle. Sam then laughed. I got cotton candy (also kinda’ necessary at an amusement park). Sam’s marshmallow-chocolate-dessert-thing then fell on the ground. I then laughed.
What followed was just walking a huge circle around greater downtown Vienna. We saw the university building, which we hadn’t yet, and it was a very cool gothic structure. Unfortunately, the impressive-looking gothic cathedrals we passed were closed today.
After dinner at Weinbrunnen again, we got Magnum bars (but no sign of the mysterious Magnum Gold?!) before heading to the disorganized mess that is Vienna airport.
---------------------------------------------
Anybody know how to say “Footnote” in German?
* I think “Viennese” may be my favorite location-related descriptor of them all. Not to be confused with “Vietnamese,” a word for which I have no special affection.
** I don’t read German, but I bet they had a special price if you ordered it with chicken tenders.
*** I’ve been to ones where it’s just the labyrinth pattern on the ground in different colored bricks. LAME! Without walls, it’s just as silly as the scheme I had when I was four with my neighborhood friend Vito (then Christopher, nickname Christy) to trap my dad in the basement. The plan was to build a path out of blocks leading my dad to the place on the floor where he was supposed to sleep for the night. Then, during the night, I was supposed to come down to the basement and rearrange the blocks so there was no longer an exit. Trapped: no way out. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I want you to know I’ve come to appreciate your wisdom somewhat better in the last seventeen years.
**** I love that song, but I actually prefer this recording of it by Matthew's Minstrels, a brilliant Vassar A Capella group. Note my dear former roomie, Jon Fuller, on the refrain harmony.
I often do. That’s why I spent a week traveling with Sam Seifman.
And—as if Sam’s and my brand of humor and inside jokes weren’t absurd enough already—there is one thing I need to explain about Vienna. In the various places I’ve been this semester, I understand most things I see: signs, posters, ads, you know. The cultures are reasonably close to my own, so I find most of the visual logic and cues are pretty intuitive.
Not here.
I don’t know why, when, or how this happened, but Vienna has developed into a place where, if you can’t read the captions, the pictures and ads you see virtually everywhere are bizarre and incomprehensible. This city makes no sense out of context. But you know something?
Sam and I can jam to that.
(128) is Friday, 14 May 2010.
Now that I’ve explained my angle on Vienna, you’ll probably have a much better time understanding why I took these particular photos. Key word there is “probably.”
Sam and I found our way to our Hostel in Hütteldorf (called Hostel Hütteldorf), a Viennese* suburb. The hostel was fine—best part was definitely the name “Hütteldorf”—but it was kind of far out from central Vienna. We got lunch at a place near the hostel called Weinbrunnen (which you should go to if you do stay at that hostel… not that any of you, my audience, are actually likely to, I realize).
Before our trip, we didn’t know much about Austrian/German cuisine (“brautwurst” and snickering at the term “Wiener Schnitzel” were more or less the list). But Sam has this great culinary motto, which is: “Eat where you are.” So, if you’re in a restaurant in a place by the sea, get the flounder and hold off on the steak. Similarly, don’t get flounder in Grinnell, Iowa, which is home to more corn (and corn-fed cows) than people. With this strategy, Sam always wins the “who ordered the best” game, and he did it at lunch by ordering something he couldn’t pronounce. I ordered half of a fried chicken. I’ve gotten better about trying new food, but I was really tired from staying up late to pack and didn’t feel like branching out this time.
Still, I was rather chagrined when Sam got a huge plate of delicious meats prepared in the traditional style and served with sauerkraut and I got chicken tenders. Freaking chicken tenders! I’m in Vienna and I get the food standby from when I was seven. Sam couldn’t get enough of it (and I bet you’re laughing again now, you old dog, you).
After a siesta, we wandered into Vienna proper with a map, but no real sense of orientation yet. We walked and, well, stuff snuck up on us. We saw some nice building façades, but nothing stunning until the huge cathedral at Stephansplatz just appeared! We were in the city center now, so there were plenty more cool old buildings to find, scattered about the many pedestrian streets. The twilight was nice, too, so we had a generally nice walk.
At dinner, Sam ordered this drink called a Radler, which I recommend because I’m typically not a beer drinker. This brand combination of blond beer and lemonade was delicious (does wonders to counteract the hops I hate). It came in a sizeable bottle that would last Sam the meal. I, more the cocktail drinker, ordered an aperitif described as warm and apple with whipped cream and delicious. And it was all that. But the glass wasn’t quite as big as Sam’s.
As he put it: “It’s the perfect size for a leprechaun!”**
But I had sausage and sauerkraut, which made up for it. That, and the man performing whatever words he could remember of “If I Were a Rich Man” and “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” on an instrument whose exposed strings you hit with mallets.
(129) is Saturday, 15 May 2010.
My daily on-the-fly planning took us to the Schönbrunn Palace and gardens. It’s roughly Austria’s answer to Versailles, and it’s no mere snarky retort.
We walked the gardens (free, and definitely a good idea if the weather’s good) and shelled out a few Euro to walk the equally rewarding garden labyrinth.*** After the labyrinth and utter tangent of a footnote, it was lunchtime because hostel breakfasts aren’t all that filling. We hopped into the restaurant on premises, where we indulged in really good hamburgers (called “hapsburgers!” Get it???) with a great sauce. We decided to get dessert, too: Sam had Sacher Torte (more on that in a bit) while I had their delicious homemade apple strudel. See the word “homemade”? That means I won at “who ordered the best.”
Back in Vienna proper, Sam and I got tickets for a tour of the Vienna Opera House. I was kind of hoping for more of a backstage/behind-the-scenes tour, but it was still really cool: that’s a beautiful building; I highly recommend you walk around there at somepoint, be it for a show or on that same tour. We got to see the tech crew putting up the set for the evening’s show, so that was something. They basically told us the history of the opera house. I liked learning more about Gustav Mahler (of whom I first heard in this song by Tom Lehrer, who sings “The Vatican Rag”), and I liked what he did with the opera. Until he became the guy in charge in the 50s, performers would just stand in place and sing an aria. “Not good enough,” says Gus. “This is a story. Y’all have to act.” So, from that point on, they do.
We got dinner at an off-the-beaten-path place (yay TripAdvisor!) called Schöne Perle (it’s German for “precious pearl” and located HERE). It’s where locals go, for good food and lighting that is low, reddish-yellow, and gives a great gritty city atmosphere. I had a pot-au-feu soup and—get ready—Wiener Schnitzel. Now, I used to think this food was funny, so I understand your instinct to laugh, but take me seriously (or as seriously as you ever can, I suppose) for just a second and read this next sentence. Wiener Schnitzel is a large, thin cut of chicken, pork, or veal breaded and pan-fried to delicious perfection and served with some kind of potatoes (often delicious as well).
Not so funny anymore, eh? Kinda’ awesome? Yeah. That’s what I thought.
So, about 154 food descriptions ago, I mentioned Sam had Sacher Torte and that I’d come back to it. Well, here we are. Our next stop was dessert at the famous Sacher Hotel, where they’ve made famous a rich, semi-dry chocolate cake with a hint of tangerine. Sam and I had delicious coffee and hot chocolate, respectively. I think Sacher Torte is decent, but you only need to get it once, and you only should get it from them.
(130) is Sunday, 16 May 2010.
“So,” Sam and I reasoned that morning, “Because we aren’t crazy enough, and because our laughter isn’t crazy enough, and because the signs around us aren’t crazy enough, let’s add more absurdity to this experience in Vienna.”
“Let’s start the day at this absurd city’s finest modern art museum.”
No decade did modern art better than the 80s. Televisions looked awful, and so the avant-garde people decide they were beautiful and a perfect medium. Films were campy but made sense, so filmmakers had to go back to black and white and film a dude standing on a rock flapping his arms, trying and failing to fly (no joke… it was hilarious). There were also 10-second films at which we laughed hysterically.
Also, the European clothing chain Humanic turned out some of the finest commercials I've ever seen. Here's one of them, and here's another!
Well, it was fun for a while, but that trip went on a little too long. When we finally came off it we were… in the rain again. Damn. We ate and wandered. I think it was somewhere in here that one of the… tentacles? of my umbrella broke. You know, one of the six parts that hold the fabric outstretched. Sam’s umbrella had broken at least a day back. I was stubborn.
By this time, we’d made a few observations about Vienna:
1.) It doesn’t really feel like a city: not many residential buildings in the main part of town, all businesses and old buildings… it feels more like a place to visit.
2.) No matter where in town you are or which way you’re walking, the city center seems to have a gravity-like effect. You always find your way back there. What helps this phenomenon along is that the city center isn’t all that big.
3.) The city’s biggest draw are its buildings and parks, both of which require you to walk around outside. Not a pleasant prospect when it was raining.
So, with these things in mind, we decided it was time to kill a few hours. Soapman hadn’t seen Iron Man 2, so we found an English-language movie theater showing it on their big screen. It was a very cool place, actually, with lots of old projectors and stuff on display. Also, they assigned seats, like in a theater theater. And you know something? After a lukewarm reaction to it in Paris, I actually liked the movie better the second time I saw it.
Dinner was an obscurely-located (not even Google can find it) place called Gäuzchen, an tavern of sorts with lots of good food at student prices. It was here that Sam and I laughed over how people from most other countries speak English better than we do. Looking at the menu, I saw a combo appetizer platter with all your standard American diner-food cravings, and I was food-homesick: fries, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, etc. I ordered it, but the waitress gave me a tip to get something else.
“Not good?” I asked.
“Well, it’s alright; it’s just a little… uninspired.”
Good enough for me. I didn’t write down what I actually got… probably Wiener Schnitzel.
But can we go back to the part where this woman described a dish as “uninspired”? Brilliant use of the word! Most Americans (myself included) typically wouldn’t think to use that phrasing. I was going to wait on this, but I might as well go ahead into a philosophical matter now, since it’s relevant and will break up the food descriptions.
I was with Mom and Dad at dinner back in March, and after ordering everyone’s food in French, they glad-handed me about how great it was that I could do that so easily and that it was the mark of a truly educated person to be able to speak so well in two languages. And, as I’ve travelled a bit, I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t disagree with them; most Americans can’t even speak English well. But this waitress, like the many other bilingual people I’ve meet this year, got me thinking:
She’s German.
She’s bilingual, one language being English.
She’s normal.
I’m American.
I’m bilingual, one language being English.
I’m well-educated.
That doesn’t seem fair.
(131) is Monday, 17 May 2010.
It stopped raining! Everybody’s in the play! And don’t you know… that I got carried away into my favorite song by Electric Light Orchestra. But it did stop raining, so Sam and I finally got to see some of the gardens, where we walked, swapped story ideas, and sang "The General" by Dispatch.****
So, can anybody explain why there are an obscene number of links in this entry? I can't.
Lunch today was at Trzesniewski, and the place gets my award for best meal in Vienna. It’s easily found here, just off one of the main streets in the city center (there’s even a sizeable sign pointing you into the right side street). This place does just one thing: little pieces of bread with different puréed spread combinations, one euro apiece. We ordered five each and were euphorically full for the cost of 5 euro. All of these “sandwiches” were delicious… our favorites were liver, salmon and cream cheese, and egg. So, to answer your question, yes I was Jewish for the duration of the meal.
Since we were just killing hours until our flight to Berlin that evening, we decided to try the Ferris Wheel. So, we made it to that end of town and discovered not just the wheel, but a SECOND wheel. But, hold on a tick… what’s all this stuff here around the second wheel? Is that—an AMUSEMENT PARK?!?!
Um… this was kinda’ necessary.
We walked around, but despite its being mid-May, most rides were closed. We did see these huge funhouses that were several stories high and glorified obstacle courses, most of whose perils you could see on front-facing balconies. It was so much fun to just stand and watch grown men—who paid good money to do this!—walking through these ridiculous, embarrassing sets of bumpers and rollers and rotating crawl-on-your-knees tunnels and who-the-bloody-hell-knows what else. Watching was way more fun than doing would have been: I’m sure of it
We found an operating roller coaster, which was surprisingly good. I then stepped in a puddle. Sam then laughed. I got cotton candy (also kinda’ necessary at an amusement park). Sam’s marshmallow-chocolate-dessert-thing then fell on the ground. I then laughed.
What followed was just walking a huge circle around greater downtown Vienna. We saw the university building, which we hadn’t yet, and it was a very cool gothic structure. Unfortunately, the impressive-looking gothic cathedrals we passed were closed today.
After dinner at Weinbrunnen again, we got Magnum bars (but no sign of the mysterious Magnum Gold?!) before heading to the disorganized mess that is Vienna airport.
---------------------------------------------
Anybody know how to say “Footnote” in German?
* I think “Viennese” may be my favorite location-related descriptor of them all. Not to be confused with “Vietnamese,” a word for which I have no special affection.
** I don’t read German, but I bet they had a special price if you ordered it with chicken tenders.
*** I’ve been to ones where it’s just the labyrinth pattern on the ground in different colored bricks. LAME! Without walls, it’s just as silly as the scheme I had when I was four with my neighborhood friend Vito (then Christopher, nickname Christy) to trap my dad in the basement. The plan was to build a path out of blocks leading my dad to the place on the floor where he was supposed to sleep for the night. Then, during the night, I was supposed to come down to the basement and rearrange the blocks so there was no longer an exit. Trapped: no way out. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I want you to know I’ve come to appreciate your wisdom somewhat better in the last seventeen years.
**** I love that song, but I actually prefer this recording of it by Matthew's Minstrels, a brilliant Vassar A Capella group. Note my dear former roomie, Jon Fuller, on the refrain harmony.
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