Europe Part 11: Shopping!

Rothenburg the night before. VERY Pretty.

After another mostly normal breakfast, except for the cereal which was Cinnamon toast ‘esque’ and the milk which was a leeeetle bit too warm (you don’t notice the differences until they’re different) we did some neat German shopping. We stopped at *the* Christmas shop for a while and got a few neat souvenirs there. The thing I really wanted to find was a tiny, detailed version of the buildings: how they’re all tall, squashed together, and lined with cobblestone streets. I didn’t find any at the x-mas shop though.



The Christmas store. We didn't see the sign that says no pictures until after we took it.

While waiting for some other shops to open we were standing at the wall and we saw a cat! Our first cat of the trip. (Definitely not the last.) He was pretty friendly and let us follow him around and pet him, but he was *clearly* on a mission. He was rubbing up against cars and marking them (properly marking, if you know what I mean) and patrolling his turf with gusto. We followed him until he wandered into the courtyard of a house. Talk about posh cat digs. I’ll bet he chases fancy *European* mice.


One of the most preposterous clocks in Germany. Also, look at those Steins!

So after stopping at a few more shops and seeing how totally easy they are to wind, we decided that yes, we did want a Cuckoo clock. But only if they were one of the 8-day ones. I kinda liked how overwrought and silly most of them were. So we went to a couple of shops, all of which had a pretty impressive selection, and each of them had their own, unique extra-bonkers one that was a good meter-and-a-half tall and terribly impressive. So we went back to one of the shops we liked and picked a clock we liked and as the nice old lady who owned the shop rung us up we learned she was a horrible, horrible racist.

Selected quotes:

“Look at them (Japanese tourist) they always just come in and look around they never buy anything.”
“See that? They just look at the window. That’s why we had to put the no exit sign over there, otherwise they just walk right through.”
“Ah, she just took something out of the glass. Aaah! (Yes, she actually yelled.) Would you ever do that? I can’t believe it.”

Seriously, for the five or so minutes it took to ring us up all she did was complain to us about Japanese tourists. Maybe someone should tell her that the young Americans being led to her shop by the tour books find that sort of behavior pretty deplorable. At least we have a story to go with the clock.

...If it ever shows up. We had them send it to the house but we haven’t gotten anything yet. We’re getting ready to complain to the credit card company if we don’t hear back soon. Dumb old racist German shop owners. Bah!

Eventually I did find my little miniature cityscape that I wanted at some random souvenir shop, which I really like. Then we got our backpacks, stocked up on ‘travel sandwiches’ and headed for the train station! Then some random stranger gave us directions to where the train station actually was...and we headed to the train station again!

We had a bit of a layover at one of the transfer stations since we had taken an early train because we were there more than an hour early. This happened to us a lot, as it turns out. I blame Jess. So we used the extra time to figure out the last leg of our journey with a travel agent at the train station. We ended up making reservations on a couple of the trains, and we would, later, be quite glad we did. Also, at one of the stations we got a little confused when our train arrived early under a different name, then the banner changed. We ended up hopping on and, lucky us, it was the train we needed. A little dicey for a second.


Jess on the train. This pic is unique because Jess isn't sleeping.

Then, to Fussen! For a long time, actually. We spent a lot of time on trains. I passed the time reading my EXCELLENT book (Transformation, by some Author whose name I can’t remember but we went back to the used bookstore when we got home and bought all the other books of hers that they had) and Jess red her horrible one. Some Indiana Jones novel that wasn’t based on any of the movies. We didn’t bother to get any extras of that one. I also listened to a lot of podcasts, a good way to pass the time.

After arriving at Fussen we went out searching for dinner. Most of the places were closed but we did manage to track down a nice Italian restaurant. Jess got four cheese pizza (her favorite) and I got an *incredibly hot* salmon and broccoli lasagna. After that, back to the hostel. Yes, a proper hostel. Shared bathrooms and everything. It’s part of the experience. Some writing, some relaxing, and bed.

-N

Europe Part 10: Realy Neat Old German cities

The most important thing we got done this day was to get some utilitarian shopping done: toothpaste, contact lens solution and, most important of all, new notebooks. We were chewing through the ones we brought so we got some new notebooks so that we’d be able to take good notes. We ended up writing two each. Not bad work, really.

When we came downstairs for our, by now, traditional breakfast of meats and breads, the hotel owner/chef said he was ‘cooking eggs’ and asked if I wanted one. Well that sounded just nebulous enough to be interesting, so I said sure. Turns out he was making soft boiled eggs, and, it further turns out, I don’t know how to eat them correctly. So I made a bit of a mess with shells and yolk and whatnot, but it was pretty good, and it totally grossed Jessie out, which was entertaining as well. Then we wandered around the city while we waited for our train to show up, looking for kitties. Somehow cats and ancient German cities just seemed to fit together. We didn’t find any, but this was the last place where we didn’t find at least one cat for the rest of the trip, I think.

Our train travel was a little exciting, with the train stopping at one point, a track change announcement in German that we couldn’t understand, and a couple of very short transfers. We did, however, make it to Rothenburgh, medieval-style city that was preserved mostly, we eventually learned, by poverty. The city was to poor to restructure itself for so long that it eventually came back around as so old it’s quaint. These days it’s one of the biggest tourist destinations in Germany, with lots of shopping and other interesting stores and sights. I really liked this place.

We first stopped at our hotel to drop off the backpacks and then got some food. We’d done a good job of alternating our activities, going from big city to smaller, prettier cities and ruins, but now Jess wanted the outdoors: wandering through the woods. So when we stopped at the walls overlooking the cliff that Rothnburg was built near for defense, Jess got wanderlust. We did stay on our little guidebook-directed walking tour for a while, seeing the main square and (my favorite) the big long metal poles that used to define standard lengths back when ‘standard’ usually had something to do with measuring from one part of your king to another.


Let's call 'em a bit, a bit more, and a bunch.

We got to head inside the church, which was a little same-y but we got to get real up close and personal with a bunch of altar pieces, including a very impressive one carved all out of wood and enormous. Also, I continued my job of cataloging all the huge organs we saw all over the continent. A lot of relatively new ones, as it turns out. After that Jess spotted the wall again, and this time the lure was too much to bear. We found a hole in the wall (okay, it was a door, but I like the metaphor) and fled the city!


Holy...uh...just holy, I guess.

We ended up walking pretty far, down a long hill and into a nearby city along the Tauber river from Rothenburg. Mostly we just looked at green countryside and tree-lined paths, exactly what Jess was looking for. There were some llamas up on the hill, or maybe goats, it was hard to tell.

From Preecs Place: The family blog

Once again: this is what it's like to vacation with Jess. We're supposed to be over *there*.

The highlight was when we reached Detwang, near Rothenburg, and stopped on a bridge over the river to watch some baby geese and their parents. Evidently they were part of a flock of a bunch of birds being kept by a farmer who lived around there, but we just sat and watched the little family for a good fifteen minutes. Every once in a while the mom, or maybe dad, would decide some other goose was getting too close and would duck his head and charge. Then we watched the little babies following their parents around and eventually flopping down to sleep in a big fuzzy pile. Completely adorable.

Oh, and on the way back, those were definitely llamas, before.

From Preecs Place: The family blog

We didn't get this close: our camera just has a really good zoom.

Recharged with outdoor energy, we tromped back up the hill to Rothenburg and then resumed our ‘tour’. We walked through the garden where the old castle used to be, kissed at a picturesque overlook, and checked out an herb garden where they had marked the especially poisonous ones with crosses. After that, we walked part of the wall. That’s right, the old wall that had defended the city from bandits and the like for so long is still there, and you can stroll along it for some pretty impressive views of the city.


Now that's a nice view.

We got some dinner, which was really good, and then did the ‘night watchman’s tour’ which is just a tour guide who shows you around the neat city (in english) and talks about it’s history. And not the boring parts, either. The awesome parts. Like chamber pots, and bandits, and keeping a years worth of food on store in every house in the city so that they could survive any siege. And, of course, the time that the city was eventually defeated when some genius took a torch into the gunpowder room during a siege. The best story was how the city was almost destroyed in the last, scary days of WWII, when a Nazi force took to hiding in the city and was told not to surrender. The Americans nearly had to level the whole place by air, but a german commander with romantic memories of the city actually *called* the American commander and negotiated a surrender. History is amazing!

And then sleep.

-N

P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. You know my dual-layer coat? The one I have had for roughly a brazillion years? Well I lost the outer layer on a train somewhere between St. Goar and Rothenburg. End of an era! We’ll come back to this later, too, so don’t forget it.

Little update

Breaking up the blog with a few quick notes. First, sorry I missed writing and calling Nana yesterday. I’m trying to get at least one-a-day on my travel blogs but yesterday was pretty busy. We had gone to a Pizza cooking party this weekend and I had brought some dough for making the pizza. Yum, of course, because I make such great pizza, but we had some leftover dough so we made ourselves some Pizza last night. Then it was time to run off to Judo and by the time I was done with that I was pretty well wiped out. Judo is a lot of fun and one heck of a workout when you’re doing it intensely, so I was pretty wiped out when I got home.

The other neat thing we did this weekend was buy a grill! I’m all hyped up on the idea of inviting all my neighbors over to meet them and feed them hamburgers or something, so we went out to get a grill and we did a practice run with it on Saturday. The hamburgers were quite good (Gorgonzola makes everything better) but the real winner was the *corn*. That was probably the best corn I’d ever had. I may make all my corn like that from now on.

Anyway, just thought I’d throw those little notes out. I may put some pictures up later, but I want to get some more travel blogging under my belt before I retire for the eve to play some video games. On to writing!

-N

Europe Part 9: Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin on a river. (Guitar Twangs)

Today the plan was to tour the Rhine River by boat. The route took us on a train down the River, then on a boat past St. Goar, where we were staying, and then up north a few stops where we got off the boat and took the train back home. Sounds simple enough. We started with breakfast of bread, meat, and cheese at the hotel, which seems to be pretty much the standard for continental breakfasts in Europe. Can’t say I mind. They had *smoked salmon*. Yum.

We wandered around St. Goar for a bit waiting for our train down south to show up, but it was Sunday (I know, I had lost track of the days, too) and most everything was closed. There was a Stein Shop that was open that had a hell of a lot of souvenirs, including a run of steins made with bits of the Berlin wall. I thought about getting one, but decided to pass. My ‘tradition’, such as it is, is to get a container of some sort that reminds me of the trip. A stein seemed a little too german-specific. Still really cool, though.


Jess hanging out with some flowers.

We took the train down to Bingen, where we would be catching the boat. On the way from the station to the dock we found THE COOLEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD. They could run water through the middle though a series of keys and locks and eventually it floated a little wooden barge at the end. It even had a cool Archemides screw and a backhoe that Jess played around with. We found a lot of really cool playgrounds in Germany. We’re jealous.


Me and the majesty of the Rhine.

We had to wait for the boat for a while, and so we walked around the (mostly closed) city and then sat in a park for a while on a bench. Jess let me nap on her lap, which was really nice. The boat showed up and we just flashed our Eurail pass and wandered right on. We used the guidebook to do some castlespotting, and then mostly just hung out, relaxed, and enjoyed the scenery. Lots of green hills with old vineyards *way* up in altitude. Every time we passed a castle everyone would get all excited and take pictures. I do have to admit, they were really really pretty. Some were just ruins, like the Rheinfels castle we had seen the day before, but many had been purchased and repurposed, either as hotels, restaurants, or just tourist destinations. The tiny little German towns along the way were pretty nice, too.


Jessie and some...castle. I dunno.

Eventually we started getting a little cold so we went to the inside of the boat and watched the landscape and castles from in there. Jess ordered some apple pie and hot chocolate that was really good, and before too long we were in Boppard, the farthest north stop that we cared about. We hung out in the city for a while, looking at plants and the river, then hopped a train back down to St. Goar.

Back in our ‘home city’ we checked out the now-open Cuckoo clock store and learned pretty much everything there is to learn about clocks: the different styles, what the different roofing types mean, and how to tell how often to wind a clock by the weights. We considered it, but didn’t buy one there. We had dinner at a german restaurant where we learned that Spargel (asparagus) was in season. We both had some, but it was white Asparagus, and very stringy and hard to cut. The beef and sauce was great, though, and it started raining and thundering while we ate, which was a nice touch.

Also: beer. We didn’t drink a lot of it, but they treat it a little differently over in Europe. As opposed to American restaurants which usually have at least five different beers on tap, most restaurants seemed to just have one, or maybe one company and a few different types. Most of the random stuff we tried was pretty good, especially after hiking around Germany all day. Jess found something called Colabeer which, as near as we can tell, is just Cola and Beer mixed together. It’s pretty good, actually. We may have to try it over here sometime. Just make sure you start with a light beer.


They have beer? In Germany? Also, the dark one is Cola Beer.

After our beers and food, we trundled back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. Other than eat and look at the Rhine river, there’s not a whole lot to do in St. Goar. It was a really nice hotel, though, so we didn’t mind, and it’s always nice to unwind and not do anything too cultural for a while when on vacation.

-N

Mother's day photo

Mom and I had brunch on Mother's Day at Clinkerdaggers in Spokane. Fine meal, wonderful view, impeccable service. But the highlight may have been the free photo sitting they offered next door. I think this is a great picture of Mom and my frozen smile isn't nearly as awkward as it could be. Do you agree?

Europe Part 8: Something slightly more relaxing

The next day we managed to get up and moving at a fairly reasonable hour, though the city was still clearly in the throngs of the recovery effort from it’s collective hangover. We checked out of the hotel, the owner was kind enough to let us use his computer to get a train schedule, and then walked back to the train station. The roads were an even bigger mess than they had been the previous night. I was actually kind of chuffed to see a street sweeper whose primary use was to vacuum out the rails where the trams go. It was pretty neat looking.


Messy.

The train took use out of the Netherlands and into Germany. Watching the view from the train was really nice. The whole place was as green and pretty as Costa Rica, albeit a little less crazy in its vegetation, the whole thing punctuated with tiny little german towns with close architecture and little beer signs. After a lot of time on the train we arrived in our first German Stop: St. Goar, on a very picturesque stretch of the Rine river. Our original plan was to try and take a boat up and/or down the river (it’s free on days when we used our Eurail pass) but it was nearly 2:30 by the time we got to St. Goar and we didn’t want to hurry ourselves. We’d take the boat tomorrow.

The hotel owner was very nice and he recommended we head right up to the castle ruins St. Goar is so famous for: Rheinfels Castle. We took a little tram up the (pretty steep) hill and took our time checking it out. The Castle is immensely old, though quite torn apart by both the ravages of time and, as I understand it, Napoleon. The castle housed a tiny museum, but we didn’t stay there too long except to check out the tombstone from 400 B.C. and a wine barrel head a good three meters across.


That's a really big castle.

After that we strolled around the castle. A lot of the old fortifications were still intact and it was impressive to imagine that back in its day, this sort of building was considered luxurious. It was dark, drafty, and all the halls were tiny. There were several small (and I mean *small*) spiral staircases with no light at all. The whole thing reminded me of what we imagine a dungeon looks like in popular mythology. The whole castle probably looked that dark and brooding.


I guess people used to be shorter

This castle also sported an impressive collection of underground tunnels and bolt holes. We wandered through some of them with the tiny little flashlights that we brought expressly for this purpose. Then we ended our tour in the gargantuan cellar. It must have made a king feel very good to see that whole area stocked with food.


Where the hot pockets at?

After our tour we walked back down the hill and made our way into town. I was tired so Jess picked dinner: a little spot that served both Itallian and German food. We got beefsteak and porksteak, variations on which seem to form the core of traditional german food. Jess ate a lot of my onions. Then we hit up a store from some gelato and then walked along the Rhine river while we ate. Another definite highlight for us both. We unwound back at the hotel with Rummy, which we played a lot of. Jess plays it a lot better than I do so she spent most of the early part of our trip kicking my butt at cards.

-N

Europe Part 7: Amsterdam goes crazy

We got up relatively early, considering how late the rest of the city had stayed up. We took our time and then stepped out into the empty streets, post Queens Night. Broken beer bottles stacked up like snowdrifts against the buildings. It looked about like you’d expect: a mess. The city was starting to move, though. People were already walking...somewhere, everyone all dressed up in orange clothes and/or accessories. We didn’t have anything orange, to wear, at least not yet. We weren’t sure where everyone was going, but we decided, first, to head up to Dam square, one of the larger open areas in the city. When we got there it was filled with a carnival, all sorts of cheesy rides and bad carnival games. We got another waffle (yum) and some ‘traditional’ mini-pancakes (yuck) and then strolled back to Rembrandt square.


I think it rained trash last night.

The stage that they had been setting up was finally pumping out music when we got back. We stood around a while and listened. It was all fun music to listen to, if a little generic. It’s hard to appreciate the details and musicality of a piece when it’s being filtered through speakers taller than I am. Regardless: fun to dance to. On our way out of that party we found a bunch of shirts being given away. They were orange, with “Jup Holland Jup” written on them. As near as I’ve been able to figure out, it’s just an advertisement for Jupiler beer. But whatever, it was orange! We could blend in.


The stage in front of our hotel.

After that we decided head back down to Museumplace, Museum Square. The big, open area where we went to the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum the day before. It was a large open space, and the stage they were setting up looked pretty massive, so we figured that’s where everyone was going. On the way there were lots of stalls everywhere, kinda like the flea-market-esque dappermarket had spilled out to cover the entire city. Lots of street food. Also, we passed a whole bunch of Hari Krishnas dancing along and singing their familiar mantra. It matched well with the themes of the day, though: Music, dancing, and people in orange.


I'm still not sure where everyone was going.

After passing by several random DJ booths and more off-brand purse stalls than I care to think of, we arrived at Museumplace. The time was early afternoon, and so while quite full, the area wasn’t completely bonkers yet. Jess and I had lunch consisting of some fries and some sort of meat/potato/fried croquette thing that was really good. Then we hung out with the throngs for a while and watched the stage as what I can only assume was a long line of prestigious musicians came out to perform. There were a couple of singers and a french rapper that we saw, but we didn’t know any of the people and couldn’t understand the dutch. It was still an impressive sight to see. A lot of orange. I wandered through the crowd from one end to the other just for fun.


The BIG party.

Between all the orange, all the loud music, and all the walking (Museumplace was pretty far away) we were getting pretty worn out so we came back to the hotel to relax for a while. After some writing and probably napping, we decided to head back out to try and get some food and find an internet Cafe. We came back down to the first floor and....

Queens day had become *properly* crazy. Rembrandt square had become PACKED with wall to wall people, shoulder to shoulder. It was like an LA nightclub, loud and crazy. We were just trying to get two buildings down and it took us 5 minutes and nearly getting spat on by a Jamacan kid who was clearly too out of his head to know what was going on. And, of course, the place we though we were headed didn’t actually have any internet.

Abandoning the city to it’s own vices, we grabbed some street food from a vendor across the street from our hotel and booked it back up to our hotel room, jostled by pedestrians the whole way. Everyone was trying to get somewhere: I have no idea where, though. The streets were all filled to capacity; everyone could have just stopped moving and the party would have been *right there*. Jess and I sat up in our room, just relaxing, eating food, and listening to the subwoofers kicking out music.

Later on in the early evening, we ventured back out again. The music on the street had stopped, but he clubs and bars were still going, so the throng had mostly thinned out. The trash on the ground had become even worse, but at least we could still move around. I was paranoid about the camera, though. Jess had her camera stolen in South America and I was determined that this time we would get the camera home safe. We peoplewatched for a while; a couple of people brought out little hot-air baloons consisting of a tiny flame and a big plastic bag. They did manage to take flight, though. I was worried they were going to float of and set something important on fire. I worry, though.

Back to the hotel again, where we finally fell asleep to the soothing bass kick of “Soul Sister” and “Poker Face”.

Happy birthday!

-N

Europe Part 6: “Amsterdam: we’ve got culture, too”

Our plan this morning was to go out and see some more museums and other parts of the city. Instead, we started the day by sleeping in. It’s so easy to forget, when you’re traveling and trying to see and do as much as you can, that you’re also on *vacation*. And that means occasionally it’s just good to relax every once in a while. So we slept.

Our first cultural stop was the Van Gogh museum, which was definitely one of my favorite museums of the whole trip. By being focused and telling a story, they really cast Van Gogh’s life into romantic relief, and his short artistic cycle, tumultuous life, early demise, and subsequent ‘post-mortem’ elevation to modern master is as interesting as his art. We spotted a couple of his paintings we really liked, notably ‘the harvest’ and ‘sunflowers’. We may try to get prints of some of these for our house. We spent a good several hours there, just looking at paintings and reading Van Gogh’s life story. One of my highlights.


No pictures allowed, so here is *the* portrait of Van Gogh that, ironically, we saw in the Orsei Museum back in Paris.

In between that stop and our next, we ate lunch at some open-air restaurants between the two museums we’d be visiting. We had another belgian waffle (they’re so good!) and sandwiches, and then spent some time browsing a collection of oil reproductions of Van Gogh’s work. I came close to getting some, but the details weren’t quite right, and it sorta failed the ‘worth carrying around Europe in a backpack for the next 2 weeks’ test. It was neat to browse, though.

Our next stop was the museum that I’m still not sure how to pronounce correctly: the Rijksmuseum. Perhaps thankfully it was undergoing reconstruction, so the collection was severely truncated. More like concentrated, though. Just the coolest stuff was left. There were some neat artifacts relating to the history, both rise and fall, of the Netherlands, including an immense dollhouse once owned by a very rich family.


Imagine this, but 4 meters tall

A plethora of impressive paintings, too, including a whole lot of them by one of the most famous portraitists of all time, Rembrandt. There were lots of neat descriptions in english, too. I like reading about the sorted histories or strange historic details that make these paintings important. Several more hours spent in here, fully enjoyable.

Let’s talk about orange. Queens night, and Queens day is a birthday celebration for the Queen of the Netherlands. More practically, it’s like Marti Gras: lots of people drinking in public. And everyone wears orange. Well walking around after our museum trips, we began to see signs of the coming party-pocalypse. Orange being strung up, and stages being assembled in the museum square and Rembrandt square, right outside our hotel.


Jessie at the dappermarket

On the way back we walked through the ‘dappermarket’, which I likened to a big flea market. Some farmers market stalls, some cheesy shops, some street food, and even the occasional interesting store. Between all the walking around looking at the city and the stroll through the dappermarket we actually ended up walking all the way back to the hotel.

Later on, Queens Night started. We went out to explore and look around. A couple of notes:
-The only real thing to do is to drink in public, which I wasn’t even that into back when it was the age-appropriate thing to do.
-They sing some song (happy birthday?) pretty much every hour
-It’s nothing like as crazy as Queens day, the next day.


Me and a 'friendly native' on queens night.


We strolled around listening to people sing unintelligible songs in Dutch. I led us over to an area in front of a DJ booth where we danced around for a while until it started to rain. We kept dancing, it was just a little harder to avoid getting jostled by pedestrians trying to get...somewhere. that and all the empty beer bottles on the ground were a serious slip-fall-broken glass hazard. So we stayed out for a bit and then decided to call it an early night. By the sounds of it, we were the only ones, as the drunken public debauchery and loud music continued until quite late. It had to have stopped at some point, though, because when we woke up the next day, it was silent.

-N

Europe Part 5: Going down to Funkytown

We got dropped off at the train station and after a little guestimation we managed to get ourselves on the right trains to Amsterdam. There was a little bit of strangeness at a mid-station where we were inundated by announcements in four languages about trains arriving, departing, and delayed. Then there was some strangeness again when we arrived at Amsterdam and tried to figure out whether or not we needed to get tickets to our next location, St. Goar. The lines were long and service was confusing, so we decided to skip it and figure it out ourselves, later. ADVENTURE!

Amsterdam! How to describe it...it’s kind of like if you took the pretty parts of Paris and stacked them on top of the weird shops in Hollywood. Lots of souvenirs, bars, and little markets and food depositories. Kind of a weird place. It’s kind of a scary place for pedestrians, lots of strange lanes and trams, and all of the modes of transportation are silent: electric trams and bikes. So you’re always looking over your shoulder for silent threats. Nice city for walking around, though. There’s a lot of stuff to see. When we walked to the hotel they were hanging orange up everywhere. More about that later.


Amsterdam is like a mullet: classy up top, trashy on the ground level.

We took five at our hotel, near Rembrandt square, and then went back out a-walking. First stop, the sex museum. SEX! AAAH! It was a pretty eclectic little mix of artifacts. It was about 25% gaudy mannequins, 50% old porn, ranging from ancient statues to japanese silk screens to porn collections from the 20’s and 30’s. And another 25% modern art: paintings and the like. Oddly educational. Mostly odd.

More walking after that. Amsterdam is pretty endlessly fun to see. We wandered around some of the canals, mostly lined with the sort of nondescript but artistically constructed stone houses I’ve begun to associate with pretty much all of Europe. We found an area we dubbed ‘head shop alley’, full of coffee shops, head shops, and stoner souvenir shops. We nearly bought some cannabis flavoured (Ha! Europe!) chocolate, but passed. I can’t imagine it actually adds anything.

We actually walked through the red light district which was a *lot* smaller than I would have thought. Only 10 or 20 windows, not all of them occupied. Maybe there were some others that we didn’t see, but I was actually on the lookout for the Red Light visitors center. I’d heard that they had a brochure that answered a lot of common questions people had but alas, they were closed. Jess got a kick out of walking behind me and watching the ladies in the window as their faces changed from sultry, upon seeing me, to kinda confused, upon seeing her.



We had some lunch (dinner?) at a restaurant and people-watched for a while, and then started to head back. We passed by a flower market on the way and they had a tonne (Ha! Europe) of bulbs of all different colours (okay, I’ll stop). We had seen a lot of tulips in bloom in the fields on the way in, but they were selling everything under the sun out there.


Seriously, check out these bulbs!

We came back to the hotel for a bit to relax and write, and then made one more expedition out later to try some street food. We got some okay pizza and a waffle. We tried Burger King onion rings, too, which were not as crunchy as their American counterparts and, therefore, according to Jessie, not as good. We finished off with some ice cream and more people watching in Rembrandt square, and then back to the hotel to sleep. The bar underneath our hotel room kept playing loud music until far too late at night, but we slept through it eventually. having a shoulder to cuddle up to will do that to you.

-N

Europe Part 4: Chocolate, waffles, and lace.

Having seen the highlight tour of Antwerp, we decided to take a day trip out to Brugge on the second day. Dad Nagles took us to the train station and after putting our newfound train-schedule reading powers to the test we managed to get ourselves to Brugge with very little worry. Our first stop was along a park area, Minnewater Park, complete with old bridges and canals. Very pretty, we took a lot of pictures with the local greenery.


Early spring means Tulip season.

The next impressive sight was waterfowl. The ducks and swans had sort of taken over a bank along one of the canals and we watched them eat and prance around for a while. There were even some baby ducks which, as you might guess, were *so cute*.

At that point we decided to try our first proper Belgian Waffle. (Southern style, not northern). The primary differences between ours and theirs is that theirs isn’t just for breakfast, theirs has crystalized sugar bits in, and theirs is really, really good. Jess really liked it, and we managed to get about 20 feet down the road before Jess decided we needed to get another one.


The 'other' Madonna and Child.

The big church in Brugge is big and old, like most churches, and it’s most famous claim is a Madonna and Child sculpture by Michaelangelo. We saw the sculpture, but actually felt a little bad for *another* Madonna and Child that was really really pretty, but it wasn’t *the* sculpture. Everyone is coming by to see the other statue and no one cares about this really nice one over here. So we took a picture with the ‘other’ one. It was quite pretty.


Seriously weird chocolate. A lot of fun.

The Chocolate line. Called out specifically by our guidebook as one of the stranger chocolate shops, we were intrigued. So we spent probably an hour going into the store, buying really weird chocolates, and writing down our thoughts. Behold some highlights:
-Peanut and Coriander, quite good
-Havana Cigar, technically illegal in the states
-Fried Onions, We really liked this one
-Tomato, olive and basil, tasted like Tomato, olive, basil, and chocolate
-Wasabi, not good
-Saffron Curry, good with white chocolate

We really liked the strangeness and variety. We topped off our chocolate ‘lunch’ with some Belgian fries. Then we completed our walk to the market square (no actual market on that day) where we climbed the bell tower. By hand, even. Or by foot, I guess. Tiny little spiral staircase the whole way. The view from the top was worth it. I like seeing old cities from above.


Us by the statue in market square.

Brugge is full of lace shops. We picked up some for Jessie’s family for souvenirs, and we kept taking Jessie’s picture in front of increasingly large lace shops. We even saw a lace map of the city that was a couple of meters tall at least. Terribly impressive. Then on the way back we saw an old lady doing lace by hand! Her fingers were incredibly deft, and I took a video just so I could remember how cool it was to watch. Triple neato.


Yes, that is Jessie and a lace MAP OF BRUGGE.

We hung out by the ducks and swans for a while, writing in our journals, and then on the way back we saw that there was a carnival set up near the train station. Well we had a little extra time, so we got a ride on the ‘mouse trap.’ Just like a regular roller coaster, except our car spun around while it ran. Pretty cool, though not monumentally exciting.

We caught the train back to Antwerp and then An’s family, being fantastically nice to us *again*, took us out to dinner with the whole family, all three sisters and their husbands/boyfriends. It was fun to watch the conversation flip back and forth between english and dutch. We ate tons and tons of delicious food and drank wine and had a terrific time. We’re hoping An’s famliy can come visit us in Austin sometime so we can return the favor.

So, at the end of a very long day we came back to House Nagles and crashed. Lots of sightseeing for just one day.

-N

Europe Part 4: Hand throw

We got up and had what appears to be a pretty common breakfast in Europe: meat and bread. We saw it at a few different places around the continent. Plus, An lives right down the street from a bakery, so the bread is really good. After breakfast, we hopped on a bus to downtown Antwerp and took a look at the city.

An was a great tour guide. She got a historic walk with a lot of neat stuff marked on it. We started near a fountain that is Jessie’s new favorite. It has a guy throwing a hand. The old story is that A giant used to guard the river and someone finally stood up to him and cut off his head and took his hand (Hant) and threw (Werp) it into the river. Hence, (h)Antwerp. The fountain was really cool. The hand was spurting water, and so was the dead giant.


Doing my best to reenact the fountain.

We made several stops during our walk, and got to see the river, too. Very pretty. We got chocolate from...yeah...pretty much every chocolate shop we came to. Good stuff, too. The church was fantastic, and they were showing off a collection of (I believe) old Reubens paintings that had at one point hung in the church. Churches are always fun to look at and walk through. So much cool old stuff to see.


Another stop on the tour.

After several more chocolate shops and a lot of wandering through the very pretty streets, all a sight on their own, we made our way down to the Diamond district and went through the diamond museum, which had a lot of interesting information, all presented via really boring Audioguide. I should have just gone through the wikipedia entry for diamond. There were some cool jewelry pieces, though, and a guy polishing a diamond by hand. And then some afternoon ice cream! Never fails to lift the spirits.


One beer, two cherry beers. All tasty.

Back at An’s house, we wrote post cards to pretty much everyone and Jess sent some Lace back to Grammie. Dinner was delicious, once again, and we relaxed with some cherry beer for Jess (her new favorite) regular beer for me, and lots of chocolate for everyone. Then time for bed.

-N

Europe, Part 3: Two countries, one day

April 25, Notre Dame! After getting our motors running in the morning, and checking out of our Paris Hotel, we left most of our gear at the front desk of the hotel and took our day pack out to see the big Cathedral. Our guidebook had a ‘historical walk’ to do, too, so we gave that definite consideration.


Me and...a church? I dunno.

We took the metro pretty much directly to the Cathedral and holy cow! That is one seriously big church! I’ve seen pictures, but unlike, say, the Mona Lisa, the cathedral is much more impressive in real life. I stood around and gawked at all the detail on the front of the church then, and I didn’t know we’d be able to do this, went inside!


That's one big church.

The old layout is, essentially, big church hall in the middle and a lot of ‘shrines’ around the outside. So the tour led us around the outside where I got to see a lot of old caskets, detailed woodwork, and old art up on the walls. Very pretty. It was also pretty neat because, as it turned out, we were touring around during mass. (Yep, they let you do that.) So we got to hear the organ kick in and then the soloist join. Wow! What fantastic acoustics! The whole space just filled up with sound.

After touring around the inside and taking some pictures, we actually got to climb to the top. we went up a big spiral staircase and came across the ‘mid-level’ where all the cool gargoyles are. And then we got to go up to the very tippy-top for a fantastic view of the city, including the Eifel Tower that we had been at the day before. I really liked getting those high-up views. Really helps to put the area in perspective.


Hideous old stone monsters.

We would be heading off to see An in Antwerp later that day, and we had our train schedule all figured out, so we didn’t want to dawdle too much. So instead of the historic walk, we just sort of wandered and saw a few more cool things:

-A flower market that smelled FANTASTIC. and
-An old gothic jail where they kept french nobles for a while before lopping their heads off. Lots of historic interest and detail there.

The other church we were going to see had a line, so instead we got lunch, wandering through the streets of Paris and crossing the picturesque (if a little silty) Seine river. We got a ‘hot dogue’ and a Croque Monsieur, and then a couple of ice cream cones. We sat on a bridge on the Seine river and listened to a band play brass music while we ate lunch and relaxed. That, my friends, is a definite Paris highlight.


Lunch on the Seine.

After that came a flurry of train rides. First back to the hotel to get our backpacks, then back to Gare du Nord, the big train hub, to catch our train (via several transfers) to Antwerp. It took a little figuring out, but eventually we discovered 1) how to read a departure board 2) how to use our Eurail Pass 3) that we didn’t need to make reservations everywhere. Trial by fire of the european train system. Passed, too!

So then we met An! We were all excited to see her and she was so helpful and nice to let us stay with her and show us around. First, though, we met her BOYFRIEND. OOOOOH. He was really nice, too. He actually drove us because An’s parents’ car was having trouble. She brought us back to the house and then we met (almost) her whole family. She has two older sisters, and the middle one was there. The oldest we met later. Along with mom and dad and sister and sister-husband and boyfriend, we had dinner!

We had ‘traditional’ Belgian food, which is tomato soup with tiny meatballs (you’re supposed to count how many you have to see who your parents like more. Jess was a sweetie and let me have some of hers. ) Then lamb and Belgian fries! They’re not french fries! The Belgians invented them. We had them several times, over there, and eventually I developed a taste for eating them european-style. With Mayo. (Helps to have good mayo). Jess liked them with russian sauce. (Mayo and Katsup). Then strawberries and ice cream for dessert. Strawberry season, yum. Such nice hosts!


Us and clan Nagles at the Dock.

After dinner they took us out for a quick look at the second-biggest dock in Europe. We also saw the nearby village with a population of just 10 or 20 people who refused to move and were, effectively, blocking expansion of the dock. Yes, the bar was open.

Well fed, we hit the hay and got all excited to see Antwerp in the morning.

-N

Europe, Part 2

Waking up at 7 AM, after 13 hourse of sleep, we got ourselves organized and set off for ADVENTURE! We strolled down Rue Claire, the other famous thing our hotel was close to, early in the morning while all the vendors were setting up their booths. We got breakfast at a cafe and I, bread-afficionado as I am, enjoyed the heck out of some brioche! They make ‘em rich, that’s for sure. Then we went to the Louvre...ALL DAY LONG.


Us in front of the architecturally significant pyramid out in 'front' of the museum.

We had the Paris museum pass which meant we got to go in a special (secret!) entrance and didn’t have to buy tickets, and since we were up so early we were literally one of the first people in the museum. So, of course, we went to see the A #1 most famous painting in the world. The Mona Lisa.


So beautiful! So mysterious! And the painting isn't bad either.

It’s...tiny. Really small, and they don’t let you get that close to it. I was more curious about how you actually go about showing the most famous painting in the world. Turns out: behind glass, on a big stone wall. It was kind of neat to see it while the hall was empty, like this was some new painting no one had heard of yet and we were totally into it before it got all ‘popular’.

Near Ms. Lisa, I was introduced to a class of paintings I didn’t realized existed: BIG ONES. Massive, wall-sized murals a good 7 or 10 meters high, and still incredibly detailed. I can’t imagine how you paint something like that. The coronation of Napoleon was the iconic example. BIG.

From here, I’m going to have to resort to bullet points. There was a lot of Louvre.

-Egyptian Antiquities. Pretty neat, but less ‘wow’.
-Crown Jewels (at least *someone’s* crown jewels. I forgot who.) Very pretty, and displayed in a massively detailed hall.
-A bevy of statues. Venus De Milo being the most famous. We would see a lot of these over the trip, and while this wasn’t the most impressive collection, it certainly made a good first pass.


Its ART, okay?

-They had a display downstairs about the history of the Louvre, and even where they had excavated the original moat. They had models of the development of the Louvre and the city around it that were both educational and impressive.
-A huge stone sphinx. Well, not as big as THE sphinx, but all out of stone, and clearly they had to move it all the way to France.
-Reuben Gallery. A collection of masterworks. Little detail in english, so the history was somewhat lost on me, but they were big, very pretty, and done by Reuben! He’s so famous he has an adjective named after him. (Reubenesque).


Jess catching some rest with the Reubens.

-The Napoleon apartments: Ostentatious! Made me want to hire an army of internal decorators for our own house. Course, we have the Playstation, so there’s that.


Who is your interior decorator?

-More paintings
-More statues
-Holy mackerel this museum goes on forever. There’s little way to describe it. I guess you just have to go and see.

We stayed at the Louvre for 7 hours until we got a little worn down by the classical stuff and when wandered down the street to the l’Musee d’Orsay. Orsay Museum. The Louvre holds all the stuff before the mid 1800’s and the Orsay everything after. So modernism! Back to bullet lists!
-We got to see THE portait of Van Gogh.
-Statues by Rodan (not the Thinker, but they did have a version of The Portal to Hell, which is really neat to look at)
-A big polar bear in marble
-One of my my favorite painting was (translated)
Knight of the flowers by Georges Antoine Rochegrosse. We also used all this art-viewing to think of paintings we might want to get (in reproduction obviously) for our house. This might go in my studio someday.
-Jess got really tired, but she still let me see the second floor because I was super interested and she’s nice to me.

Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed so you’ll have to use your imagination, but trust me, it was cool. After that, the Museum began to shut down, so we took the metro back to our Neighborhood and had dinner at one of many very, very similar French Restaurants that dotted the street with outdoor seating. It was a really nice dinner. Someone drove by in a pink Limo while we were eating.


So delicious, you'll eat the glass.

We took a break to head back to the hotel to relax and write in the journals that are forming the basis for all of this writing, and then when it got dark we went out to see l’Tour again, all lit up at night. It was really pretty, and a bunch of the street vendors that had been selling the knockoff Eiffel Tower souvenirs earlier in the day had come back and were selling these cool flying light-up toys. Jess bought a couple, kinda-sorta-negotiating the seller from 15 euro for two, down to 7 euro for two, mostly by just not wanting to buy it until it got cheaper.


That's a lot of iron!

At 11:00, the tower put on a show: a thousand strobes all over the tower, flashing on and off. Quite a sight to see. But after that, Jess finished off her enormous cotton candy and we went back to the hotel to sleep. Unfortunately, Jetlag caught up with us a bit at that point and we both woke up at 2 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. So we just cuddled each other instead. Very relaxing.

-N

Europe, Part 1

Let’s take this puppy from the top:

April 22

If you’d been watching the news for the past few days you might have been wondering whether or not we were going on our vacation. The volcano in Iceland had shut down all air travel over Europe for the better part of a week, and we weren’t sure we were going to be able to go. Well eventually the skies cleared up and all looked good for our flight. I woke up at 5 AM to sort of pre-fix the jet lag, something like 6 hours between Austin and Europe, and we spent most of the day checking and double-checking our supplies. Then we were off!

The long leg was from Dallas to Paris, roughly 10 hours in the air, and we were supposed to be sleeping but, of course, we didn’t. I caught a few winks but it’s always hard to sleep on a plane. So at some point we crossed over midnight and it became:

April 23:

Getting into France was really easy. Someone checked our passport, we walked through customs, and poof! We were in France. We navigated our way to the metro system so we could get ourselves to the Hotel.

Paris makes a TERRIBLE first impression. It didn’t help that we were on public transportation but for the majority of the 40 or so minute ride from the airport to our Hotel pretty much every surface was covered with graffiti. I’m not sure if it is some sort of french cultural thing, but it was everywhere, even inside the tunnels where, you’d presume, trains came rushing past. Now that takes dedication! It didn’t help my nervousness that the travel books do their best to make sure you don’t get scammed by describing all the pickpocketing, con games, and rip-offs to be found around, by the sound if it, every single corner of the city. They’re all out to get you and steal your delicious, delicious tourist money. So we’re riding the train, I’m paranoid about pickpockets, everything is run down and tagged with spray paint and I’m thinking: “This is one of the most beautiful cities in the world?”


Our first hotel. Pretty small, which would be our norm.

Our hotel, once we found it, was in walking distance of l’Tour d’Eifel, and since we were on a mission to try and stay awake as long as we could before jet lag destroyed us, a walking we went. We stopped at a Cafe (the first of many) primarily because they had interesting looking pastries and sandwiches, and because everything was on display so we could just point. Critical when language barriers abound. After lunch (breakfast? Dinner? It was hard to tell) we went to base of the tower and rode the elevator up. Once I saw the view of Paris from up there, all the graffiti was worth it.


Ah, okay, THIS looks like one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Paris from above is beautiful. United in form and character. The city, long built on medieval roads, is dense in a way that almost no US city is, and they have taken pains to pack every block with as much beauty as they can. A marvelous view, dotted by historic landmarks on the skyline. I was really in awe, and Jess and I spent a good couple of hours, at least, just walking around and looking at the city and its many directions. We took some pictures, too.



A couple of my favorite pictures of 'the tower'.

Eventually, we got tired. Well, that’s not true. First, I was tired and Jessie was awake, then we switched. Then we switched again, and a few more times after that, I think. It took us a while to both be tired at the same time. We strolled back to our hotel room and used the tiny bathroom with a tiny, but nice, shower and a toilet where I had to stick my knees under the sink and then we slept. For 13 hours.

-N