England & Scotland

Ahh, the land of our fathers. Actually, my dad was born in Oakland, California, but no matter. We arrived in England on August 16th and have been happily communicating with the friendly locals* and reading every sign in sight ever since. I hadn't realized how crippling it is to not speak the language of a country you are in - travel has surely been kinder in the land of English. Here are some pictures for your weary eyes of England and Scotland. Also, I updated our previous album to include a dozen (a baker's dozen, to be exact) pictures from Belgium at the end.

First, let's sort out some nomenclature, shall we? Apparently this is often as confusing to the locals as it is to us foreigners:

England: a country in Great Britain. English people live here and they talk funny.
Great Britain: the island that houses most of the occupants of the United Kingdom. The countries that reside within the island of GB are England, Wales and Scotland.
The United Kingdom: a sovereign state comprising of Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland) and Northern Ireland, along with a few islands in between.

I'm sure these terms will continue to be misused over time, but at least someone knows the difference. And so, we arrived in England/Great Britain/The United Kingdom.

We began our stay in London proper; five days in a hotel in Kensington, a western suburb of greater London. Now, I've been to London before and had a completely different experience with my mom in 2003 (I think?). In that case, neither of us were seasoned travelers, we were only on a 10 day stint and so weren't so heinously crunched for money**, and I don't recall knowing a whole lot about what exactly one is expected to do on vacation in London.

Having said that, I think that my mom and I were significantly more productive on the tourist front than Kane and I were. We also likely spent a lot more money, so there you go. Anyway, since Kane and I had 5 days on hand and also had no bookings for anything further on our impending trip, we took this opportunity to bunk down and book some stuff.

You may notice that I describe a lot of our time being taken up by planning the next phases of our trip. It's true, this does take a lot of time. It's a bit ironic to think that we travel all around just to arrive in one place so that we can hook into the internet to book the next, but we try to make sure to do a good amount of sightseeing to make it all worthwhile. We could, conceivably, just waltz up to each town, have the tourist office find us a hotel and stay until we're ready to move on, but since we have a car (and hence need a parking space), require internet (because we're junkies) and are trying to stick to a (relatively) strict budget, the online booking thing is really a godsend.

So, though we did spend a good amount of time in London booking accommodation for the rest of England and Scotland, we did also manage to get over to Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, a comedy show (with Jon since he was in town for work), and a walking tour around the city. We also ate some really excellent food; the rumors about English food being bad are completely false in my opinion. Despite Jon's persistent and insistent loathing of this city, I quite like all that is on offer in London and find it a great place to visit.

One thing that I hadn't remembered about London though: it is huge. London proper has over 7.5 million people (compared to 3.8m in LA, though their total metropolitan population is about the same at around 12-13 million) and sprawls for almost 700 square miles (compared to LA's 500 square miles). And, unlike LA, their public transport system - the beloved London Underground, or Tube - actually services most of this vast sprawling city.

So when we booked our accommodation, we just wanted to be somewhere near a tube station knowing that if we were, we could access anywhere in London with just a short ride. Which is true. But we did, however, sorely underestimate the scale of the city a bit when we were locating our hotel on google maps and calculating approximate distances to London's greatest attractions. Let's just say that we often felt as though we were spending more of our time on the tube than in the places we were trying to get to. If I had to make a little comic of our trip to London (which I have been known to do), it would be a picture of two bleary eyed people crammed on a very hot and stuffy subway train for 16 hours a day only stopping briefly to get out, take a picture of a statue, and continue on chanting "MIND THE GAP". If only I had a scanner.

After London we took a bit of a break. We spent 3 nights in a tiny town near Bristol in West England called Shepton Mallet. This place is so small that it doesn't have a Wikipedia entry (imagine!). We only stayed here to: a) get away from the ridiculously high prices of London; b) station ourselves near other calling attractions such as Stonehenge and Bath; and c) kill time until the hotel in central England that had a kick-ass dinner-bed-and-breakfast deal was available.

I have been to Bath and Stonehenge before with my mom (though she and I did not show up in time to see the Roman Baths in Bath, an occurrence about which she is still peeved) but still had a fine time exploring again. The weather while we were at Stonehenge was just as bad as it was last time I was there, so my pictures are pretty much exactly the same and not terribly impressive. Go figure. Bath was nice, though the actual Roman Baths were not nearly as exciting as my mom had imagined - pretty much what we had seen peering through the railing from outside was the best part of what you see from inside. I took some pics for you anyway, mom.
After Shepton Mallet, we spent a further 3 nights in a town called Sheffield where absolutely nothing is going on except for a super nice hotel out in the countryside with a really good deal for three nights with breakfast and two dinners at their super fancy restaurant. You may have read my entry relating our experience of the first night at dinner here, but despite that bout of anxiety, we had a really nice time. We did some further planning and booking, acquired the coveted Ireland guidebook that we couldn't find in London, and spent a day doing our laundry (read: finding a place to do our laundry). We accomplished (nearly) nothing and had a great time doing it. The only pictures I took were of the hotel, haha.

After our bout of luxury, we crossed the border into Scotland. Scotland is a wonderful place and Edinburgh (pronounced Eddin-burr-uh) is the center of the wonder. We happened to be here during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which, despite making prices and availability of accommodation despicable, is a really fun time to be in this city. Edinburgh itself is a really nice city that I loved from our first steps into it. It's easy to navigate, the main center straddling a huge mound where the castle and old town reside and it's a huge center for arts, shopping and commerce and has a really lively, fun vibe to it.

Since it was time for the Fringe Festival, there were street performers everywhere, people handing out fliers for shows, booths selling crafts and clothes, and a general convivial atmosphere. It was excellent! We hit up 2 festival shows (will post later) and spent the rest of the time exploring the city via an Underground Tour, a walking tour, a guided tour of Edinburgh Castle, and eating (we did try the haggis, though ours was vegetarian! it was delish!). Aside from the weather, Scotland has been a real highlight to our trip so far.

And, Scotland is also home to about a zillion medieval castles and abbeys in various states of disrepair and re-repair! We planned to go to a few, but the woman at the first place suggested that we get a saver pass to go to as many castles as we want in three days within a five day period, so we decided to take her advice since it was already going to save us money on the castles we had already planned to visit. And since we could go to as many as we wanted during those three days, we went and saw seven total! It was pretty cool and totally worth the money since we basically got 7 for the price of the 2 we originally wanted to see. I have plenty of castle pics on the Picasa, do enjoy.

And so that's it for England and Scotland. Tomorrow we take a ferry over to Belfast in Northern Ireland where we will spend a few days and then head down to Dublin. The adventure continues, thanks for reading!

*Until we crossed the border into Scotland, at which point we communicate via a very specific pattern that begins with them saying something in a garbled, yet adorable, Scottish accented English, me pausing and asking "what?" and them repeating the rambling mush of speech until I can translate into Regular English.

**In fact, by some miracle of sale prices and/or poor judgment, I recall that my mom and I flew business class over to Heathrow in 2003. I can't even imagine such a fortuitous turn of events anymore; how have I become more frugal over time?

Bogans Abroad

Bogan: Australian and New Zealand English slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person who is, or is perceived to be, of a lower-class background. According to the stereotype, the speech and mannerisms of "bogans" indicate poor education, cheap clothing and uncultured upbringing. "Bogans" usually reside in economically disadvantaged (often outer metropolitan) or rural areas. The term is the regional equivalent to the North American "redneck", "hillbilly", or "white trash". (wiki reference)

Well, that's us for this segment of How Kane and Angie are Doing in This Part of the World. Hello and welcome. During this episode, we will explore the different ways in which this particular couple can be both class-less and undignified in a place that requests both. Please, sit back, relax, and be entertained by our adventures in not-quite-being-good-enough.

We arrived today at the much anticipated Whitley Hall Hotel in Sheffield in central England. If you look at that website you may notice that it's a particularly elegant and high class hotel, certainly far beyond the meager reaches of our budget. But alas, in my epic (and ongoing) search for "a really good deal" at "a super nice place", I have found the 3 Night Combo Offer: a room and breakfast for three nights with dinner for two nights for £200 (=$330 USD, or $395 AUD). Quite a steal if the place is all it's cracked up to be. Which, in fact, we have found, it is.

So, we're excited to be in the nicest hotel room we've been in for three months (and perhaps ever?) and very eager to try the quality cuisine. One problem: the hotel recommends "smart/casual" attire when in communal areas, particularly at dinner. Let me just unzip the "smart" section in my backpack...oh, I'd forgotten, I only packed blue jeans and t-shirts. Mild panic sets in; what are we to do to conceal our true heathen nature?

Kane needs a haircut. He's grown into a shaggy dog with perpetually mushed hat hair and his attempt at an Australian haircut (the image is sort of what he was going for, minus the racing stripes) is really probably not what this facility is looking for in its clientele. So, he decides to save us from his shame and cut his hair. But not into the waste basket - what will they think of us?! In an episode of well-poised self sacrifice, he crouches over the toilet to cut his hair such that all evidence can be flushed away - see we are classy!

So now Kane's hair is buzzed and we're dealing with a bit of a skin head rather than a party boy, but at least his scraggly beard might be seen as distinguished. If he only wore glasses to set the whole thing into a sort of bohemian style then we might really be in business.

I'm a mess. The only pants I have are my stretched out, baggy, mayonnaise and ice cream stained blue jeans. This is day two of this particular pair of tattered Victoria's Secret undies*. My shoes are the New Balance tennis shoes that I've had for about four years now. They are so tattered that the inside heel has worn down to reveal whatever it is that makes up a shoe and now folds over and stabs me every time I put them on. I fear that water can now get in from the underside of the soles as the tread has worn down to a completely different color (I like to think of it as the "warning" color of the shoe, like the end of the receipt roll on a credit card machine). My only nice shirt - a long-sleeved, simple black cotton blouse - I had the foresight to leave at Jon's in Munich when we were furiously trying to "drop weight" for our trip. I shower, blow dry my hair, and wear a liberal amount of makeup in a sad effort to reconcile my shortcomings.

It seems to work; they do not refuse us from the dining room. Granted, almost everyone is dressed nicer and seems to be more dignified, but we make an effort to discuss important topics (engineering, polo, how cute the peacocks in the front garden are) and hold in any bodily functions that try to escape.

The setup is this: acquire a drink (not included, those sneaky bastards) from the bar, wait in the sitting room where you will be provided a menu and your order will be taken. Then you will be called to the dining room when your food is ready. It was odd but good. Coming into the dining room, we were seated at a four person table but with a place setting for only the two of us. With a million forks and knives and glasses and everything. Somewhere along the line I have picked up that you are to work from the outside to the inside when a multitude of silverware is provided, which worked quite expertly at this particular encounter.

The decor was elegant but not stuffy: subdued taupe paisley wall paper, wall mounted lamps, tastefully patterned curtains drawn back to reveal adjacent rooms. The chairs were sturdy dark wood with plump inset cushion, and the tables were flawlessly set on crisp white tablecloths. A small square vase with a single carnation graced each table along with a tiny flickering candle, clearly placed only as ambiance as the artificial lighting in the room was ample. It surprised me that almost all the tables were full; warm, pleasant chatter filled the room over the quiet melody of appropriate, yet not horrendous, background music.

We received our starters, which were excellent: a tomato, red onion and goat's cheese tort with pesto garnish for me, and salmon chorizo on a warm broad bean salad for Kane - delish! For our mains we both got the Shetland salmon on a tomato and kalamata olive nicoise - we could not resist ordering the same thing. Dessert presented many sumptuous choices (and by that I mean that I wasn't sure what many of them were), I got a chocolate "tear" which was a little ribbon of chocolate filled with orangie-custard and a scoop of bourbon ice cream (it's better than it sounds), while Kane got an artistic cheese plate.

Kane's cheese plate was just what he always wants for dessert: he's doesn't have much of a sweet tooth**. There were four slices of different types of cheese, three sticks of celery, a small bunch of grapes, a glob of fruity chutney, and two slices of french bread. It was like a whole other dinner! He slowly sampled each of the cheeses and then turned to me and said, pointing to the final slice of cheese that appeared softer than the others, "This kind of cheese is actually butter". And we proceeded to laugh at ourselves for a long while. He did not eat any more of that particular cheese.

We finished our excellent dinner without incident (didn't break anything, offend anyone (that I know of), or say anything particularly (noticeably) inappropriate) and headed back to our room. Waiting for us was a complimentary bottle of Australian sparking wine (they know how to make us feel at home) and small jug of port. These were actually in our room before dinner, but it was only after that we had the dedication and tenacity to tend to them.

And with that, we split (choked down) the bottle of delicious (horrendous) wine and chased it with (plugged our noses and chugged) the handsome (foul) port. Just because we aren't classy, doesn't mean fancy drinks will be wasted on us; we were once college students after all, and the spirit is not lost. This was actually the most wine I have ever consumed in my life, not only in one sitting, but in my entire life combined. I have never had more than a sip, followed by an appropriately dismayed scrunched face. But, there was no one to pawn it off on and nowhere to save it for later, and it was free, so I stepped up and made the appropriate sacrifices. Not only am I classy, I've grown quite mature as well, even for a bogan in England.

*Do not judge my repeat underwear wearing until you yourself have traveled for months on end. And if you have done such traveling and still frown on me, well, just keep quiet.

**Which is always a sore disappointment to me as I drool over any form of pastry, cookie, cake, chocolate, candy, pudding, brownie, tart, parfait or gelato.

Heaven with Groceries

Traveling is a search of sorts. A search for knowledge, for understanding of different cultures, for experiencing unique places and new people. It is a search within yourself to find what it is you really seek in life, what makes you happy. It is often this search, this unknown, that draws us to travel around spending our hard earned cash all over this grand planet.

With over two months of continuous travel under our belts, in addition to our innate unflappable nature, we are rarely surprised anymore and not often wooed by our findings. This is a bit of a sad conclusion being that we have sacrificed so much to be here, but every feeling and every reaction is both lesson and revelation in itself. And besides, when it's all over and we're back to the 9-5, we'll forget (or laugh about) the dingy hotel rooms, the frustrating conversations with somber Germans, the infuriatingly yet insistently unlabeled roads, and we'll remember the funny, the tasty, and the beautiful moments of our trip, which there have been many.

We have spent the past 5 days in London, re-acquainting ourselves with polite people who speak English. In a city so enormous (7.5 million), it's very difficult to separate the good from the bad and find the Milk Duds* in a sea of Raisinets**, if you will. In a city like London (or LA, or NY, or Sydney, etc) there are undoubtedly and indisputably great restaurants, fun attractions, entertaining clubs, and great hang outs. The difficulty is in finding these gems amongst the white noise that makes up the rest of the metropolis. And that's where I try to get sneaky. I studiously carry a Lonely Planet guidebook to help locate decent restaurants and places to stay. But really, lots of people do that. I scour the internet for leads on the best values around town, the nicest hotels for the cheapest price, the best veggie restaurants. I try hard to find the really good, truly unique things that a city has to offer (that I would enjoy).

But still, we often have to make choices based on nothing at all. We find ourselves in a district not serviced by our loyal, if limited, guidebook. We end up without access to the internet*** for some time. And in these trying times, we have to choose what to do based on studying menus, scrutinizing decor, and interrogating personnel. Under these conditions, we cannot expect any better than hit or miss as we try to make educated decisions. Sometimes, however, a place will jump out at us. We will just be walking down the street and be suddenly bowled over by the sheer magnificence of a restaurant, store, or building. Sometimes we stumble, like blind children, into a place even more awesome than any internet review could have made us believe. This is exactly what happened to Kane and me three days ago in the suburb of London called Kensington.

Passing a Whole Foods store on the way back from lunch, I casually suggested that perhaps I might acquire some dessert-type item from this well-known and loved establishment. Kane concurred and we proceeded to wander into what could possibly have been the best place I have ever been.

The automatic doors under the familiar and comforting Whole Foods logo whoosh open at our approach revealing the bread and bakery section of the store. These people obviously have experience at grocerial warfare – my defenses were down. On the right was a variety of solid, sturdy, light-colored wood tables with stacks of beautifully displayed freshly baked loaves of bread. Mozzarella cheddar, rosemary garlic, pecan raisin, sourdough; all laid out as though you just finished baking them in your own kitchen. On the left was a sort of wooden dresser, its shelves bursting with heavy wicker baskets filled to their brims with freshly baked cookies: chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, lemon sugar, oatmeal raisin. Tables flanked the dresser and were adorned with giant muffins, croissants, and rich chocolate brownies. These treats were arranged exactly how they might be at a Christmas pot luck, so accessible and fresh looking that it was very difficult to restrain from simply reaching out and eating one of each. The brownies had a free sample tray: infinite cubes of the deepest brown that convinced me to buy a brownie for myself even though this is a treat I would never normally choose.

As we entered the store further, we were confronted with dozens more rambling displays of the finest foods: the fresh salad bar, the mix-your-own muesli bar, the grind-your-own peanut (or other nut) butter area, the freshest fruit from around the world, vegetables fresh cut on site in nice little baggies ready for your steamer or grill. There was a fresh dipped chocolates case that would make Mrs. See bow her head in shame.

Possibly the best part of the store was a tiny corner blocked off by sliding doors. Inside this small, bright room was a temperature controlled cheesery with heaping blocks and rounds of fresh cheddar, brie, gouda, blue, and probably any other kind of cheese you could possibly imagine. Some chunks were already broken off and wrapped for you to take, but for the rest, customers must ask the designated cheese manager, tending to this area religiously, to slice off a requested amount of their choice.

This was a store for kings and queens and yet I was allowed in. I, in flip flops and $5 earrings was allowed, nay encouraged, to meander around this grocery heaven munching on free samples and throwing whatever I wanted into my hand basket. It was truly amazing. I could find no down side to the existence of this facility except that some of the items are imported rather than local. The products were amazing. The floor was immaculately clean. The displays were awe-inspiring. The check-out line was non-existent due to an efficient, Fry's-like array of 15 or so registers, color coded with a display screen at the front to direct you to the next available cashier. The employees enjoy additional health benefits and stock options (there was a sign saying so).

I take back any complaints that I have previously submitted about capitalism because it has clearly spawned a place far above anything I could have imagined. A place that rights the wrongs of others. A place of peace and prosperity. The most awesome place I've ever bared witness to: Heaven with Groceries.

*Don't actually look at the nutrition information; what do you expect when you eat a Milk Dud?
**What this website neglects to tell you is that Raisinets are gross. You can have all mine, mom.
***I'm still waiting for internet to be available at all times and in all places because being without it is some kind of crime. Especially while traveling.

Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam on Wednesday the 12^th after a long day. We woke up in Berlin at 6am, drove to Hamburg to make the 11am tour of the city, got lunch, headed to The Netherlands around 4pm arriving at our Amsterdam hotel around 10pm. We were tired, to say the least.

We had 2 days in this city that is so beloved by everyone and we wasted more than half of the first day holed up in our hotel room trying to book a hotel for London. We will arrive in London on Sunday* and have had no luck finding an acceptable hotel as yet (we did search quite a bit in Berlin also). But, at this point we were down to the wire and HAD to find something. My conclusion is this: reasonably priced, decent hotels do not exist in London. They do not.

I found an excellent website whereby you can find a person who has a home or business with an extra parking space in London and you can pay to “rent” this space for some period of time. If you know one thing about London it's that parking (and driving, really) is not possible; think of San Francisco but with no parking lots. Good freaking luck. There actually are parking lots but they cost something like 25 GBP per day, which is like $50 AUD or $40 USD. I'm thinking that this doesn't fit into our budget. Anyway, we found a place for the car (25 GBP for a week) and were then free to look for a hotel in the city center, yeay!

Oh wait, the only hotels in the city center are a) expensive (say $200 USD min per night in like a Motel 6 sort of situation), b) really, really crappy (with user feedback like “worst place I have ever stayed", or, "whatever you do, do not stay here for any reason”), or c) not actually anywhere near the city center. And most places seemed to be a healthy combination of two or three of these. So, we spend all damn day in Amsterdam looking for an exception to these apparent truths, compromising more and more of our requirements as they day went on.

After approximately 6 hours of searching (at this point I would have paid any amount at all for a hotel where you didn't have to wade through a sea of used needles to get to the bathroom) we settled on a hotel just outside the city that had reasonable user feedback (no mention of heinous smells or contracting scabies) and was only about twice our budget. This was not a good day and, surprisingly, it didn't get much better even after we finally completed this ridiculous task.

So, we were free of homelessness for another week. We had long ago missed the day walking tours, but the night time Red Light District tour was still possible to make. So, we took the train into town and paid for a tour of the infamous red light district of Amsterdam. The tour was fine: prostitutes in storefronts, porno shops, gay bars; nothing can really surprise a person who's been to San Francisco and Vegas.

After the tour we walked around a bit looking to get some food. The city center is huge and it's completely swarming with people at all times. Narrow cobbled streets are overflowing with men, women, and children (yep, kids too) and the whole place is filthy. There is garbage everywhere; it's nasty. We stopped at a kiosk for some fries served in a paper cone that seemed to be very popular, but they were gross and stale and the man covered them in an obscene amount of “garlic sauce” which turned out to be very similar to Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing, which I hate. So Kane choked them down and I was just sad. I got an OJ so I wouldn't go to bed with a completely empty stomach, but, thus far, I was unimpressed with Amsterdam.

Our 2^nd day was a bit better. We made it out to the day walking tour, which was better executed than the tour the night before. We found the nicer part of town where the respectable people go and some attempt at cleaning had taken place since the night before as the trash that littered the town squares had been noticeably minimized. But really, I'm not sure what I was thinking going to a town known for prostitution and pot smoking, neither of which really peak my interest. It's not that I conceptually have a problem with either so much as I should have realized the people and behaviors that these activities draw would be disagreeable to me. Even though retirees and children abound, the whole area has a seedy feel – at least right in the city center and red light district. I don't think this needs to be the case, but it is.
And the place was packed. It was like being at Disneyland – every street for like a 5 mile radius was completely flooded with people. I was amazed especially since they didn't all seem to just be there for the pot. What are these people doing? There's tons of shopping, but if you want shopping don't you want to go to Paris or something? I was baffled, but I did know that the hordes of people helped to dwindle my already-minimal enjoyment of the place. If I were to do it again, I'd probably skip good old Amsterdam and leave it for the people who appreciate it.

P.S. - Please do check out my pics, however, for Germany, Prague, and Amsterdam (see last entry for the former 2).

*Yes I realize that I'm quite behind on the blogging. I wrote this entry in the car on our way from Amsterdam to London and we've been in London for 5 days now. I will try to catch up in the next week, provided we have reliable internet.

Prague and Berlin

I'm behind on the blog a bit since I try to write while we drive and not while we're at each location. Don't be deceived into thinking that we're spending this precious time exploring each undiscovered city morning till night, rather, I just don't want to waste valuable time on the internet when it's available. Which, of course, is not to say that we don't get out and about in each place we visit – that would be silly – but we tend to spend mornings and evenings at the hotel, often even being productive and booking upcoming destinations, searching for attractions we would like to patronize, and communicating with friends and family. It keeps us going and keeps us sane so that we can continue the adventure day to day.

Ok, so, last week we left Jon in Krakow and Kane and I continued on to Prague in the Czech Republic. I did not actually know much of anything about Prague except that it's very popular nowadays and supposed to be very pretty. Good enough for me. When I say Czech Republic to people at home, they may envision a filthy communist country ravaged by war and entrenched in cultural crisis. Many people still think of Czechoslovakia as one country and don't know a whole lot about the two separate countries, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Granted, I don't know much either, but country-splitting does seem like there still may be some political instability present. Which may be true, I have no idea, because you can't tell from being in Prague. I will say this: Prague is the best city I have seen on this trip so far, and maybe ever.

Prague is a huge city with an expansive city center. Most of the city has been rebuilt since WWII but somehow they managed to do this as gracefully as I have yet seen. This is the Europe I was longing for. Screw Paris. Cobble stone plazas, open cafes, gorgeous parks, museums, bridges, vistas; a truly decent city. We were there 2 full days (3 nights) and, as often happens to us, we didn't have a lot to do. We're trying to travel cheap, which rules out majorly expensive attractions, we're pretty lazy so we don't usually hike around for the entire day, and we're a bit lame so we don't drink at night. So...what do we do over here? Well, we walk around until I start to complain, eat in nice (hopefully cheaper) cafes, play cards, ogle the pastries (me), take pictures, and generally just try to get a feel for each city. Prague is perfect for this. You could walk for days through scenic passages to rolling hilltops. There are millions of cafes, zillions of tourist shops, around every turn is a stunning river vista, antique building or inviting plaza. The food: good. The people: nice. The language: Czech, but since none of the tourists speak Czech, everyone speaks excellent English.
The weather was warm, we found a cafe with free soda refills (perhaps the only one in Europe...no amount of cobbled streets can beat the American out of me), we meandered through the enormous castle grounds. I could have done this for days. A truly inspiring, relaxing, and beautiful city. If you're heading this way and you're anything like me, pencil Prague into your itinerary no matter what you think you know (or don't know) about the Czech Republic.

From Prague, we moved to Berlin. Which was a totally different experience. While Berlin was also mostly destroyed in WWII, it's been rebuilt in a far less inviting, personal way. Instead of feeling like another person in the family of residents and visitors in the town, Berlin felt (to me) like I was a tiny ant thrown into a huge maze. The scale of the city is such that I rarely knew where I was, except that I was always surrounded by enormous museums and monuments. The arrangement of the sites doesn't have a proper flow to it and, though we went on a walking tour, I never really felt like I knew where to go next.
It's a city with a profoundly interesting and important history, but being there was like watching 40 seconds of Lord of the Rings and trying to discern why it's such a good movie. It almost seems like you could learn to appreciate the location more if you weren't in it. It needs a step back, some perspective. And because of this, I had an ok time in Berlin, but it wasn't my favorite place. Some of the sights were certainly cool: Holocaust memorial (see pic to the left), Berlin Wall, the Nazi architecture that still remains. The history is so much more interesting and tangible than the city itself that seeing the city is sort of a mash of confusion: on one street there is a beautiful pre-war concert hall across the street from a gigantic Nazi building (now the German tax office – ha) next to the Berlin wall. The tour guide described this as a great example of the layered history of Berlin, which it was, but really it just seemed to me like a city that has been destroyed so many times that it hardly has an identity anymore.

Don't get me wrong - I don't really dislike the place as much as I feel like I didn't much experience it in 2 days. I just don't feel like that's possible to do in such a short amount of time, and, frankly, you'd probably need to live there or know someone who does to get the real experience. That's just my two cents on the matter.

After Berlin we headed to Amsterdam where we spent two days. This blog entry will follow, but for now, have a look at some pics from Prague, North Germany (Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg – we were only in Dresden and Hamburg on the way to/from Berlin), and Amsterdam.

Auschwitz

Last week Jon, Kane and I all visited Auschwitz Concentration Camp, about an hour drive east of Krakow, Poland. I had been looking forward to this part of our trip in a morbid sort of way, mostly because this is an attraction that is meaningful. As much as I love cafes and museums and castles, I was looking forward to a real monument where something definite and tangible happened, however horrible. It wasn't exactly what I had expected, and not for reasons I could have foreseen. Side note also pertaining to last blog entry - pictures now available for Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland (including Auschwitz), click here.

First of all, this facility reportedly receives one million visitors per year. I believe most of these visitors were there the same day we were. Ok, not really, but the place was packed. I had envisioned, like an Imax movie theater, the reception and ticket buying area would be equipped to handle throngs of visitors. Instead it was woefully unequipped with only two ticket windows in a small lobby with a line of people that choked the whole room. I wondered if they were trying to give us the full, historically accurate arrival-to-Auschwitz experience complete with unruly crowds of confused people who don't speak the same language. If so, I experienced the desired effect (sans impending doom).

After fighting our way to the ticket counter and paying our money, we were sent to waiting area "A" to receive our headphones and receivers for the tour. My first question, since I've been to Alcatraz with a broken audio tour cassette player before (ok it was a while ago): how can we check if these work before the tour starts? The answer was that you can't. I had a sneaking suspicion that one of our apparati would fail us in the first frantic minutes of the tour, and I was right. Kane's receiver didn't work. So, while Jon and I tried to listen to the first part of the tour, Kane rushed over to the counter where the workers were not prepared in the slightest to handle such a ridiculously unforeseeable problem, eventually replacing his unit with a working one. And so we were off.

The tour started in Auschwitz I, the smaller, original facility. Our group was about 30-40 people with one guide who spoke into a microphone which was projected into our headphones via receiver units. This was a nice strategy since it wouldn't have been quite the same experience had the guide been yelling so that we could all hear her. Auschwitz I appeared to be mostly in tact – the two story brick barracks still line the gravel streets surrounded by double barbed wire fences and interspersed wooden guard towers. It didn't feel particularly creepy to me, but I did see how it would work effectively as a prison.

Many of the barracks units have been turned into displays for different aspects of the lives of the prisoners. We saw examples of their living quarters, washrooms, pictures taken during the war, prisoners' belongings that were stockpiled by the Nazis, and the punishment barracks. The special punishment barrack consisted of the Wall of Death where people were executed, the poles where people were pole hanged, and an underground area where there were special cells for starving people to death, keeping them in complete darkness, and forcing them to stand indefinitely. There were also standing cells at Dachau – a person was forced to work throughout the day (manual labor for 10-16 hours) like everyone else, then, instead of being allowed to sleep, they were forced to crawl into a tiny stone chamber sized such that you can only stand in complete darkness for the night. Many people suffocated or died of exhaustion after a few days of this. I think that was one of the most gruesome pieces of evidence still remaining.
Interestingly, the part of the tour that saddened me the most – more than seeing pictures of the prisoners faces or the gas chamber – was the display of the belongings of the prisoners. During WWII, when you were sent to Auschwitz, you were told to bring necessities and not allowed to bring valuables. People packed what they thought they would need for – what? Well, they never imagined what would greet them when they arrived, of course. So they filled their suitcases with clothes, shoes, toiletries, food. Like anyone would. The Nazis, supremely organized and efficient as they were, stole those belongings, sorted them into giant piles and reused what they could for their campaign. When Auschwitz was liberated (along with all the other camps as well), the allies found entire warehouses filled with shoes. Or pots and pans. Or human hair.

There was one picture of a pile of hair combs. For some reason that hit a chord with me – everyone brought their combs; they would surely need to comb their hair wherever they were going, right? How could anyone anticipate otherwise? Every social norm that we have ever been taught tells people to keep groomed, to look tidy. Instead, their suitcases were left on the arrival ramp to be emptied, sorted, and fed back into the machine of the organization who would take far more than just their belongings. In addition to the picture of the combs, there was also a large pile of brushes, a room with 40,000 shoes in it, a giant room filled knee high with pots and pans, a hallway with hundreds – hundreds – of prosthetic legs, a room with human hair from what they estimated were thousands or women, and dozens of tins of shoe polish. There were also hundreds of suitcases labeled in neat handwriting with the owners' names, birth dates, and addresses. The Nazis had everyone label their bags supposedly so that the prisoners could find their belongings again when they left.

The other people on our tour were a notable distraction from all this, to us at least. Two women brought microscopic dogs in stylish, pink carrying cases. Is it really necessary to bring your dog for this? Is there not some irony in bringing a caged animal into a concentration camp? Another family thought it was a good idea to bring their two toddlers. They dragged them, whimpering and screeching and running in circles into each and every exhibit, folding and unfolding the stroller each time. Why one of the six adults in that family could not 1) calm the particularly agitated child and/or 2) wait outside the “please maintain a respectful silence” exhibits with said children is beyond me. I'm sure their tiny brains really learned a lot from their educational visit*.

The second part of our tour consisted of a jam packed, belated bus ride to Auschwitz II – Birkenau, the much larger site 3km (2mi) away. Now we didn't have our little headphones anymore and we had to strain to hear our soft-spoken guide over the pair of squealing children. Here we visited the toilet facilities and sleeping quarters that were still standing with the guide (at which point one woman's cell phone went off despite earlier requests to turn off phones), then saw what's left of two of the four original gas chamber/crematoriums. This place was the real death factory; some 1.5 million men, women, and children were killed here, most directly upon arrival. Pregnant women and children were the first priority to the chambers – they were of no worth as laborers to the Nazis.

The four gas chambers at Birkenau were mostly destroyed after the Nazis blew them up in their haste to cover their tracks just before the war ended. The one that was in tact was the smaller facility at Auschwitz I, which we visited during the first half of our tour. This one was relatively small in capacity, not much larger than a house but with low ceilings, no windows, and plain concrete walls, ceiling and floor. The crematorium is attached adjacent. We walked through in silence, as requested, only distracted when the Asian tour guide with the group in front of us decided this was a great place to continue explaining things to his group. The “silence please” signs were certainly not in whatever language they spoke, but surely he, as the guide, would know this is a quiet zone? My eyes were starting to hurt from rolling them at all these ridiculous people.
So, after a good four hours, we were all Auschwitz-ed out. And with good timing since it was just starting to sprinkle. After a not-as-crowded bus ride back to Auschwitz I, we made our way back to our car and meandered back to our hotel for the night. I found it to be a really great experience that could have only been improved if the facility itself was better equipped to handle the volume of visitors present and if the visitors themselves stopped acting like they were visiting Disneyland rather than a former Nazi death camp.

*To Adele: No, I do not hate children. Just those who I encounter that are not related to me or my friends, especially when they are screaming.

And Then There Were Two

Today concluded our week and a half trip with Jon. We took him to the Krakow airport at 5:45am (thanks for the going away present, Jon) and now we're back on our own again. Having Jon with us for 11 days was a really good kick start to the major road trip part of this vacation. A third person, if you can stand their constant presence for this long, makes any activity more fun, adds depth (if not assistance) to decision making, and, best of all, reduces the cost of shared items. Mostly we invited Jon to save a few bucks. Kidding, of course. There are few people in the world who Kane and I can stand in such a constant supply, too bad our stint as the Three Musketeers had to end. But we hit up a lot of sights, had a lot of laughs, and covered a fair amount of ground in the week an a half since we left Germany. Let's recap since I haven't really been providing much bloggular insight into this part of the trip thus far.

We left Munich on July 25 heading for Salzburg in Austria. We only spent one night there and the town was really nice. They have a kick ass castle, even amongst the relative hordes of castles that plague this land. And we happened to catch some sort of festival occurring downtown, passing by two night time performances in different plazas of the town. We weren't terribly interested in the opera performance or the symphony, but it was still cool to see everyone out at night and events taking place.

Next stop was Vienna which was probably our biggest disappointment of the trip. Vienna is a decent city with a snazzy, upscale downtown, but we just didn't really jive. First thing we noticed consistently about Vienna: it smells. Curious scents waft unexpectedly from all parts of the city. It wasn't clear why or if we were just walking down the wrong alleyways, but the place stank. Next to annoy was the prices of everything and anything in that city. Everything was expensive. Again, not really sure why, Vienna is no better than the other big cities we've seen, but everything was significantly more expensive than anywhere else so far. And lastly, Vienna is mostly known for museums and art galleries, etc. We perused the choices and nothing really struck our fancy. We weren't even able to make it to the Technology Museum which had a chance of being interesting. There was an excellent vegetarian restaurant and our bus tour of the city was nice, but overall, not the coolest place. Oh yeah, I am happy to report that the famous chocolate cake Vienna is known for, Sacher Torte, is good.

After stopping in Bratislava, Slovokia (nice town, pretty uneventful, excellent garlic soup) on our way over to Hungary, we spent three full days in Budapest. We all thoroughly enjoyed Budapest, mainly because the weather was hot and they have a plethora of public baths to patronize. This is apparently a major tourist attraction (the locals partake enthusiastically as well), even though I didn't really know much about it before arriving. There are dozens of baths throughout the city and we hit up three during our stay. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but basically these facilities are just large complexes with many swimming pools. And since they are so popular, they are not disused, run-down, and filthy like the ones typically found in the States (ie The Hayward Plunge). The first place we went to was the best: three large outdoor pools, one cool, one warm, and one hot, and a series of indoor rooms with smaller pools of varying temperature with many sauna rooms attached. It was fun to explore and since it was not overrun with children, we were actually able to enjoy ourselves. We also did a walking tour and a river boat cruise in Budapest, but, aside from the baths, didn't explore a whole lot else. The food left something to be desired though, I should note.

Which brings us to our final destination of our trip with Jon: Krakow, Poland. On Sunday the 2^nd we drove through Slovakia again to get to Krakow in the south of Poland where we spent our final three days. Krakow has been my favorite place so far. Initially, the city looked sort of like Budapest: old buildings, not terribly well kept, narrow streets, nothing very special in the general look of the city. But I quickly realized that in the area we were staying and in the city center (about 20 minute walk apart) there were throngs of cute boutiques and cafes tucked into these old decrepit buildings. I wouldn't say the place was upscale, but many of the individual shops were. It was sort of a weird juxtaposition. But it was so likable: the people all speak English (happily) but don't assume you're a tourist, greeting you initially in Polish then switching easily so that we can understand. The streets are lined with tables spilling from cafes, full of people at seemingly all hours of the day and night. The stores sell cute clothes, shoes, cloth, pastries, etc. Everything is about 2/3 the price it would be in Germany/Australia/The US. It was excellent.

We mostly milled about in Krakow, enjoying the outdoor cafes in the city center, meandering in the downtown shops, having ice cream and smoothies and playing cards every night at a tiny bar/cafe near our hotel that quickly became our favorite. A truly great vacation spot for us; I would recommend Krakow to anyone. We did take one day and do a complete tour of the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp, which I will discuss in another entry. Pics will be forthcoming as well...I've taken so many it's hard to pick out the ones to post on my Picasa. But it shall be done! Now time for a nap in Prague.

Bad Decision

Today I made a bad decision. I don't often make bad decisions; I typically pride myself on this aspect of my personality. Excusing circumstances when no educated guess can be made (such as which restaurant to have lunch at in Vienna which turned out to be bad yesterday) I try to weigh options, pose logical solutions, and think practically and objectively about the outcomes of the choices I make. On vacation, it's far easier to make bad choices since every place is new (and, in this case, foreign) and you just don't know what to expect. In this case, I was just plain being an idiot.

No, I was not drunk. I don't drink often and I have yet to drink on this trip at all, save a shot of Bailey's on the plane (it was free!). Today we went to the permanent amusement park in Vienna to have a look around. Our original intent was to ride the 100 year old ferris wheel (sorry mom) and see if there were any other rides that look fun. Which there were. Two rides piqued our attention: a river rafting-style ride (similar to Rip Roaring Rapids at Great America for the Bay Area residents) and a super spinning tea-cups-on-crack style ride. Kane isn't a huge fan of rides so Jon and I decided to patronize the spinning-pods-on-spinning-tenticles ride. This was my bad decision of the year.

As a child I always loved roller coasters and to the best of my knowledge I still do. I also always like the teacups rides which are the ones where you sit in a pod that spins on a platform that spins attached to a central apparatus that spins. It's dizzying madness and it's always made me very happy and appropriately disoriented. This ride was just like a teacups ride but it also went upside down. Apparently this makes all the difference in the world.
The ride starts right side up. And so I started laughing. Fun! It starts to invert. Wooow, crazy more fun! We're all the way upside down. We're thrown around up and down. Which way are we facing? Is that the floor? I feel vomit-ish. I close my eyes. Laughter turns to moaning. Groaning, really. We slow down.
To Jon I say, "Oh thank goodness, I don't think I could have lasted much longer without throwing up"

Jon's response is a notable silence...

We start to spin backwards. We do the whole thing again backwards, though it doesn't really matter because being tossed around in a clothes dryer is pretty much the same no matter which way you're facing. It finally stops. We stagger off. I think I feel better, but this is just the beginning of my sickness. I think I was in shock. Cold sweats followed by hot sweats. I can't walk. Sitting hurts. I check to see that a garbage can is within projectile vomit range. Talking hurts. Jon is ok. I am a wreck.
I collapse onto a bench. At least I have the smell of cotton candy and children to help ease the pain. A half hour later I'm ok to walk to another bench thirty feet away. We forego any other rides; I am too fragile to engage in anything further. The thought of a train ride makes me shiver. A soda helps me regain composure. We continue the day without further incident; a salad a couple hours later and I was good as new. Apparently I'm too old for upside-down-triple-spin rides.

My first words after stepping off that hellish ride? For fans of Anchorman..."Milk was a bad choice". And indeed it was a bad choice.

Ice Caves

We went to ice caves in Austria today which has inspired this entry that is relatively unrelated to both ice and caves. They have instead, as the apex of a series of similar experiences throughout Germany and Austria, inspired a rant about these people who refuse to give out information. And I don't just mean because I can't read the signs in German anymore, I mean there are often no signs and no one tells you crap. I will explain.

Yesterday we arrived in Austria and had a very nice day and night in Salzburg. Today we were scheduled to drive to Vienna and stop at a couple attractions along the way which included salt mines and ice caves. The salt mines were really cool, but that's not the point of this blog entry. We arrived at the ice caves just after 3pm. Our guidebook said the last tour was at 4pm, so we were happy to have made it in time. Our guide book also said that the tour was €9. Upon arrival and after deciphering the sign posted, we were informed that the actual cost, including the gondola ride up the monstrous mountain (which would have taken hours to walk up) was no less than €26 each. To translate, that's about $38 USD or about $50 AUD. Per person. What does this include? Well that's part of the surprise; they don't really tell you. Gondola ride up, ice cave tour, gondola back down. Sounds pretty simple I guess.

We take the insane gondola ride up, ears popping. We land on a massive mountain and get a tour group number. The man tells us that the entrance to the cave is a 15 minute walk up the hill so make sure to be there on time for our 4pm tour. Ok, we can do that. We start to walk toward the entrance of the cave. What no sign or personnel told us is that the “walk” up to this cave is a heinous 45 degree slope mountainous climb in direct sunlight on an 85 degree day (well I suppose we could have figured the temperature on our own). With no water or bathrooms at the top. Oh, cool, I wanted to strain my quadriceps today. What if we were with someone elderly? Or handicapped? Or just lazy? Incidentally we were with someone lazy; two someones in fact. Jon and I had a complain fest; why were we not told of this obstacle? And better yet, why doesn't the damn gondola take us all the way up here? You think I came here to hike? I digress. The day was beautiful, the view was gorgeous, and we were about to see a freaking ice cave. On we went.

We get to the cave entrance and see that tour number 5 leaves in 15 minutes. It's already 4pm and we're in tour group number 6....so we're not really sure what's supposed to happen here. People start to go into the cave for tour group number 5 and fortunately Jon, who understands German, overheard some people asking about tour group 6, to which the guide replied something like, “yeah, this is the last tour so you better come with us”. God forbid we get a proper announcement or any indication in the language that we speak, even though supposedly the tour is in both English and German. So we follow this double sized group into the cave. The group is so large and unwieldy that we can't get anywhere near the guide and are instead fighting through a crowd of people at each turn. I don't want to be with this many people unless a band is playing at the front of the place, ok? But, it's a good cave, I'll give it that. It was enormous and well lit and full of ice as promised. It was, of course, quite cold (freezing actually), but we were warned about this which makes all the damn difference in the world.As the tour began, we noticed that the guide was not repeating anything in English as our last tour (at the salt mines) had done*. So, even though they had told us that the tours were in both English and German (which we assumed to mean at the same time) they apparently had sent us off on a German only tour. Even though I bought the tickets in English. Where is the disconnect here? Can you people throw me a bone?

The funniest thing was that as we entered the cave everyone was stopping at a little unlabeled machine to get a ticket. I asked Jon, “what are these tickets for?” but he hadn't heard the guide say. Jon procured a ticket through the masses but it said nothing on it. A ticket with no text. What? Kane and I passed through sans ticket hoping that it wasn't like the ticket to get out of the ice cave or something. Via Jon's translation, there was supposedly no mention of this ticket for the entire tour. (Incidentally, there was also no mention of when or how this ice cave was discovered way up in the middle of an Austrian mountain.) Anyway, upon exiting the cave, there was a similar mad rush to another machine where one was to insert his/her previously aquired ticket. It apparently printed some text on the card or something, but we never really found out since Jon's ticket wouldn't go in. Yet another enigma.

So, what I'm noticing is that they don't sign things very well here (roads excepted, thank goodness). No warnings, no explanations, no instructions. You move forward, pay your money, and hope everything works out to your satisfaction. And if it doesn't, too damn bad. I suppose it's because I come from a land where that same ice cave would have had 150 warning signs, a liability waiver, an extensive informational pamphlet, six foot continuous guard rails, and required helmet rentals (fully sanitized, of course). Better yet, we Americans might have just knocked down the mountain to install a Black Angus Steakhouse and reassembled the ice cave at a more convenient location like Vegas or Gilroy. Maybe we baby our citizens too much but these people don't even seem to know what babies are**. So, if you're a sensitive soul like me, know that there is much laughter, incredulous sighing, and confused discussions to be had if you choose to travel around central Europe.

*At the salt mines, the guide would say a ten minute shpeal in German followed by the English “translation” of about one sentence worth of heavily accented information. For some reason I felt like we were getting left out a bit. Jon verified this.
**Although, someone did, for some reason, think it was a decent and appropriate idea to bring their baby to the ice cave. Wow, how surprising that a baby is going to wail and cough the entire time he's being dragged around a place that's as comfortable as a walk in freezer. What a truly excellent idea. At least idiocy exists internationally even if signs don't.

South Germany

This past week we've done a bit of a road trip around the South parts of Germany. It's been generally good and fun and scenic, though we have had a few problems. Actually, we have had one problem: we do not speak German. None at all. We don't read it or write it or understand it in any measure. This has been our main obstacle during our time here which we have overcome with a combination of cowardice and avoidance (and, when we have the time, a German to English dictionary). Let's just say we have been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our hotel rooms. Ok, this plan was also to save money (yes, we're cheap and unable to communicate – come travel with us!) not just to avoid the German menus and surly restaurant attendants. Though it was a satisfactory solution to both of these obstacles.

Let's discuss the positives since I tend to dwell on the negatives because they are more entertaining and, let's face it, sarcasm does become me*. Germany is a beautiful place. At least the parts we've seen at this time of year. I understand it gets all snowy in the winter (probably also very pretty, but in an “Oh, you don't like to ski? Well then go freeze your ass off anyway” sort of way) and I really don't know what happens in the fall and spring except that I imagine it's something like between summer and winter (gold star for deductive reasoning!). The landscape is never ending hills of green, green, green – trees, forests, meadows, fields, crops, vineyards, and on and on. Just driving around is a real treat.

My favorite thing about the towns we visited was the part of each town called the 'Altstadt' or Old Town which is typically the original area of the town filled with buildings built anywhere from 200-600+ years ago and often surrounded by a big stone wall (and sometimes a disused moat!). This part of the town is typically the tourist center where shops, cafes, and landmarks abound. They are as picturesque as they are delightful** to wander around in. We had the pleasure of exploring the Altstadt areas of Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and Freiburg, which were our main three destinations on this trip.


View Larger Map

The first two cities also have really nice castles overlooking the towns and I would say that Heidelberg Castle (Schloss Heidelberg) has been the highlight so far. Now mostly ruins, this castle was built over a span of 300 years starting in the 1400s and then mostly destroyed by wars in the 1600s and a fire (from lightening striking the bell tower – so Back to the Future!) in the 1700s. Only one part of the castle was rebuilt in the 1800s and we took an excellent tour of the whole thing (in English).

We spent the last few days of this trip exploring the Black Forest in the south west corner of Germany – an area heavily influenced by the French and Swiss due to the close proximity. The Black Forest is really beautiful; an entire region of mountainous greenery with tiny, quaint towns nestled into the valleys. For most of one day we just drove all around, stopping at a waterfall here, a lake there, and lunch at a tiny town in between. And, this is one of the few places where it's actually easier and nicer to have a car than to take a train. We could have asked for better weather since it rained most of the time, but I guess that's why everything's so green! See the latest round of pictures here.
Now we're back in Munich to pick up some cargo (mainly Jon) before we head off to Vienna, Budapest, Krakow (Poland), and then Prague over the next 2 weeks. The adventure continues!

*I am aware that sarcasm is said to be the lowest form of wit, but I also find it to be the highest form of intelligence.
**Yes, I used the word 'delightful', what are you gonna do about it?

Munich

Welcome to Europe. We flew into Munich last Friday the 10th and have been dutifully relaxing, sightseeing, and hanging out with Jon for one solid week. This is my first time in Germany and Kane's first time in Europe altogether. So, we had (and still have) a few things to get used to. Let's start with the basics:

• They speak German here. This was something I had obviously known in an abstract way beforehand, but not really thought about. We were in Australia before; tons of new stuff to get used to but you can always ask someone about it. Now we're sort of on our own when we're not with Jon. Menus, road signs, tram ticket machines - all in German. Though most people secretly speak English, it's embarrassing to ask them to. We're getting by but it's an interesting, and often frustrating change.
• They drive on the right. Hallelujah! Well, sort of. We, obviously, have been conditioned by years of driving in the US to think on the right side of the road. We had only minor problems in Australia, but some things really are just ingrained. Other things, however, we've only experienced while driving in Australia. Example: roundabouts. I am not used to going counterclockwise in a roundabout. This is odd. We are dealing with it.
• It's summertime in the northern hemisphere. The sun rises at...some early time in the morning before I'm awake. It gets dark after 9pm. It's warm and, often, sunny. This is what I'm talking about.

And for some smaller points that are thought provoking and sometimes baffling:

• They do not serve tap water at restaurants. Not as a norm at least. If you ask for water you get disgusting bubbly water. Everyone else drinks beer, soda or juice. It's ridiculous.
• They do not keep their milk refrigerated at the grocery store. In the store aisles, milk comes in little 1 liter boxes which are not refrigerated. Nothing is wrong with this, the milk is boiled or whatever and then sealed, but it's still odd at first.
• People don't smile here. You know when you walk down the street and make eye contact with a stranger and you each give a little half smile to indicate that you are mutually friendly people even though you don't know each other? They don't do that here. Sometimes they stare sans smile (love the alliteration, don't you) but rarely a smirking stranger for no reason.
• There are very strict noise laws. In Munich, you cannot be loud or disruptive, even in your own home (provided that it disturbs others), after 10pm (till 6am) or on Sundays. This includes loud music, mowing your lawn, hammering, and possibly even running your washing machine. It does not seem to include the heinously loud and frequent police sirens reminiscent of the Nazi era. Those can go anytime they want.

Other than taking in the oddities that make Munich the place it is, we've been sightseeing rather dedicatedly. At least for us. Here's a rundown of what we've seen so far:

Saturday - Gay Pride Parade. They know how to queer it up here.
Sunday - Tollwood Festival. I don't know what it was a festival for, but there were adequate amounts of people, beer, stalls of food, and nick knacks. It was good.
Monday - Walking Tour. Free walking tour of Munich with a little bit of history and a lot of standing in the sun. Got to see a bit of the city though.
Tuesday - Nymphenburg Palace. Big mansion from the 1600s. Pretty nice.
Wednesday - Day at Jon's house to plan and book our next week of travel around south Germany. Also bought a GPS.
Thursday - Pick up the car and tour at Dachau Concentration Camp. Acquired the car with no problems, Dachau was interesting.
Friday - Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. The first one is the really famous German castle that the Disney castle was based on. They were both nice but I had expected more for some reason. No idea how to pronounce the latter.
Saturday (today) - Deutsches Museum. Apparently it's huge and very in depth...unleash the nerds!

And that's been our stay so far; here are the pics that made the cut. We're having a nice time and the weather has been warm and sunny for most of the time, though it decided to start raining yesterday and today. We leave tomorrow (Sunday) for our five day road trip around south Germany and return to Munich next Friday.

Spendings - The Dirt

Yeah, you want to know the dirt on our trip, don't you? You don't care about the Sydney Opera House or Kakadu National Park. You think our pics are mediocre and just browse through them as you peruse your usual internet sites. You scoff when I mis-spell things or trip over a punctuation mark. You are overwhelmed when you log on after two weeks and I have 17 new posts that you will never catch up on and, frankly, don't much care to read. I mean, they're boring. Documentation of the day to day activities of traveling - come on! Write something interesting! Make something up if you have to, right?

Well, this entry is for the prying minds, the curious cats, the chatty Kathys. This one will tell you all about the bottom line, the real deal. So, the question remains: how much money did we spend on this trip around Australia? You already looked down, didn't you. The pie chart is just too tantalizing to resist - I know better than most*. Well, you may as well look now if you haven't already:
Let's analyze, shall we? We left June 8 and got back July 4. That means the trip was 26 days** long, which translates to $317 per day for both of us, or $158/day each. It sounds expensive, doesn't it? It was, damn it, that wasn't a trick question. Regardless, if you are acquainted with Kane and me, you are aware that we are relatively frugal. Not so frugal that I would resort to, say, camping or eating at McDonald's, but we're certainly budget conscious. As evidenced by the very existence (and accuracy) of the pie chart.

I don't have a lot of excuses; this country is expensive. I was impressed to see that almost a quarter of our expenses were for activities - I had not realized we had paid so much money for tours, cruises, etc. The bulk of our activity money was spent on: Fraser Island Tour; two Whitsunday Island boat/snorkeling tours; Reggie Watts tickets; the Australia Zoo; Great Barrier Reef Cruise and Snorkeling tour at Port Douglas; and two river cruises in Kakadu. To be fair, the Fraser Island trip was a two day deal that included one night accommodation and food and accounts for about a quarter of the activities costs. I just need to take deep breaths and keep saying the "once in a lifetime" mantra to keep calm with these ridiculous prices.

Transportation and accommodation were the next two big hitters - we rented a car for the entire trip which was just plain expensive and also very nice. It cost an average of $64/day for the car, but a lot of that was because they charge you a whole lot extra for pickup one place and drop off another - not really sure why. Accommodation averaged out to about $62/night which is about as good as you'll get here. We stayed in hostels most nights; got nice hotels in two places for 6 nights total. Totally worth it. Plus, you have to account for the fact that we weren't paying rent during this, and our rent here was $2173 a month. So, really, we were saving money on accommodation as compared to the past year and a half. Like how I worked the numbers there?

Food is probably where we could have saved the most money - we ate out almost every lunch and dinner. We tried not to go to super expensive places, but a standard meal for dinner here is typically between $20-$30 per plate which just racks up a huge bill really quickly. We did almost every breakfast in our hostel/hotel with cereal and powdered milk which probably saved us a few hundred bucks. Flights were the next offender, exacerbated by the trip to Darwin. Could have saved a few hundred bucks each if we had just come back to Melbourne from Cairns.

The stragglers are gas, stuff, and other. I was impressed that gas was such a small chunk of our spendings; we spent $513 driving 5719km (=3800 miles) for an average of about 33 miles to the gallon per Kane's calculations. Note also that gas here is between $4.60 and $5.60 per gallon (though it's sold in liters so the price doesn't sound so heinous). "Stuff" just means random crap we bought which mostly consisted of a bag I acquired and towels we purchased to replace the ones we left at a hostel, in addition to books, magnets, drug store supplies, internet, laundry, post cards, etc. "Other" was a category that I see was not used correctly as it also includes laundry and internet. If I cared more, I might fix that. I think we'll live.

So there you have it. You now know how much poorer we are from this trip around Australia. It was good times; can't really put a price tag on experiences and all that, right? I'll just keep telling myself that as I mourn my bank account. And that wasn't even the start of our troubles...Europe will surely trick us out of the rest of the money we have so dedicatedly saved up over the last year. Sigh. Save, save, save...spennnnndddd!!!

*I freaking love pie charts. In case it wasn't clear in the body of the post.

**I'm not counting July 4 as a day on the actual trip since we arrived back in Melbourne at 7am.