Go Places

Roma: 30th September

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:56:02 -0400

Sorry this has been so long coming, I got very behind and then stopped posting completely, but I’m back home in NZ now, so I will endeavour to get them all done before I forget everything.

Started my day with a little passeggiata down Via del Plebiscito on my way to the Piazza Navona

I passed the Largo di Torre Argentina, with the ruins of several temples. Seriously Roma is just covered in ruins - you turn a corner and suddenly there’s a major archeological site.

There’s not much in the Piazza Navona, but there is something about it, especially in the morning when there aren’t too many people around.

The square has three fountains and this one is the Fountain of the Four Rivers (none of which I can remember, except one of them is probably the Tiber).

One of many Egyptian obelisks resides in the square, with the obligatory street performer wearing a shiny King Tut outfit which looks like it’d heat you to about 400º in the sun.

There’s something amazing about all the water in Rome. There are fountains everywhere, which creates a strange sort of feeling in the air when it’s as baking hot as it was when I was there.

There’s also something magical about the cobbled squares with the same tables packed with tacky reproductions of famous renaissance paintings, gratifying the tourist’s desire for a leap of recognition, as we think ‘just like in the movies! What fun!’ (also fulfilling this role: Ristorante Vacanze Romane on the square - for the Hepburn/Peck fans).

After wandering about the square looking for a place to have coffee, then deciding that it was all vastly overpriced (6 euro for a cappuccino, I ask you) I went just off the square, down a little back street and had a couple of coffees while watching the endless streams of visor-wearing camera-carrying tourists stomp past in their sensible shoes (I’ve discovered that one never hates tourists so much as when one is a tourist oneself).

I set off down a series of cool shady alleyways towards the river, noting the complete lack of footpaths anywhere, and enjoying some serious people-watching.

I ventured into the working class and therefore uber-cool suburb of Trastevere, starting my visit with a trek up Giancolo Hill and a fabulous view of Roma.

(Note that the Vittorio Emanuel Monument sticks out like a sore thumb).

See! More water. It’s everywhere. Halfway up the hill there was a little water fountain just sticking out of the hill. It’s a water-fueled city.

After a sit and a gawk at the beautiful and chaotic Roman skyline, I walked down the hill and found a little trattoria to have lunch in (Pasta all’amatriciana, delicious by the way) and then wandered through the gorgeous little cobbled alleys and back across the river. I headed back to my hotel via the Via del Corso (getting lost in the process - don’t ask me how).

Roma: 29th September

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:11:00 -0400

I started the day by walking around the corner from my hotel (literally, about 30 seconds’ walk) into the Piazza Venzia, where I basically nearly died from general wonderment.

The sqaure is a manic mass of cars, bikes and people, with so much traffic attempting to get through it that there was a dude directing traffic - I snapped a picture ‘cause he looked so elegant doing it, like a dancer:

The most stunning feature of the Piazza Venezia is the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, who was the first king of unified Italy.

You can see just from the haze in the pictures how hot it was - it was 10 in the morning and already at least 26º - and the sun just bounced off all the marble.

Even from this early on in day I could tell what Roma was going to be like - a chaotic jumble of mismatched buildings from completely different periods of history.

On the right, just behind the monument is the ruins of the Forum - all my pictures of the forum were from a bus and sadly they’re all blurred.

I jumped on a hop-on-hop-off bus behind the Monument and went for a ride around the place to orient myself.

We drove through the forum and towards the colosseum (or ‘coloseo’)

I didn’t actually end up going into the colosseum, partly ‘cause of the cost and partly ‘cause of the lines (one day I will go. It gives me an excuse to come back).

I’m pretty sure these next ones are of Palatine Hill, but it was a pretty whirlwind sort of a ride, so lots of the details have escaped me.

This is the medieval bell-tower of the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, which according to my wikipedia-ing skills has been around since 1084. That’s relatively new when you consider that the basilica has been around since the 4th century.

This is the Castel Sant’Angelo, which was originally built by Hadrian as a mausoleum and was eventually turned into a fortress.

And this is, of course, the Basilica Sancti Petri, which is the Pope’s main hangout and despite the fact that I was in Rome when I took the picture, was in a whole other state.

Weird.

(See! I wasn’t lying, I was actually there! Getting quite sunburned in fact).

The Pont Sant’Angelo and a pretty damn fine picture when you consider it was taken from a moving bus.

I have no idea what this church is, but it’s PWETTY.

This was taken at the Villa Borghese gardens - I have no idea what those trees are, but they’re awesome and a little creepy for some reason.

After the bus tour I hopped off at Piazza Barberini and got a look at Bernini’s famous Triton Fountain:

and wandered down the Via Veneto, stopping at one of the many restaurants for lunch (OMG you guys, I had lunch on the Via Veneto! EEEEEEE).

After lunch I wandered along to the Trevi Fountain, which was of course absolutely packed at 2-ish in the afternoon.

As you can see it was pretty much standing room only. Most guidebooks say to get there really early in the morning to avoid the crowds, but I actually felt that the crowds added to the experience rather than spoiled it. It was an energetic atmosphere.

I swear that seagull stayed there the whole time. It’s like he knew he was in a thousand holiday pictures.

I got myself a gelato and sat happily in the throng for a while.

After that I still had some energy so I made my way to the Pantheon:

It was so nice and cool to sit in the shade amongst the columns for a bit.

at the top of the dome is a little circle which has no glass or anything, it’s just open. Apparently it’s amazing to be in there when it rains, the water just comes down in a column in the middle of the temple.

After a brief stay in the Pantheon I walked back to the hotel down the Via del Corso.

Despite having had pizza for lunch, I had pizza for dinner as well. Needless to say I was a little pizza-ed out for a while.

Copenhagen - Rome (sort of): 28th September

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:40:05 -0400

Oh god, this was the day from hell. And thus, it gets its very own devoid-of-photographs post.

It started out like a normal day, aside from the fact that I was awake before 6am. The normal airport-train-taking day quickly devolved into a nightmare of Tom-Hanks-in-an-airport proportions. (I may be exaggerating, but I’m celtic so I’m allowed).

I made it onto the budget airline plane and up into cruising alititude safely, and it was there at 20 or 30 thousand feet that the wheels came off the wagon.

Yep, that’s right, I had my first emergency landing.

A crack appeared in a cockpit window mid-flight, which is really concerning when the lives of everyone on board depend on all the air staying inside the plane.

So we made an emergency landing at Munich airport (well, hello Bavaria, I didn’t think we’d be meeting again so soon) and queued for an hour (or at least I did) to get re-booked on a flight (an hour? Where are we, Great Britain?) before discovering that said flight wasn’t ‘til 3pm. At this point it was quarter to twelve and the plane was supposed to arrive in Rome at 10.30. And, I’d been awake since half-past five.

So, I settled in for my long wait in possibly the least comfortable airport, apart from Copenhagen, or New Plymouth. I had a very expensive lunch of schnitzel and caught up on Doctor Who episodes to keep myself from going insane.

Then, at about 2.30 we find out that the plane is delayed. At this point I burst into tears, because there’s only so much airport a person can take. We were told that they were hoping to have some news for us at about 3.30, ‘cause our plane was still in Hanover or something. Eventually the plane took off at about 4.30, arriving in Rome at 5.30ish, a whole 12 hours after I woke up. After we landed I spotted a couple of people from the Copenhagen flight and joked (exasperatedly) that we’d just taken the longest 2-hour flight in history.

Too exhausted to deal with trains, I paid for a taxi to my hotel, which ended up costing an amount which I’d really like not to think about ever.

My taxi-driver was an actor hired to play an Italian taxi-driver in a film about a privileged middle-class white woman who goes to Italy to find herself. Or at least that’s what it felt like. He yelled happily over the traffic noise about how awesome Rome was (not Italy: Italy sucks, Rome is what’s good apparently) and when I said I was from New Zealand he switched cheerfully over to rugby, or as he adorably pronounced it ‘rigby.’

If I thought finding out that the airplane was broken while on it and in the air was scary, I realised how wrong I was while cruising down a congested Roman motorway at 135 km/h (84 miles/h for my millions of American/English/strangely-not-metric-stuck-in-the-19th-century-readers. OH SNAP DID I GO THERE?) while my enthusiastic taxi driver had a loud conversation on his cellphone, complete with flamboyant hand-gestures.

It was now that I thought I was going to die.

(Ignore the serious tense-issues in that sentence)

But I didn’t, in fact, die and made it to Hotel Straight-Out-Of-A-Poirot-Novel-Set-In-Rome in one piece. Down to the polite but uninterested concierge, the overdone dark crimson drapes and the tiny elevator

I settled into my room, which honestly almost made Harry’s cupboard look like a suite at the Grand and had a pike-out meal at the restaurant, which actually turned out to be the best pasta I’d ever had. Oh, boy was I going to top that before the week was out.

And so the day that seemed never to end ended, and I got a good night’s sleep ready for the gigantic chaotic wonder that is Rome.

Copenhagen: 25th - 27th September

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:49:39 -0400

The train trip was very very easy and relaxing - I saw lots of gorgeous countryside, but the train-window was very dirty and it was a high-speed train, so I didn’t take any pics. My hotel was about five minutes walk from the station and had a shower which was actually in the same place as the bed and wasn’t communal (YES!)

I had a very nice dinner at Lê Lê Nhà Hàng, a Vietnamese restaurant just down the road from my hotel in Vesterbro (what is it with all the Vietnamese food you ask? Not sure, maybe it was in anticipation of the wall-to-wall pizza and pasta awaiting me in Italy).

The next morning I had a leisurely start and wandered along a canal which had a beautiful green walkway beside it:

and of course there were swans so I stopped to watch for a bit

Then I ventured into über-trendy Nørrebro to have a look around, managing to navigate my way through the masses of bicycles everywhere. I stumbled across the enormous Assistens Kirkegård cemetery - which is more like a giant park than a graveyard - and is the final resting place of lots of famous danes including Hans Christian Andersen and Niels Bohr.

It was a lovely place for a bit of a wander about with lots of cool creatures - including this adorable red squirrel:

Though I did try, I couldn’t find Niels Bohr, but I did find Hans Christian Andersen:

Is it a little weird that I could have hung out in this graveyard all day?

After Assistens Kirkegård I popped a few streets over to the famous Laundromat Café which is a café AND a laundromat. You can in fact do laundry there. I didn’t get any pictures, but I had to google one, ‘cause the bar was made of books:

(oh yeah and fyi, the squeezy-bottles next to the tomato sauce - not vinegar as I thought, but honey. Yeah, that wasn’t pleasant. Apparently it’s just the english who do the vinegar thing on their chips)

After that I did some more wandering along canals and gazed enviously at all the carefree-looking people on their bikes.

I piked out and had dinner at the hotel.

The next morning I started out nice and early and - this is true I promise I’m not lying - hired a bike for the day! Now you may say that hiring a bike to cycle in a busy city when you haven’t ridden a bike since you were 12 would be a bad idea. But I’m not dead, so it worked out fine.

I actually had a blast (despite the pain the next day and the gigantic bruise on my calf which I still have 10 days later), it was so easy to get around with Copenhagen’s never-ending, sacrosanct bike-lanes.

After a shaky start in which I nearly careened into an old man who yelled at me in Danish I did fine - I found a bit of canal to cycle beside:

See! Photographic proof!

I didn’t fall in!

I had a brief juice and coffee stop at Granola Bar (SUCH amazing juice) I cycled to the Statens Museum for Kunst, otherwise known as the National Gallery of Denmark:

After a slightly-too-intense lunch of herring with paprika, mustardseed and red onion (I know right? Just pick one sharp taste would you!) at the museum restaurant, I dove straight into the exhibition of French art 1900-1940:

(Georges Roualt: The Judges, 1908)

(Amedeo Modigliani: Alice, c.1918)

Which, by the way, has the most Matisse paintings I’ve ever seen in one place. Which made me so happy (I love Matisse).

(Henri Matisse: Nude in a White Scarf, 1909)

(Henri Matisse: Portrait of Madame Matisse. The Green Line, 1905)

(Henri Matisse: Recumbent Woman With Her Arms Raised Above Her Head, 1936)

(Henri Matisse: The Green Blouse, 1936)

(Raoul Dufy: A Landscape near Vence in Provence, 1920-1921)

(André Derain: Still Life With Palette, 1914)

(André Derain: The Two Sisters, 1914)

(Henri Laurens: Woman with a Fan, 1921)

(Fernand Léger: Woman with a Vase, 1924)

Next was an exhibition of Danish and Scandinavian art which was overwhelmingly extensive.

(Vigilius Eriksen: The Queen Dowager Juliane Marie, 1776)

I like to think this fabulous lady is saying ‘oh yes young man, come with me to my chambers’ or ‘you better believe I can beat you at popping and locking’

(Nicolai Abildgaard: Christian I Raising the Province of Holstein to the State of a Duchy, 1778)

(Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein Stub: Ossian and Alpin’s Son Hearing the Spirit of Malvina Touching the Harp, 1816)

(Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg: The Nathanson Family, 1818)

(Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg: The Israelites Resting after the Crossing of the Red Sea, 815)

Or, as I think it should be called, The Women Look Exasperated as the Men Argue About Which Way the Holy Land Is.

(Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg: Pont Royal seen from Quai Voltaire, 1812)

(Christen Købke: Portrait of the Artist’s Sister, 1835)

I love this picture, it just feels like a very accurate painting - the shine on her nose and the pigmentation in her face. Gorgeous.

(Johan Christian Dahl: Winter Landscape near Vordinborg, Denmark, 1829)

(Frederik Sødring: The Ruins of Brahehus near Jönköping, Sweden, 1832).

(Herman Wilhelm Bissen: A Victorious Danish Soldier, 1850-1851)

(Ejnar Nielsen: A Blind Girl Reading, 1905).

(Ditlev Blunck: Manhood. From the series: The Four Ages of Man, 1840-45)

Or, as I like to call it: Are We There Yet Dad? I Need a Bathroom Break. For the Love of Mike, Steve Would You Just Let Me Look at a Map? I Wanna Row. Would You All Quit Nagging Me Please?

(Vilhelm Bissen: A Lady, 1891)

These sculptures always make me wonder what it’s like to sculpt someone’s butt, or their boobs or whatever. Wouldn’t you feel weird? These are the things that come into my brain.

(Jan Verkade: Self-portrait, c1891-94)

Or, as I like to call it, The First Hipster.

The gallery had a whole room devoted to female painters and non-typical representations of gender, with this notice on the wall:

How awesome is that?

After taking in the art, I cycled home before collapsing in an aching heap for a while.

Stockholm (Lots of awesome Moderna Museet Pictures): 24th September

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:51 -0400

After a lazy start I ventured into the hippest part of Stockholm (Södermalm or SoFo) for breakfast - the classic coffee (which was excellent) and kanelbullar (cinnamon roll) at this little place just down from the most hipster shop I have ever seen (Grandpa - buy your child a tiny bowtie and yourself an overpriced pair of coloured headphones).

I had a wander around the shops, including Pet Shop Sounds which is an apparently quite famous music shop, where I bought the strangest combination of CDs I have ever got: White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground and a two-disc best of the Allman Brothers Band album. The guy at the counter looked at me funny.

After SoFo I ventured to the island of Skeppsholmen to the Moderna Museet - a massive collection of Modern Art which was made famous by Andy Warhol when he covered it in fluoro cow wallpaper. This stuff to be precise:

The gallery is organised so that you walk through it chronologically and as you walk to the start you pass these strange little lounge areas with cool stuff in them:

The main exhibition starts with some classic modernist stuff (listen to me, sounding like I know anything at all about art beyond LOOK AT THE PWETTY PICTURES)

(Jacques Villeglé: Pompidoue - rue de Crimée, 1969)

(Pablo Picasso: Bottle, Glass and Violin, 1912-1913).

before rapidly spiralling into some totally trippy stuff -

(Öyvind Fahlström: ESSO-LSD, 1967)

(Elaine Sturtevant: France d’après Rayasse, 1969)

(Andy Warhol: Electric Chair, 1967 + the arty-farty looking, totally accidental reflection of me).

(László Moholy-Nagy: Composition ASC, c. 1925)

A whole bunch of Soviet Propaganda Posters + dude with a hat.

(Aleksandr Rodtjenko: Spatial Construction No. 9 Circle in a Circle, 1920-1921). Possibly stolen by Lady GaGa for one of her wacky get-ups. Awesome bonus of funky shadow:

(Pablo Picasso: Woman with Blue Collar, 1941).

(Aleksandr Rodtjenko: Untitled and Undated. C’mon Alex, give us something to work with)

There was also this amazing short silent film called Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927) which was like Brave New World meets Commedia dell’Arte meets Thunderbirds. It was really cool.

(Man Ray: Indestructible object, 1923/1965)

(René Magritte: The Red Model, 1935).

(Salvador Dalí: The Enigma of William Tell, date unknown ‘cause there was an annoying pretentious dude standing right in front of the plaque and he just wouldn’t move. I waited for like 3 minutes. Also how totally weird is this?)

(Toyen, Myth of Light, 1946)

(Max Ernst, The Imaginary Summer, 1927)

(Barnett Newman: Tertia, 1964)

In all of the galleries there were these little areas with books and magazines and journals about the type of art on display and lots of comfy chairs to sit on.

Next was photography, starting with a picture of Mr Dalí himself:

(Irving Penn: Salvador Dalí, 1947)

(Irving Penn: Italian Still Life, 1981/1992)

(Irving Penn: Mouth (for l’Oréal), 1986/1992)

(Annica Karlsson Rixon: truckers (red), 1994-1999).

(Maria Hedlund: Untitled, 1998-2000)

(Miriam Bäckstrom: Mirrors, 2009)

Also ‘cause it was a mirror, I had to do the usual thing of a picture of me in the artwork. I mean it is tumblr after all.

(Sidebar: what the hell is my hair even doing here?)

(Cecilia Edefalk: Self-portrait, 1993/2011)

There was of course loads more stuff than this, these were just my favourites. I spent about 3 hours in this gallery. When I came out I had a wander around Skeppsholmen, past the weird sculpture things:

And down to the waterfront:

Where I got a good view over to Djurgården:

Then it was back to the hostel to get ready for my train-trip to Copenhagen in the morning!

Stockholm: 22nd-23rd September

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:13:18 -0400

The flight to Stockholm was entirely uneventful and the express train from Arlanda to Stockholm Central is so easy I could have laughed out loud. In fact I did. Especially when I discovered the free wifi on the train.

To add to how easy it was, my hostel was just five minutes walk from the station.

The hostel was honestly the most hipster place I have ever stayed in. I forgot to get a picture, but the reception area had random old-fashioned typewriters and packing cases perched artfully on every surface. Instead of room numbers, each room was named after an island in the Stockholm archipelago (I was in Djurgården).

After dumping my bag, I went for a little explore around my little area (around Vasagaten) which was mostly shopping, but also a few little parks.

After getting settled into my room I went and had a lovely meal at El Amir (including a glass of wine that cost more than my last entire dinner) just down the road.

The next morning I started the day with a very disappointing breakfast at what I later discovered to be Sweden’s version of Starbucks (bleh) before jumping on the tunnelbana to Gamla Stan - the old town. Bizarrely enough while on my tunnelbana journey and in Gamla Stan I came across no less than three buskers doing Bob Dylan songs.

Gamla Stan is a little island covered in winding cobbled streets with some of the narrowest alleyways I’ve ever seen.

My first stop was at the Royal Palace - complete with guards - which sweeps around majestically in a semicircle:

I wandered past the palace and down to the waterfront, which is absolutely beautiful. Last time I was here it was all snowy and frozen, which was nice too, but the sea and the sky were so blue and the sun was belting down.

After the waterfront I popped back up into Gamla Stan for more of a wander, coming across George and the Dragon in a sweet little square:

And a beautiful church hidden in the alleyways:

After much confused map-consulting, I finally found Stortorget, a famous square which was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath in 1520 when 90 people were executed by a Danish king. It’s also very pretty.

I stopped here and had the best mochaccino of my life. It had a dollop of cream in it. It was at a little cafe on the yellow side of the join between the red and yellow buildings, just in case anyone should ever go there. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called.

After coffee I had an explore up and down Västerlangatan, the main shopping street of Gamla Stan, including a brief stop in a little record shop, which was cut short by the very creepy proprietor breathing down my neck. Do I look like the sort of person to steal things? Do I? Next was lunch at Café Art, an awesome little vault café down a precarious flight of steps. Being underground and surrounded by so much stone helps you to forget the heaving masses of tourists outside.

Then I found a great little bookshop which sells Swedish books in English, so I got the one with the preface by Margaret Atwood (I figured she’d know what was good) - Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg (I’m nearly finished and it’s amazing. It reminds me of Nabokov c. Lolita a little).

After that I headed home down Drottninggatan which runs through the little island which has parliament on it:

stopping at several dvd shops in a fruitless attempt to find Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on dvd. Turns out the Scandinavian release doesn’t have english subtitles at all which I guess is fair enough. (Also knowing that the Swedish title bears no resemblance to the english one would have helped. It’s ‘Män Som Hatar Kvinnor’ or ‘Men Who Hate Women’ in case you were wondering).

Berlin: 21st September

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:33:09 -0400

I started my first solitary day (after the initial teary goodbye to my mother outside the hostel) with coffee and smoked salmon scrambled eggs at Blaues Band, while sampling the delights of their free wifi. Mr Super-Kool-Ponytail wasn’t there though.

I managed to navigate the U-bahn and made it to the Jewish Museum, which is worth a visit just for the architecture.

The whole building is designed to represent the history of German Jews, down to the 45º slope of the floors.

The ground floor is divided into axes - the Axis of the Holocaust which leads to the Holocaust Tower, the Axis of Exile, which leads to the Garden of Exile and the Axis of Continuity which leads to the main exhibit.

The Holocaust Tower was originally just a void, which was not associated with the Holocaust at all, but over time the meaning has sort of seeped into it. It was completely silent in there, but a small opening in the roof lets you hear some of the sounds of the city.

Next I went into the Garden of Exile, which was a profoundly weird experience. It is a perfect square, with a slanting ground, with 49 columns standing straight up, with olive willows growing out of the top. It’s designed to make you feel slightly sick - which it does. It makes one feel completely isolated, until someone else emerges from behind a column.

At the end of the Axis of Continuity there’s a staircase - which looks short until you’re on it, then it seems to go up forever - which leads to the main exhibit.

Before you go into the main exhibit there’s another void, like the Holocaust tower, which is called the Memory Void. It is an exhibit by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman called ‘Fallen Leaves’ - 10,000 iron faces covering the floor, representing the victims of the Holocaust. And totally eerie.

The main exhibit itself followed German-Jewish history from its beginnings to post-war. It had so much in it that it was a little overwhelming, but there was some amazing stuff there.

There was this little stand of yamicas (I honestly have no idea if that’s how you spell it) which were themed, which I found hilarious - here’re some examples:

After the main exhibit, there was a special exhibition of art exploring what it is to be German, which included a couple of really trippy installation pieces:

the office of one of those Micro-nation ‘declare-your-own-country’ things -

and a little waiting room blasting classical music, the entrance to which was a little nondescript door:

also there was this ridiculous ad which I really hope wasn’t government-sponsored

(but also whoever decided to wrap Claudia Schiffer in a German flag is a genius, why did they have to sully it with advertising?)

On the way out I got a good look at the brilliant exterior of the building, which was designed to look like someone had gashed it where the windows are.

On the way back to the hostel I stopped at this über-kool design shop called Schönhauser (probably because it was on Alte Shönhauserstrasse) and bought (after days of deliberation) a hot pink Marx head. Seriously. This one here:

How awesome is that? I couldn’t resist. I may be a little regretful at some point, considering that it is a moderately heavy block of wood that I have to carry in my backpack for another month. But still. HOT PINK MARX HEAD.

I rounded off the day with dinner at - can you guess? Good Morning Vietnam!

Berlin: 20th September

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 15:57:00 -0400

We began the day with breakfast at Blaues Band, which lasted rather longer than usual due to their free wifi. The dude who worked there was so Super-Kool with a capital K. He had a little ponytail and smoked cigarettes out on the street as if he was oblivious to the goings-on in his café.

We had a wee explore around our neighbourhood of Berlin Mitte, which is THE MOST HIPSTER place I have ever been. The cafés are so cool they don’t even have names. Everyone rides around on bicycles with perfect hair and platform heels. There was an art gallery next door to us which was housed in three enormous packing crates stacked on top of each other.

Next was a visit to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. We managed to avoid the fake Soviet soldiers which were littering the square (how freakin’ tacky is that) and did what East Berliners couldn’t do for 40 years - walked through the Gate.

(This shot may or may not have involved crossing the road specially. Shuddup, I’m not pretentious).

This is the Reichstag, which is a very very impressive building. It’s so intimidating and imposing, it’s completely different from buildings like Westminster (or the prettier Hungarian Parliament).

They also have very modern government buildings, like this one:

(Doesn’t that photo look like an architect’s concept drawing? It’s too perfect with the autumn trees).

After the Reichstag we hopped on the bus again and popped by Berlindom, the beautiful basilica:

In the park around the cathedral there were about 15 different couples ‘canoodling’ shall we say. Or, we could say making out. It was all very Parisian. We got another view of he cathedral from the Spree, where we had a nice and relaxing cruise and learned about the buildings which line the river.

The modern government buildings along the river are truly spectacular and were designed to represent a link between east and west - sort of like a band connecting the two parts of the city.

These next ones are the chancellory complex, complete with private garden only accessible by the Chancellor.

It was great seeing a different take on the city - it’s always different from the river.

After our cruise we had a delicious lunch at this great Korean place near Blaues Band and stopped at an awesome little shop called Soma, where I picked up some very cute jewellery:

Yes. That’s right. Those are little Kraftwerk vinyl earrings. They are THE BEST EVAR.

We rounded the day off with another fabulous dinner at Good Morning Vietnam.

Berlin (Extra Special East Side Gallery Post): 18th and 19th September

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:05:00 -0400

When we arrived in sunny Berlin, it was in fact, raining.

We made our arduous way on the bus to our hostel (that’s right, is has an ‘s’ in it. Don’t worry no bunk-beds were involved), which we couldn’t check into ‘til 2, so we got on the 100 bus and rode around on it for a bit.

We had a slight drama upon check-in, as we were sent to the wrong room (about a third of the size of the one we booked), but it turned out to be the room of someone with almost exactly the same name. Seriously, what are the chances.

But we eventually made it into our gigantic room (which one or two people could comfortably live in) and had a fabulous dinner at Good Morning Vietnam, the best Vietnamese restaurant in the world. Or at least outside of Vietnam. (Because I’ve been to ALL of them).

The next morning was spent doing laundry (oh, sweet sweet laundry) and after a fantastic lunch at the moderately famous Monsieur Vuong’s, we navigated the initially very confusing s-bahn urban trains (nearly getting caught in the middle of what looked like a rapidly escalating domestic at Alexanderplatz S-Bahnhof - luckily some burly German dudes were stepping in) to Warschauerstraße (tee-hee I love that double-s-symbol-thingy) and to the amazing East Side Gallery.

The East Side Gallery is a 2km stretch of the Berlin Wall, which has been turned into an open air gallery of murals, some of which were done in 1990 and some which were done in 2009 when the whole thing was given a bit of a makeover.

It is an astounding piece of history, and of public artwork.

This post is pretty much going to be the East Side Gallery (also I’m writing this while in my room in Italy which has the slowest internet of all time, so y’all should appreciate just how much waiting time went into this post).

At this point we ducked through a gap in the wall for a sit-down and a diet coke, where we spotted some swans having a wee swim in the River Spree:

where are you from and how old are your glasses?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:58:32 -0400

I’m from New Zealand and my glasses are from the 80s, and also from New Zealand. Well, actually they were made in Italy, but whatever.

I’m currently in Italy, so I guess my glasses are getting to know their ancestral home.

I’m not usually this weird (I am).

Salzburg, then Bavaria, then auf wiedersehen cheesy bus tour!: 17th and 18th September

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:42:53 -0400

To say that we started the last day off well would be an understatement.

We set out with our local guide Christina (who I think I liked best of all the guides) for the magnificent Alps, ready to go on our excursion to see the Eagle’s Nest, which is kind of like Hitler’s treehouse. Except instead of being on a tree, it’s on a freakin’ ginormous mountain.

Sadly (but not really) due to an accident, the road to the Eagle’s Nest (which is so perilous you have to take a special bus) was closed, so instead, we took the famous ‘Romantic Road’ into the Bavarian Alps, right to the top of mumblecoughberg (I’ve forgotten, OK, it was a while ago now) which gave us a view of not only the Eagle’s Nest, but also Salzburg, and a whole lot of really quite amazing mountains.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because first we have Part Zwei in the Saga of Cartoon-Character American Tourists (I would like to disclaim that I am only referring to those American tourists. The ones who complain that the coke tastes different in [insert country here]. That actually happened by the way).

It said in bolded italics in all the information that the Eagle’s Nest trip was dependent on conditions. We knew it was possible that we wouldn’t be able to do it. And yet, what did we have, but FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND (a little hyperbole, just for effect) complaining Americans (seriously, no-one else was complaining. No-one) yammering on about how it wasn’t what they paid for and oh I’m so disappointed and maybe we should just go home.

And it wasn’t just our bus, there were about three at the base-camp place we stopped at before we headed up into the mountains. Three buses full of annoying whingey complainers.

We both had a bit of a fume, before determining not to let them spoil what was going to turn out to be a wonderful last day of the tour.

We took a very windy part of the Romantic Road, up into the mountains (our bus-driver Harald certainly earned his tips that day) and when we got there, we mostly stood and gaped for about ten minutes.

There really are no words to describe how beautiful it was. Even the pictures don’t do it justice. The air was so clear and it was so quiet and peaceful.

We did get a view of the Eagle’s Nest:

It’s that weeny little structure on the top of that mountain.

It was just astounding.

After this, we headed back down the mountain to Berchtesgaden, a very cute little village nestled in the alps. While we were there, we had a Bavarian specialty for lunch - white veal sausages with sweet mustard and a fresh pretzel. It was sooo delicious. We didn’t get a picture, but I found this on google images:

After lunch, we all got back on the bus and made our slow, winding way back to München. It was slow and winding, because it was the opening day of Oktoberfest, so every man, woman, child and their pets were on their way to München. So we had to take the backway. But it was lovely.

We got back to the hotel, had our last underwhelming, overly salted hotel-dinner and very very early the next morning we left München for Berlin!

Salzburg: 16th September

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:23:20 -0400

We had a lovely drive from Vienna, through the beautiful Austrian countryside:

We had a lovely walk around Salzburg, through the Mirabelle gardens (which were used in The Sound of Music by the way)

It was a beautiful day, and it real is a gorgeous town.

And we spotted some more love padlocks on the little footbridge:

We saw Mozart’s birthplace (which funnily enough has ‘Mozart’s Birthplace’ written on the side in enormous letters. Wasn’t that lucky)

I think this dude might be following me..

Oh and here’s Noel, our tour director with his red umbrella:

The Salzburg Citadel loomed high up in the hills:

We took the little cable car up the hill and visited the castle, which had some truly stunning views of the town and the Alps surrounding it:

It was a beautiful castle (not a stitch on Warwick though)

We stopped and had a drink at the little café near Mozart’s place and then headed back to the hotel, ready for our last day!

Wien (Vienna): 15th September

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:55:37 -0400

We didn’t sign up for the trip to see Schönbrunn Palace, so got to have a nice sleep-in in the morning, before jumping on the bus for the sightseeing trip.

I spotted this cool bit of grafitti:

which I would quite like on a t-shirt actually.

Our local guide was called Sylvia and she had a refreshing take on the people of Vienna - she told us about the tendency of the Viennese to hate everything new. Which is why they originally hated this magnificent building:

We started in the beautiful Museums Quarter, near Hofburg Palace, which will be familiar to my IUSY friends I’m sure:

That is Empress Maria Theresia Hapsburg, who remains the only female leader in Austria’s history. Still. Good work Austria <sarcasm/>.

On the top of the Natural History Museum, there are loads of statues of famous scientists and explorers, including James Cook! (Who is apparently the dude on the far right)

We wandered across the road to the Hofburg palace

(Is it just me, or is that horse in the bottom left corner looking RIGHT down the barrel? It’s a little creepy)

See that scaffolded bit in the middle? This bit:

That is the balcony from which Hitler announced the Anschluss.

And chilling in the sun right next to the palace was this really cool dude I know.

Well, I say ‘know’..

Speaking of Mozart, our next port of call was at the café of the same name, for some truly astounding coffee.

That’s sacher torte I’m having (which I first had in 2009 and was like ‘meh,’ but which I greedily devoured in a haze of deliciousness at Café Mozart) and a ‘Schococino’ (like a mochacino but waaaay more chocolatey), while my mother had a sort of apricot strudel and a Café Maria Theresia, which is the way the Empress used to have it. It’s espresso with cointreau and orange zest, with lashings of whipped cream. OMNOMNOMNOM.

After our coffee-break we wandered down the main shopping street towards Stephansplatz, spotting what was clearly a coded message from the Doctor along the way:

Stephansdom was just as amazing as I remember, though unfortunately covered in scaffolding:

After that, we went into the Albertina Museum to see the fantastic Monet-Picasso exhibit - I didn’t take any pictures, but it was amazing.

We went for a wander past the French embassy, which is pretty swish -

We had a look around this installation, called ‘The Morning Line’ which you could walk inside, and which had a music track playing continuously:

In the background there is the last Soviet soldier in Vienna. The city was briefly occupied after the war, and a condition of the withdrawal of troops was that the monument to Soviet soldiers be left standing. Which I think is pretty cool actually.

For dinner, we had Greek food again, but unfortunately it wasn’t as good as the place in München (though it was the best Moussaka I’ve ever had).

Ranking of Cities by Hipsterishness

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:42:22 -0400

This may be controversial. And I know I haven’t got to most of these places in the blog yet, but I think this is too important to wait.

In reverse order of hipsterishness:

10: London. Come on, that is like so 40 years ago.

9: Salzburg. The Sound of Music was filmed there. And it wasn’t even ironic.

8: München. It could be cool maybe, if you like went to Oktoberfest ironically or something.

7: Prague. There are tourists everywhere and it’s all capitalist now. I mean it’s so mainstream there’s even a Mozart Symphony about it. Seriously. But it’s got that post-USSR vibe which is cool.

6: Vienna. The whole ‘hub of international non-government-orgs’ thing is awesome, I’d love to like, intern in Vienna or whatever. But the whole coffee-shop scene is so been-there-done-that. When Freud does it, it stops being cool.

5: Budapest. It’s got the whole touristy thing going on, which is a downer, but it’s also a like totally unique city and the language is so obscure, you probably wouldn’t understand it.

4: Stockholm. Controversially not at the top, but y’know, the whole ‘Stockholm is hipster’ thing is so mainstream now.

3: Copenhagen. Nørrebro is like the best place to hang out and I got this way awesome retro-craft shop to sell my handmade bookmarks, but I hate capitalism so people get to name their price. It’s awesome.

2: Berlin. I like to sit in the aching post-communist east with a perfect latté machiatto and write my ironic-comedy-def-jam-beat-poetry-raps in my moleskine with this pencil I got at this shop with no name, which has an eraser shaped like Karl Marx’s head. You wouldn’t understand.

1: Catherine-de-Barnes. I bet you’ve never even heard of it.

(Sidebar: I’m in character as a hipster for this. No really. Shuddup, I’m not a hipster)

Vienna: 14th September

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:53:28 -0400

We began our visit to Vienna by rejoicing at the coolness of our hotel room and by heading out way into the outskirts of Vienna to the town of Marchfeld.

There we visited the most remarkable restaurant I have ever been to: Marchfelderhof.

When we arrived, what seemed like the whole staff was waiting outside for us, waving and holding up umbrellas.

They laid a red carpet out on the road for us, and put a red ribbon up across the door, which they got one of the little Aussie kids (Emily) to cut it:

This place was absolutely amazing. It was wall to wall bric-a-brac, with hundreds and hundreds of photos of celebrities, artists and other famous types lining the walls. It was like stepping into something out of Alice in Wonderland. It was like an acid trip. I tried to take pics, and got a few good ones, but no pictures (or video - I have some which I will post as soon as I’ve got around to editing it) can really convey what it was like here.

Every group was in their own dining room, we were in the Kaiser room, which was covered with portraits and busts of Kaiser Franz Josef (like the glacier!)

There was also, inexplicably, a pot of jam on the books.

We were serenaded by a wandering three-piece band, who played such classics as: The Blue Danube Waltz, Hava Nagila and Waltzing Matilda (see above re: video).

We had a marvellous dinner; I partook of the classic Wiener Schnitzel (I’ve never had it before. Seriously)

(Yes, I have food pictures. I had too much wine. It was free and unlimited, OK?)

Mum had the pork knuckle, which was the best pork of all time. I am not exaggerating. It had so much crackling that I got a substantial chunk of it. Crackling was freely given away, rather than the usual way of using sometimes lethal force to protect one’s crackling.

After dinner, and yet more wine, I went exploring.

This was the entrance to the ladies’ room:

and the bathroom itself was full of weird and wonderful stuff.

It had huge amounts of product lining the sink - anything a lady could ever need while in a restaurant bathroom - hairspray, hand lotion, mouthwash. Anything you want.

In fact the cubicles were covered with naked men. Seriously, I have photographic proof.

AND there was a bookcase.

I also have pictures of my reaction. Which is weird I know. Did I mention the wine?

Commence a thousand pictures:

Then we had dessert which was AH-MAY-ZING.

And the kids got little goody-bags with toys and stuff, including vampire teeth:

How adorable is that?

Anyway the whole evening was incredible and a lovely way to be welcomed to Vienna!

Budapest: 14th September

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:39:00 -0400

The morning began with a visit to the Vajdahunyad Castle, which was built in 1896 to celebrate Hungary’s millenial as an exhibition, torn down, then rebuilt by popular demand. Even though all the buildings are actually replicas and mostly just facades, it is a lovely place - a peaceful and beautiful spot in the middle of a bustling city.

The castle has buildings from different periods in history: the medieval bit (above) the Baroque style palace:

and a very-old-looking (techinical architectural term - ask Ted Mosby) chapel:

As part of the excursion, we were given a lovely little organ concert in the chapel, featuring some Bach, some traditional folk dances and the Hungarian national anthem. The music was lovely, but it was during this concert that the stereotype of the obnoxious american tourist reared its ugly head in a big way.

Let me tell you a story about the Latimers.

The minute the Latimers stepped on the bus I disliked them. I thought unfairly at first, because my only reason was that the lady looked EXACTLY like a really evil character from a Poirot film. Which is not a good enough reason to dislike someone.

I found many good reasons on this trip.

During this gorgeous concert, given by a quite distinguished Hungarian organist, the Latimers talked, sighed and - worst of all - laughed. They actually spent the whole Hungarian national anthem laughing (making, by the way, the whole pew we were sitting on shake).

I wanted to scream at them.

It was so completely disrespectful, not just to the musician, but to our guide Sophie and everyone else in the room. I wanted to ask them how they’d feel if I went to their country and laughed during the US national anthem. I s’pose I shouldn’t have expected anything else, seeing as they had spent the whole tour up ‘til now complaining about every little thing which was different.

ARGH. It’s pissing me off just writing about it.

Anyway, after the concert it took me a while to cheer up again, so I didn’t get any pictures of the rest of the amazing park we were in. Damned Latimers.

Next up we went back to the Basilica, to see inside it, which I have, again, seen before, but it was worth it to go back with a significantly better camera..

After the Basilica (which by the way has its very own relic: the hand of St Stephen. Which is well creepy

)

we went to have the pancakes with nuts and chocolate sauce, the speciality of Gundel’s Restaurant, a famous Budapest establishment which has hosted Queen Elizabeth II, Mick Jagger, and Oprah. And now us.

The coffee was good and the pancakes were nice, despite the fact that they weren’t quite as good as they sounded. It was a lovely place (which had bathrooms that reminded me of the room of doors in the Department of Mysteries).

After that, it was back on the bus and onwards to Wien (Vienna)!

Budapest: 13th September

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:09:54 -0400

We began the day early, not ‘cause we had to, but ‘cause we woke up. Did I mention the lack of air con? One upside to our hotel was the view across the Pest side of the city, towards the Buda side, with the moon still in the sky:

We began our sightseeing tour with Sophie at Hero Square, which frankly is almost too spectacular to be real.

It is full of figures from Hungarian history and from classical mythology. Don’t ask me which is which though, I was too flabbergasted to really listen properly.

It was also surrounded by other gorgeous buildings, including the museum:

The second stop on our sightseeing tour was up in the hills of Buda, near the Citadella, where we had a fantastic panoramic view of the city which set all the shutterbugs a’ snappin’ (including me)

We then wound our way down from the hills and to yet another castle, in the medieval town of Old Buda. Though we were all suffering somewhat from the heat, the charm of the town did wonders to make us forget.

We both fell in love with the Matthias Church, with its stunning mosaic tiled roof:

Next to the church was the fairytale-like Fisherman’s Bastion, which is all turrets and towers and honestly looks like a Disneyland Castle.

The battlements had yet more stunning views of the city:

We also had a look at the old Ministry of Defence building, which like many buildings in Budapest, is still riddled with bullet holes, leftover from a particularly nasty siege during the Second World War.

And found this chap:

Zoltan Kodaly, otherwise known as the dude who invented ‘do re mi.’

After the sightseeing tour we peeled off from the group with Debbie and Michele, two nice Aussie ladies, and went into the middle of town to see St Steven’s Basilica, which I had seen before, but was still completely flabbergasted by.

After gaping in amazement for a few minutes, we settled down for a leisurely lunch in the shade, at Café Basilika (which my IUSY 2009 friends will remember!), which had this stunning view:

After lunch we managed to navigate the Budapest metro and sheltered from the hottest part of the day in the hotel, using the most expensive wifi we have ever come across (I shouldn’t say that, I might jinx myself).

Bratislava and Budapest: 12th September

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:02:34 -0400

We were sad to leave Prague, if only for the simple reason that it was actually hotter in Budapest. We had a very nice lunch stop in Bratislava (yeeeees I always have lunch in Bratislava daahling. I don’t know, it just seems weird to be able to say I’ve had lunch in Bratislava. ANYWHO) which is very pretty.

We had lunch at a very nice italian place before taking a wee look around the main square of the old town.

Oh yeah - speaking of I <3 [insert here] signs, we found this in Bratislava:

Needless to say, I Tomato Pizza was not the Italian place we went to.

After Bratislava, we made our slow way into Budapest (freakin’ 3 and a half hours or something. Stupid Budapest traffic). We arrived at our hotel to find that none of the aircon units was working, in the 30-oddº heat. After the initial stress of this, and the slightly heartening discovery that the windows did open, we had a lovely, relaxing evening cruise on the Danube, to see Budapest’s magnificent buildings lit up.

This is their Parliament. I’ve seen it before, in the daytime, but it really is spectacular at night. Even this photo (which I am very happy with, it is the only one out of about 27 which wasn’t blurry) can’t do justice to how beautiful it was.

(I know, dreadful photo, but it’s the only one I could get of the Liberty Statue)

The cruise was wonderful, the breeze was cool, the food was nice, and the information provided by Sophie (our local guide) was interesting (and she had the most charming way of speaking english I have ever heard. She said ‘we used to have a rebellion’ instead of ‘we had a rebellion.’ Which must be what I sound like when I attempt tense in French).

After the cruise we headed back to our rooms so we could lie awake in the heat and the noise for the whole night. I won’t call it sleeping.

Praha (Prague): 11th September

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:53:16 -0400

I should warn you all, this will be a long post, simply because I think I took about 300 photos on this day.

We had an early start on our first day in Praha (in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m endeavouring to use the local names for places, ‘cause it seems silly to me that we have our own special ‘English’ names), which was a good thing, ‘cause it was hoooooot. Like 28, 29º (felt more like 35 really). We met our local guide, whose name sounds like ‘Shaka,’ but I’m almost positive that’s not how you spell it and she took us up to the castle, which is an interesting collection of buildings from different eras.

You can almost see by looking at that picture how hot it was. And it was only like 8.30am.

The main entrance to the castle is still guarded by two volunteer soldiers, decked out in uniforms designed by a dude with a flamboyant-sounding name (which, alas, I cannot remember), as one of the palaces inside the walls (that’s right - one of the palaces) is still the home of the Czech President.

The guards have one-hour-long shifts, and have to stay completely still for that time. Which means that they get the usual nonsense from tourists, jumping up and down and getting photos taken with them. Shaka told us that they had to put a little fence up around each guard post because some ladies kept trying to kiss them. Which grosses me out to the max. As did this:

That really sums it up. These poor dudes had possum-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces, probably very uncomfortable in the knowledge that they will forever be in a whole lot of tourists’ holiday snaps. From my tone you can probably figure out that I refrained from this parade of obnoxious voyeurism.

The main courtyard houses a well, a fountain and a cathedral, and the flag on the pole in the background on the roof meant that the President was in residence at the time.

The well was apparently once used for finding out if women were witches, but not in the usual if-she-drowns-she’s-innocent sort of a way. That is a box of fluffy bunnies compared to the way the Czech did it. Suffices to say that one is not supposed to touch the bars of the well, as the curses of hundreds of dying witches have made them too dangerous. My mother got this amazing picture of the well:

(And I think it was entirely by accident. Awesome).

We went through a little passage-way and then came out into another courtyard, and in unison, all of our jaws dropped.

St Vitus’ Cathedral, or Katedrála svatého Vita in Czech, which is truly spectacular, especially glinting in the morning sunlight.

Fantastically gothic, it was covered in gargoyles,

like Nôtre Dame, but better. At least I think so.

There was a neat wee statue of St George and the Dragon:

and a stunning mosaic:

The thing about this place was that every time you thought you’d seen the most beautiful thing to see, you’d turn a corner and see another.

The palace gates featured some weird and wonderful things, including giants wrestling:

and a thing which I think is a bird, but my mum thinks is a dragon:

We then came across the most astounding view:

complete with painter:

(Yes we are wearing nametags. Shuddup, we’re cool).

After the castle we headed into the Old Town, as things continued to get progressively more beautiful (and hotter).

We wandered over the Praha Bridge,

and down Pařížská třída, or Paris Avenue, which houses all the fancy schmancy fashion labels, which is so weird when you realise that the whole country was communist only 20 years ago.

From the beginning of Pařížská třída, you can see the Prague Metronome, which is actually a huge working metronome:

It was placed on the spot where there used to be a gigantic 50-foot-high statue of Stalin, which I found a picture of (thanks wikipedia) -

How typical is that? I mean really it is fairly arrogant to have a 50 foot statue of yourself erected right there where all the city could see it. Then again, Stalin wasn’t known for his modesty.

Anyway, the metronome was like a big ‘yeah you better run’ to the Soviets when Prague gained its independence.

What amazes me about Europe is that even shopping streets are beautiful:

We caught a glimpse of the Jewish Quarter, and found out that the whole thing is sunk a couple of metres into the ground (which meant that when the Vltava flooded, guess who suffered?) showing that one can in fact be architecturally anti-semitic.

Unfortunately the Old Town Square was covered in road works (as really everything seems to be at the moment. Except Auckland. For the first time in about five years. But BAHAHAHA I don’t have to care), but it was still absolutely gorgeous.

We went to a café just off the square and had some iced tea (well, it may have been iced once, but it was slightly-chilled-water-ed tea by the time we got it) and strudel while admiring the surroundings.

There was a church (a heads up - they’re EVERYWHERE)

with a very pretty clock

See that little skeleton on the right? That’s Death. He rings a bell on the hour, then a little dude with a trumpet sounds it from the top of the building to ward off death. It’s something like that, I wasn’t listening properly to Shaka at this point.

And we could see the town hall (or, as I say since spending some time in Germany, the Rathaus)

It was a nice place to have a sit

even though this photo was taken about 10 seconds before we were attacked by about five wasps. OK, attacked may be an exaggeration (did I mention there are wasps everywhere in Europe?)

After that, we headed back to the river for our lunch cruise thingy down the Vltava.

On the cruse we spotted the Charles Bridge:

The ‘Dance House’

some swans:

and generally breathtaking river views

plus this little castle which is cool (transaltion: I cannot for the life of me remember what it’s called)

After our cruise we headed back to the hotel to avoid the hottest part of the day and to pack for our departure to Budapest the next day.

We both completely fell in love with Prague, it’s absolutely beautiful, even while crawling with tourists like us. I hope I get to go back some day.

Nürnberg and Praha: 10th September

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 07:24:47 -0400

We had an early start and all crammed into the bus (all 52 of us - 54 including our driver Harald and our tour director Noel) and headed off for Prague. We had a nice mix of people on the bus - lots of Americans and Canadians, a healthy spattering of Aussies, a Swiss lady, a Brazillian lady, an Israeli dude and another pair of Kiwis! (with whom we became buddies fairly quickly).

Little did we know, on that first day, that our wish to have some sterotypical American tourists on the bus would become real.

Too real.

But anyway, everything was still sunny and lovely at this point.

We had a lunch stop in Nuremberg, or ‘Nürnberg’ to the locals, with about an hour and a half to wander around. The place which was famous for Hitler’s gigantic rallies, and for the war crimes tribunal some years later is actually a beautiful little town and was a nice place to begin fine-tuning (translation: actually attempting to say more than ‘zwei’ and ‘cappucinos’) my German. Cough.

We hung about in the square for a bit, though it was ridiculously hot. For us anyway. At least 28º celsius.

We had lunch in the famous Bratwurst Röslein restaurant off the square, and had the Nürnberg variety of bratwurst with warm potato salad and sauerkraut, which was delcious (I’m getting hungry just thinking about it).

After lunch we hit the road, passing through Plzen in Czech Republic (famous for the Pilsen beer) and getting into Prague about 4-ish.

After dinner we took a walk along the waterfront of Prague’s river Vltava and had an interesting experience.

We were sitting on a bench looking out at the beautiful city and the boats bobbing along the river when a wet naked dude came up to us. Seriously. Ok, he was wearing underwear, but they were only just hanging on.

He said something in Czech, but as Czech makes absolutely no sense to me we had no idea what he was saying (probably a blessing in the circumstances). We said to him that we didn’t speak Czech, and he said ‘No Czech?’ to which we replied ‘No, no Czech.’

He kept asking us ‘No Czech?’ until we got up and sped off away from him. Luckily he didn’t follow us. About 30 seconds later a police car sped up the pavement towards the dude, who promptly jumped into the river.

At this point we decided to find another bench and watch, because it was pretty funny. My mum wanted to take a photo of it, but we thought that perhaps trying to explain that to the police in Czech probably wasn’t worth the risk. Anyway, they fished him out of the water and that’s all we saw.

I wonder who he was. Whether he was a bit of a pervert, or just really wasted. Maybe he’s an accountant in everyday life. I don’t know.

To the naked wet dude on the Vltava River: thanks for the great story. And for not kidnapping us.