Category: europe summer 06

Costly Amsterdam (and Berlin, Prague reports late)

Here I am in Amsterdam, an uncognizant (word?) poet.

The public library has a free 30 minute Internet access period so I’m typing away furiously here.

Amsterdam is expensive, expensive, expensive. If you want to go in anywhere, it’s at least 5€. Food is silly too. At least it’s relatively compact and walkable, so we wasted (in retrospect) even more money on our public transport passes. Oops.

The Resistance museum was pretty good but frightening as it didn’t (completely) dance around the complacency of much of the populace. The Anne Frank Huis was very well-done, with stairs in their back-breaking original setup.

It’s true: literally everyone in Amsterdam (for my sample, anyway) speaks perfectly good English.

Tonight the luggage lockers close at 23h but our train won’t leave until… 04h or so? So you might see me on the Internet later for pay. Yes, I am staying awake until then just to see Luxembourg: got a problem with that?

Most of the sights I’ve seen so far are about what you’d expect, so since time is limited I’ll confine my writing to surprises. The Van Gogh museum is, in my opinion, badly overpriced: 10€ for a collection not nearly that big. Prices at most places about about 0,50 or 1 over what the guidebooks thought at the beginning of the year. Our hostel, the Shelter Jordan, has cheap and good food in its café and provided a very nice, non-pushy interpretation of Christianity’s ideas on hospitality and fairness. It’s also extremely well-run for the low cost, and provided… be afraid, dear reader… full-strength orange juice! Sure, fresh from the box, but not unrecognizable like most hostel breakfast swill.

Muddled impressions from the last few cities… I liked Berlin. We ended up stumbling into a free game-watch at a cultural center which has been taken over by Brazil for the duration and watching the Brazilian victory. We also saw the Brandenburg gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and all the normal Berlin stuff. Hmm, what else… Jewish museum, monument to the murdered Jews of Europe, lots of World Cup excitement, tasty bratwurst, exciting ticket inspection raids on the U-bahn, the world’s new largest train station in Berlin Hbf, a unreasonably reasonably priced drugstore/mini-grocery in the same, the amazing free view from the Reichstag dome, a few rides on bus 100 including the Tiergarten and statue in middle, the (entrance to the) Zoo, the Olympic Stadium, the Alexanderplatz area and TV tower… OK, I had a good time, anyway.

In Prague we mostly tried to keep up with the German guided tour, which didn’t work too well–I understood the Latin in the churches better–but it was still interesting. We ate at some place which I will later shame in these pages for the shameless hidden 30 czk cover charge applied per person, and had earlier been cheated (even on the receipt) at a change-house. That is to say, Prague served as a wonderful reminder of the Euro’s usefulness.

My time is drawing to an end and I still have some stuff to look up, so that’s all for now.

prague, berlin, amsterdam

You’re going to have to wait for those, maybe forever… I’m tired and in a very bad mood from the trip here (Amsterdam) from Berlin.

Actually, you will have to wait for a lot, since the Internet doesn’t grow on trees here.

The server was down for a bit. It happens. It will probably happen even more often when I am not keeping an eye on it. Traveling is hard and getting where I need to be and seeing what’s around is my first priority. If I ever remember to buy a notebook, it might get updated later.

Briefly: Prague was pretty, badly overtouristed, and cheatful. Berlin was very nice, great Reichstag view and nice views from the ground too. Amsterdam… well, I just got here, and I’m not all tulips as you may be able to tell. We’ll see if I can do better–I’m planning to recharge with some art today if I can help it.

prague, or not, or maybe

An ongoing bit of drama has been the issue of our daytrip to Prague. Things keep working and then not working, and the same for their alternatives. The current plan is to wake up in time for a 6h15 departure on a 26€ all-in semi-guided-bus-tour tomorrow. We will see.

Pilnitz was nice but not a must-see. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, so that might have been a factor. Lunch was most excellent–Saurbraten, some very tender meat served with red cabbage and a sour sauce, with a Weissbier to wash it down… both extremely German I am told.

Before, stopped by the train station and reserved seats on an EC train around 10h Sunday to Berlin’s shiny new Hbh.

It should be interesting to be in Prague on game day but I think we will be out of town before the 18h kickoff v. Ghana. We should also be back in time to watch the US play (I hope they play) Italy at 21h.

The GEO grant check partially reimbursing me for the Hong Kong flight has thankfully landed in checking back home, so that will not hurt at all.

Better get a shower for the early wake up tomorrow.

dresden part 2

Yesterday was a day of fairly standard sightseeing… the Church of Our Lady, the cathedral, the Saxon jewelry vault and painting collections, and the various sights of the Altstadt. Also saw the hosts’ son’s school, in GDR concrete glory. The streetcar system is nice and fairly foolproof.

Last night, after stuffing ourselves at a late lunch with food from the Müller butcher shop/deli operation across the street, we went out with Maria and Stefan to the Neustadt (more dirty and free-spirited and fun) for… Mexican food. Well, not food, because I barely dented an appetizer plate of potato wedges. It is interesting and tasty to discover that the caipirinha has made it (with real cachaca, no less) big in Germany… the place we went to had a whole page of caipi drinks on the list.

After dinner, we walked back along the tram route (quite a long haul) thanks to Alana’s navigation skills developed the last time she was here. It was nice and breezy and offered the chance to sneak onto the grounds of some grand building and catch a nice view of the city… very pleasant walk, easily the trip’s highlight for me so far.

Today we are headed for Pilnitz castle and Meissen, I believe, before another heart attack off the grill in the evening.

Ecuador is playing a heck of a world cup if you haven’t been watching. ECU/GER should be a blast.

eastbound transatlantic

Clever fellow that I am, I didn’t find my notebook before I left, so I will need to pick up one of those some time. We had a stunningly uneventful trip, starting at the stunningly uneventful airport in Huntington (HTS) where the check-in agents run back to do security screening (one flight at a time) and gate agent duty. All flights were on time to slightly early, despite menacing-looking weather in Charlotte.

In Charlotte Alana spotted a Lufthansa plane with the nose painted as a soccer ball… cute. We heard that Brazil had gone up 1-0 in its game and from what I’ve heard that was the only action to be had in that match.

The flight to Frankfurt was long and sleepless as usual for me. An old couple behind us kept their reading lights on for the duration, providing relief from the stereotype of screaming kids keeping me up during the flight. I had an aggressive recliner in front of me, of course.

Frankfurt brought the dreaded bus treatment on arrival. It was a kneeling bus so when it got up after we boarded it was a bit of a dizzying shock for most people.

Passport control was perfunctory and Customs a walk-through (and a quick one without checked baggage for us). Happily, the immigration officer added to my stamp collection with a faint standard Schengen entry.

After a long but quickly moving line in the airport’s train station to validate our Eurail passes, we made it to the Frankfurt Hbh (central train station) pretty easily by S-bahn. We also reserved seats from Frankfurt to Dresden on the ICE (Intercity Express highspeed) at 1009, a few hours later, which would turn out to be a couple Euro well spent.

Frankfurt was in World Cup fever and I was in (very tired) heaven as we wandered through and around the Hbh. Lots of uniforms, flags, and decked out fans were on display. Indeed, when we finally got on the train, it was choked with fans headed to Leipzig for the Spain-Ukraine match at 1500 (Spain crushed Ukraine 4-nil–we saw some of it at the house here).

After four hours or so we made it to Dresden, within five minutes of the schedule or so. Maria, who had exchanged in Alana’s house, picked us up at Dresden Hbh and drove us to her parent’s house, which has been remodeled a bit and is very nice. We were very well stuffed with grilled meats and tomato salad last night before settling down to watch Germany play Poland in Dortmund. Unfortunately the trip was hitting me hard after dinner, and I went to sleep at half time. After a false start, waking up at 0030, I managed to sleep until just before 0730. Our hosts are off to school and work and I’m getting ready for a long-anticipated shower and switch to the correct time zone in my head (CEST is plus two hours, EDT is minus 4, so I’m lagged by six).

Weather is gorgeous and downright toasty–about 90 yesterday afternoon, very Spanish-feeling.

The free Internet will soon come to an end when we leave Dresden in a few days, so don’t expect posts of this length all time time. I will try, though, and after I get a notebook there will at least be a record to update when we return Stateside.

Europe 2006 outline

A little on the Europe plans for this summer:

On the way back home from Spring Break, Alana (generously giving me a ride) suggested a trip to Spain.

Before we came back to Morgantown we’d booked a flight.

Maybe it was a little hasty, but I think this should work out pretty well.

We fly from Huntington, which was bizarrely cheaper than even Pittsburgh, to Frankfurt via Charlotte. Then we make our way to Dresden, and stay with the family of a girl who exchanged at Alana’s house in high school. After leaving the free sleeping zone, we move on to (deep breath):

Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Bruges, Brussels, Madrid, Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada, Barcelona, Paris, and Dublin

with nothing but the clothes and packs on our backs (and probably whatever fits in my pockets). It should be a heck of a time.

I’ll be celebrating my 21st birthday (which won’t matter in any of the countries we’re in, and barely matters to me anyway) in Granada and on a night train to Barcelona. Actually, I’ll probably “observe” it in Barcelona, which sounds more fun.

This Summer’s Travel

In my introduction I neglected to mention the reason I started poking around with my old travelogues: I’m going to be writing a couple new ones. This summer from May 18 to June 2 I’ll be in on the way to, in, or coming back from Brazil. I’ll be visiting family, as I have many times in the past but not so many times recently. There may not be anything blog-worthy on the whole trip, but I’ll write a little about Brazil for good luck in a bit here.

After taking the LSAT (unless I chicken out) on June 12, I’m taking off for Europe with Alana from Huntington on the next day. That should be a fun ~3 weeks. Afterward I’m working as a summer program RA in Morgantown for three weeks and cooling my jets (and earning a little to pay the bill for running them all over in the first place).

The big question is where I’ll be going in the fall, and I’m hoping it’s not Morgantown. Nothing–well, not much–against Morgantown, but I’ve been there long enough. I am set to exchange for a full year with Lingnan University, but early this morning found out that my application had been held up for various reasons. Now, assuming my fax went through last night (nobody’s telling me either way unless I call again, I’m sure), the visa process can start, taking 4-6 weeks and generally leaving me in limbo while airfare goes up and all the other exchangers get their letters of acceptance.