I actually meant to post this on Sunday evening from Berlin, but wasn't able to get around to it until now. This is a beautiful song from Ken Burns' The War, which I kind of associate with sad, but hopeful, patriotism. Even though I generally consider this a very happy, warm sunshine- and barbecue-infused holiday, I wanted to post it anyway. Happy Memorial Day and God bless those who are gone so that I can continue to celebrate the start of summer this way.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Using chop sticks in Berlin
I arrived in Berlin this morning, and set about the task of finding my hostel, Circus. Rick was not particularly helpful, but luckily I had copied down directions from the hostel's website and was able to follow them without too much trouble. At least Rick's maps didn't actively confuse me, like they did in Dresden.
After checking in, I explored a little bit this afternoon, walking all the way down Unter den Linden, the main drag through old East Berlin. I passed by it all pretty quickly and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Tomorrow I think I'll do one of the organized walking tours, so I thought that today I would just roam around at will.
First impressions of Berlin are pretty positive. It's immediately obvious that this city dwarfs all of the others that I've visited this trip, both in size and the humming vibe of activity. There are people everywhere, and it feels very international. Most excitingly, this is reflected in the food. I had a delicious meal at a Vietnamese place tonight. Sitting outside eating soup and yellow curry chicken with coconut milk was a nice change from sausages and sauerkraut and schnitzels. And, perhaps most importantly, this tasty food went quite well with dunkles beer too.
A random aside: this morning, in Dresden, I decided that I could not wait another day before doing laundry. So I headed to a laundromat and puzzled through the German instructions. It was drizzling outside and there were about 400 lost socks hanging from the ceiling. I was listening to my ipod and watching my clothes bounce around in circles in the dryer. As much as I normally hate doing laundry, I don't think I would've wanted to spend the morning any other way.
After checking in, I explored a little bit this afternoon, walking all the way down Unter den Linden, the main drag through old East Berlin. I passed by it all pretty quickly and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Tomorrow I think I'll do one of the organized walking tours, so I thought that today I would just roam around at will.
First impressions of Berlin are pretty positive. It's immediately obvious that this city dwarfs all of the others that I've visited this trip, both in size and the humming vibe of activity. There are people everywhere, and it feels very international. Most excitingly, this is reflected in the food. I had a delicious meal at a Vietnamese place tonight. Sitting outside eating soup and yellow curry chicken with coconut milk was a nice change from sausages and sauerkraut and schnitzels. And, perhaps most importantly, this tasty food went quite well with dunkles beer too.
A random aside: this morning, in Dresden, I decided that I could not wait another day before doing laundry. So I headed to a laundromat and puzzled through the German instructions. It was drizzling outside and there were about 400 lost socks hanging from the ceiling. I was listening to my ipod and watching my clothes bounce around in circles in the dryer. As much as I normally hate doing laundry, I don't think I would've wanted to spend the morning any other way.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
My life in the Neustadt
I've been doing a lot of moving around the past couple of days. Yesterday morning, I left Munich, which I was kind of sad to do. Munich was a great, well-rounded city. It had a lot of beautiful, historic buildings in the Old Town, along with a vibrant, but manageable "real" area. There were several convenient nearby day trips. My hostel was within easy walking distance of both the sights and the train station, not to mention at least five Döner Kebab shops. I met a lot of people, both in the hostel and walking around with Rick. And the staff at Wombat's Hostel was fantastic - extremely friendly and helpful. It made me feel very welcome there.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon and night in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well preserved medieval village. Rick warned that it was going to be painfully touristy, but I didn't find this to be the case at all. The streets were fairly quiet, and I really enjoyed photographing my way through the town. I stayed at a guest house called Pension Elke, run by a charming old man and his son, who also run the family grocery store down below. It was neat to stay in my own room, and a nice change from the hostels. This place was centrally located to the main town square. In fact, the facade of the store was even visible in one of the postcards I bought.
Today I took a long, early train ride to Dresden. I like it a lot so far. There are a good number of tourists roaming around in the Old Town, but it seems like most of them are other Europeans. My hostel is located in the Neustadt (new town) area, which is a lot more "real people" oriented. Architecturally, these buildings were mostly undamaged by the WWII Allied firebombing, so they're authentic (and many are covered in graffiti). There are also random, blocky communist buildings mixed in all over the place - relics from East Germany. I did some afternoon roaming and had a tasty dinner (and a liter of dark, delicious beer), but I'm looking forward to more sightseeing tomorrow. The history of this city really, really fascinates me.
Traveling alone has been ok so far. I actually prefer it in some ways, since I can do absolutely whatever I feel like at any point in time and there is no one to get exasperated with my constant picture-taking. In other cases, though, especially for dinner and beer, it would be nice to have a friend along. There are a lot of really cool looking bars here in the Neustadt. It would be fun to go out tonight. Maybe I'll meet someone at the hostel...
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon and night in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well preserved medieval village. Rick warned that it was going to be painfully touristy, but I didn't find this to be the case at all. The streets were fairly quiet, and I really enjoyed photographing my way through the town. I stayed at a guest house called Pension Elke, run by a charming old man and his son, who also run the family grocery store down below. It was neat to stay in my own room, and a nice change from the hostels. This place was centrally located to the main town square. In fact, the facade of the store was even visible in one of the postcards I bought.
Today I took a long, early train ride to Dresden. I like it a lot so far. There are a good number of tourists roaming around in the Old Town, but it seems like most of them are other Europeans. My hostel is located in the Neustadt (new town) area, which is a lot more "real people" oriented. Architecturally, these buildings were mostly undamaged by the WWII Allied firebombing, so they're authentic (and many are covered in graffiti). There are also random, blocky communist buildings mixed in all over the place - relics from East Germany. I did some afternoon roaming and had a tasty dinner (and a liter of dark, delicious beer), but I'm looking forward to more sightseeing tomorrow. The history of this city really, really fascinates me.
Traveling alone has been ok so far. I actually prefer it in some ways, since I can do absolutely whatever I feel like at any point in time and there is no one to get exasperated with my constant picture-taking. In other cases, though, especially for dinner and beer, it would be nice to have a friend along. There are a lot of really cool looking bars here in the Neustadt. It would be fun to go out tonight. Maybe I'll meet someone at the hostel...
Saturday, May 16, 2009
München on Bavarian pretzels and beer
So here's a quick internet cafe update on my life in Deutschland:
- It is no joke, German beer is delicious
- Big soft pretzels in Bavaria are also the real deal
- I have chatted extensively with four sets of people (making perhaps three potentially lasting friendships) based almost solely on the topic of Rick Steves
- Being spontaneous is working out pretty well, except that i may need to try to reserve hostels farther in advance. Last night I got stuck sleeping in an expensive hotel
Friday, May 1, 2009
My next adventure
I've been toying with the idea of traveling this summer for awhile. Initially I was determined to save money for future trips by not taking a long vacation. But a couple months ago I heard a story on NPR about how the cost of airline tickets has been plummeting, and it's been a swift tumble downhill from there.
It wasn't long before I had decided that plane tickets were so cheap that there was no way I could realistically justify not taking a trip. So I checked out about eight travel guides from the library and set about trying to find a destination and a buddy. Although I strongly considered Asia (you can get just about anywhere right now for under $1000!), monsoon season and the desire to take advantage of cheap May airfare convinced me to look to Europe. Since no one was able to come with me, I picked Germany.
Germany has actually never been on the top of my list of places to visit, but the more I read about it, the more I like it. There are castles and beer everywhere, which sounds pretty good to me. It's also close to Switzerland and Scandinavia, which are both on my list. So maybe some cross-border hopping will be in order. The venerable and hilarious Rick Steves has a book on Germany, which guarantees that I'll never be short on cheesy, witty observations and local history. Mostly, though, I think I was attracted to the $375 round trip tickets that kept popping up on kayak.com. So I'm going, alone, in 11 days.
I've never really taken a trip like this alone before. My parents are both convinced that I'll hate it. It's true, I think, that enjoying food and "biergartens" would be much more enjoyable with a friend. But I've actually always kind of been fascinated by traveling by myself. Part of it may be that lingering urge to pick up and do something spontaneous and different. Or maybe I like the idea that I'll have a lot of cool looking pictures to share afterwards that no one else will have seen yet. Certainly traveling solo allows me the flexibility to do whatever I want every day. I'm even considering not booking all of my hostels, so that I can roam on whim (so long as I make my way to Berlin the afternoon of May 25th to catch the flight home).
I hope that, journal and camera in hand and Rick-mandated money belt strapped around my waist, I'll really enjoy the experience. And if I hate it, then at least the ticket was cheap.
It wasn't long before I had decided that plane tickets were so cheap that there was no way I could realistically justify not taking a trip. So I checked out about eight travel guides from the library and set about trying to find a destination and a buddy. Although I strongly considered Asia (you can get just about anywhere right now for under $1000!), monsoon season and the desire to take advantage of cheap May airfare convinced me to look to Europe. Since no one was able to come with me, I picked Germany.
Germany has actually never been on the top of my list of places to visit, but the more I read about it, the more I like it. There are castles and beer everywhere, which sounds pretty good to me. It's also close to Switzerland and Scandinavia, which are both on my list. So maybe some cross-border hopping will be in order. The venerable and hilarious Rick Steves has a book on Germany, which guarantees that I'll never be short on cheesy, witty observations and local history. Mostly, though, I think I was attracted to the $375 round trip tickets that kept popping up on kayak.com. So I'm going, alone, in 11 days.
I've never really taken a trip like this alone before. My parents are both convinced that I'll hate it. It's true, I think, that enjoying food and "biergartens" would be much more enjoyable with a friend. But I've actually always kind of been fascinated by traveling by myself. Part of it may be that lingering urge to pick up and do something spontaneous and different. Or maybe I like the idea that I'll have a lot of cool looking pictures to share afterwards that no one else will have seen yet. Certainly traveling solo allows me the flexibility to do whatever I want every day. I'm even considering not booking all of my hostels, so that I can roam on whim (so long as I make my way to Berlin the afternoon of May 25th to catch the flight home).
I hope that, journal and camera in hand and Rick-mandated money belt strapped around my waist, I'll really enjoy the experience. And if I hate it, then at least the ticket was cheap.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)