I've got a few minutes to kill right now before the groom's family arrives for the evening dinner. We've been waiting awhile... the groom's brother somehow stepped out for a few minutes to buy a Coke, and never returned. I think the local police just located him, 3 hours after his disappearance, so looks like it'll be another smorgasbord of breads, meats, cheeses and wines/beers pretty soon here. The Germans usually have light breakfasts and dinners consisting of the aforementioned foods, and really live it up for their lunches.
We had our big lunch today in the tiny town of Landstuhl following the the couple's official civil wedding today in Kaiserslautern (German Fun Fact: Germany requires couples to get married in the town hall, or Rathaus, to make it officially legal. Couples can then have separate ceremonies in churches or wherever they wish. Legal weddings at the Rathaus are rather boring... the couple just sits at a desk while an appointed official rambles something in German. If I didn't know better, I'd think the couple was trying to buy a car. For civil ceremonies, couples can dress in whatever attire they want. Shane looked like a game show host. Andrea looked like Betty Page. Not the typical wedding attire you'd expect).
Landstuhl used to be a thriving town about 10 to 15 years ago...it made most of Europe's shoes and also manufactured medical equipment. But all those jobs have now be outsourced to China sweat shops, forcing all the shops to close. Now Landstuhl is best known for its U.S. military hospital, which receives all the wounded soldiers from our current war with Iraq. Fortunately for us, Landstuhl still had a nice restaurant in operation called the Schloss Restaurant. I sat down to a nice lunch consisting of bread, salad, perch covered in white wine sauce, noodles, asparagus, and white wine. (Violet, however, was not so lucky...they forgot her order, and had to wait an extra 30 minutes to get her meal. I felt sorry and pawned some of my food off on her. Germans aren't known to be the best when it comes to serving food. I blame it on their lack of accepting tips from customers.)
After having our lunch and checking out the poor excuse for a castle for which Schloss Restaurant was named, we headed back to Shane and Andrea's apartment. Violet and I decided we better give the couple some time to chill by themselves, so we took off in the rain and wandered around the forests of Kaiserslautern, looking at the changing colors of the leaves. The weather seems bitter cold to me here in Germany. But then again, after spending all summer in 100+ degree Phoenix, AZ, 90 degrees now seems like a chilly day to me. I am such a thin-skinned wuss now.
Tomorrow we're taking off to Paris for two days of roaming around the city. I'm looking forward to it, because I'll get to play tour guide for Violet and finally retake all the shots of me in front of Paris monuments (the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc d'Triumph) that my friend Eric lost last summer when his camera was stolen. Using Photoshop would probably have been cheaper for me to recapture those shots. But hey, you can never get enough of Paris. Better bone up on my French tomorrow and pray that my bladder holds out due to the lack of public toilets to use.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Back Across the Pond
Guten tag, everyone! And welcome back with Version 2.0 of The Travelin' Fool! This time around, I'll be over in Germany and some other random places for two weeks of shenanigans. It should be a fun time, and I'll do my best to give you the lowdown on what's going on.
The last 48 hours were a non-stop thrill ride of being crammed into tiny places with smelly people. My girlfriend Violet and I started our long journey on Saturday morning at 4 am by heading over to the Phoenix airport. Other than the flatulent man behind me stinking up my airspace, our 6 am flight to Chicago was uneventful. We landed in CubbieTown at noontime for an 8 hour layover. Violet's sister and niece and a German foreign exchange student named Stephan met us at the airport. Along the train ride into the city, I embarked on a cultural exchange with Stephan, handing him a German book of cuss words and asking him which ones I could use on my trip. I now know how to order a beer and say derogatory terms about people's body parts. Looks like I'm well prepared for my trip to Germany.
We toddled around Chicago, first stopping by Ann Sather--a Swedish restaurant--for lunch. I had some of their world-famous sticky buns while everyone else got sugar highs off of french toast and pancakes. We then went downtown to Millennium Park to check out NextFest, an exhibition put on by Wired magazine that featured the latest and greatest in science and technology. It was a nerd's paradise there, but extremely stuffy from all the heat, so we split, headed over to Hard Rock Cafe so the exchange student could buy his "I survived Brian's walking tour of Chicago and all I got was this lousy Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt," and then headed back to the airport. After that, it was goodbyes and an 8 hour plane trip over the pond to Frankfurt, Germany. As far as flights go, it was rather painless. Note to self: order the lasagna next time, not the chicken and mashed potatoes.
Violet's friend Andrea met us at the airport and drove like a bat out of hell to her home in Kaiserslautern. It felt like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride being in the back seat of that VW sedan, flying around corners at 180 Kph on the Autobahn. Note to self: never order a hot coffee when someone from Germany is driving.
We made it into Kaiserslautern around 12:30, and I was starting to feel like something the cat dragged in. I had had less than 1 hour of sleep, I smelled bad, and now my nose was a leaky faucet. It just kept getting worse as the day went on, and I just wanted to rip my nose off. Thankfully, Andrea and her husband-to-be Shane took us to the U.S. military base so I could buy some drugs at the AAFES BX store (where everything's tax free, baby! Cheap tube socks for everyone!). We then spent the evening playing Canaste, sampling wines, cheeses and bread and waiting for my nose to stop running. It didn't. So I doped up on TheraFlu and Violet and I hit the sack about 9 pm.
We didn't get up until 10 am this morning. My stomach was a growling mess, trying to coexist in two different time zones. Thankfully, my nose is under control now, and after running outside for 3 miles through the forests of Kaiserslautern, I'm feeling up to speed again. Shane's family from the States arrived this morning, looking like the battered messes that Violet and I were yesterday. There's something about air travel that just kicks you on your ass and makes you feel so nasty and dirty. I'm fortunate to have someone like Violet along with me to make traveling more enjoyable, and still love me when I'm sick and smelling bad. If that ain't love, then I don't know what is.
The last 48 hours were a non-stop thrill ride of being crammed into tiny places with smelly people. My girlfriend Violet and I started our long journey on Saturday morning at 4 am by heading over to the Phoenix airport. Other than the flatulent man behind me stinking up my airspace, our 6 am flight to Chicago was uneventful. We landed in CubbieTown at noontime for an 8 hour layover. Violet's sister and niece and a German foreign exchange student named Stephan met us at the airport. Along the train ride into the city, I embarked on a cultural exchange with Stephan, handing him a German book of cuss words and asking him which ones I could use on my trip. I now know how to order a beer and say derogatory terms about people's body parts. Looks like I'm well prepared for my trip to Germany.
We toddled around Chicago, first stopping by Ann Sather--a Swedish restaurant--for lunch. I had some of their world-famous sticky buns while everyone else got sugar highs off of french toast and pancakes. We then went downtown to Millennium Park to check out NextFest, an exhibition put on by Wired magazine that featured the latest and greatest in science and technology. It was a nerd's paradise there, but extremely stuffy from all the heat, so we split, headed over to Hard Rock Cafe so the exchange student could buy his "I survived Brian's walking tour of Chicago and all I got was this lousy Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt," and then headed back to the airport. After that, it was goodbyes and an 8 hour plane trip over the pond to Frankfurt, Germany. As far as flights go, it was rather painless. Note to self: order the lasagna next time, not the chicken and mashed potatoes.
Violet's friend Andrea met us at the airport and drove like a bat out of hell to her home in Kaiserslautern. It felt like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride being in the back seat of that VW sedan, flying around corners at 180 Kph on the Autobahn. Note to self: never order a hot coffee when someone from Germany is driving.
We made it into Kaiserslautern around 12:30, and I was starting to feel like something the cat dragged in. I had had less than 1 hour of sleep, I smelled bad, and now my nose was a leaky faucet. It just kept getting worse as the day went on, and I just wanted to rip my nose off. Thankfully, Andrea and her husband-to-be Shane took us to the U.S. military base so I could buy some drugs at the AAFES BX store (where everything's tax free, baby! Cheap tube socks for everyone!). We then spent the evening playing Canaste, sampling wines, cheeses and bread and waiting for my nose to stop running. It didn't. So I doped up on TheraFlu and Violet and I hit the sack about 9 pm.
We didn't get up until 10 am this morning. My stomach was a growling mess, trying to coexist in two different time zones. Thankfully, my nose is under control now, and after running outside for 3 miles through the forests of Kaiserslautern, I'm feeling up to speed again. Shane's family from the States arrived this morning, looking like the battered messes that Violet and I were yesterday. There's something about air travel that just kicks you on your ass and makes you feel so nasty and dirty. I'm fortunate to have someone like Violet along with me to make traveling more enjoyable, and still love me when I'm sick and smelling bad. If that ain't love, then I don't know what is.
Monday, August 20, 2007
All Good Things Must Come to an End
I'm sitting in my house in Chico now...a house that I had inhabited for almost a year before my sudden disappearance into the European Continent. It's still my house, and nothing here has really changed. But yet, it doesn't feel like my house. It all feels quite strange. It's like what David Byrne from the Talking Heads says in one of his songs: "This is not my beautiful house...How did I get here?"
Well, I'll tell you how I got here...it took about 27 straight hours to be exact...a new travel record for me. It was one of those days that just wouldn't end, where I kept finding myself stuck in some chair with my knees bumping up against the seat in front of me. For the London to New York leg, the trip started out quite pleasant as I chatted up a pretty young woman named Dorothy getting her doctorate in clinical psychology at UC-Berkeley. She had just gotten back from Morocco, and so we exchanged travel stories and had a good laugh. The plane ride was also quite pleasant as they fed us lunch and let us watch movies on the tiny screens built into the backs of the seats. Watching movies felt like such a luxury to me. I hadn't seen a movie in God knows how long. It didn't matter what movie was playing...I was watching it. "Shrek the Third" could have been a complete piece of crap, but I wouldn't have known. At that moment, it was an artistic masterpiece to me. Then I watched "Lucky You," which was some movie about people playing poker. Once again, this movie could very well have blown chunks, but I was in heaven anyway. And then finally, it was Marlon Brando giving the performance of his life in "On the Waterfront." Oh, I was so happy I could have cried.
However, as I kept heading west, I noticed that the people around me kept getting weirder and weirder, and my travel situation kept becoming more and more unpleasant. For the New York to San Francisco leg, American Airlines suddenly became cheapskates and were now going to charge me to eat a meal. They were also now charging me for headphones to watch the movie "Lucky You," which I had just seen. Lucky me, my ass. Disappointed, I sat down beside a gentleman who at first seemed normal. Then I suddenly realized that...hey...this guy only has one arm. One arm! That put everything into perspective for me, and I suddenly remembered that old saying from my youth: "I cried when I had no airline meal to eat, until I met a man who had no arm." Or something like that. Anyway, after seeing this man with just one arm, I just counted my blessings, quit bitching and read my book.
The Amtrak leg of the journey from San Francisco to Chico seemed interminable. Just when I thought I was through with all the frat boy college types, this whole crew of guys piled into the bus heading to Emeryville, exhibiting the typical dumbass behaviors I had been trying so hard to get away from all summer. There was a "Rock the Bells" concert going on in S.F. which they had all just attended, so they kept screaming "Rage!" and "Wu-Tang!" over and over and talking about getting wasted and getting high. I just wanted to throw myself in front of the Amtrak bus and just end it there.
The late-night Amtrak train to Chico wasn't too bad...just extremely late at night. It was about at this point that I started getting a little delusional from being up for almost 24 hours. The 9-hour jet lag was really started to affect me. Several times I woke up out of my groggy haze and thought, "Crap, Eric, we gotta get off the train or we'll miss our stop!" and then I'd suddenly realize that Eric wasn't there, and I wasn't in Europe anymore. Yep...I was really starting to mentally lose it. Once I got off at the Chico train station at 2 am, I started looking at some of the other folks getting off. Talk about some scary-looking individuals. I mean, I was nothing great to look at either after being a bum in Europe for 10 weeks, but compared to some of these folks, I wasn't doing so bad.
So now I'm back in Chico at my home, ready to get my life back together and move on with the next phase in my life. I think it's going to be a slow process these next few days. I've suddenly realized how dumb I've become when it comes to doing some of the simplest things...like operating a cell phone. I'm afraid to see what's going to happen when I try to drive my car again! Yes, living in the land of America again will be a little odd for me. When you go from having nothing but the junk on your back...to suddenly having access to cars and computers and refrigerators and a nice comfortable bed to yourself...you suddenly realize how good you really do have it in America, and you feel a little spoiled. You also realize that you really don't need to accumulate a lot of stuff in life to make yourself happy. For me, what makes me happy is travelling around, and seeing things, and taking pictures, and then writing about it and sharing it with others. I like stories and memories. I've even debated writing a book about the experiences I just had in Europe. I hardly doubt anything would come of it if I do write it, but at least I'd have it for my own benefit.
To all of you who've kept up with the blog this summer, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. And I hope it inspires some of you to go off and check out some of the wonderful things that this world has to offer. As I've learned during my 32 years on this planet, life is short, so take full advantage of the time you've got here and see as much as you can.
Well, I guess that's it for The Travelin' Fool. Hey.... you don't need to cry. Here... dry those tears with this napkin I picked up at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. There you go! There's no need to cry, because there will be other adventures in the future. The Travelin' Fool will live on... but for now, it's time to put away the blog and move on to other things... such as finding a job so I can support future trips around the world! Oh, once the travel bug hits, it's a deadly thing. So much to see in this world, so little time.
Brian
Well, I'll tell you how I got here...it took about 27 straight hours to be exact...a new travel record for me. It was one of those days that just wouldn't end, where I kept finding myself stuck in some chair with my knees bumping up against the seat in front of me. For the London to New York leg, the trip started out quite pleasant as I chatted up a pretty young woman named Dorothy getting her doctorate in clinical psychology at UC-Berkeley. She had just gotten back from Morocco, and so we exchanged travel stories and had a good laugh. The plane ride was also quite pleasant as they fed us lunch and let us watch movies on the tiny screens built into the backs of the seats. Watching movies felt like such a luxury to me. I hadn't seen a movie in God knows how long. It didn't matter what movie was playing...I was watching it. "Shrek the Third" could have been a complete piece of crap, but I wouldn't have known. At that moment, it was an artistic masterpiece to me. Then I watched "Lucky You," which was some movie about people playing poker. Once again, this movie could very well have blown chunks, but I was in heaven anyway. And then finally, it was Marlon Brando giving the performance of his life in "On the Waterfront." Oh, I was so happy I could have cried.
However, as I kept heading west, I noticed that the people around me kept getting weirder and weirder, and my travel situation kept becoming more and more unpleasant. For the New York to San Francisco leg, American Airlines suddenly became cheapskates and were now going to charge me to eat a meal. They were also now charging me for headphones to watch the movie "Lucky You," which I had just seen. Lucky me, my ass. Disappointed, I sat down beside a gentleman who at first seemed normal. Then I suddenly realized that...hey...this guy only has one arm. One arm! That put everything into perspective for me, and I suddenly remembered that old saying from my youth: "I cried when I had no airline meal to eat, until I met a man who had no arm." Or something like that. Anyway, after seeing this man with just one arm, I just counted my blessings, quit bitching and read my book.
The Amtrak leg of the journey from San Francisco to Chico seemed interminable. Just when I thought I was through with all the frat boy college types, this whole crew of guys piled into the bus heading to Emeryville, exhibiting the typical dumbass behaviors I had been trying so hard to get away from all summer. There was a "Rock the Bells" concert going on in S.F. which they had all just attended, so they kept screaming "Rage!" and "Wu-Tang!" over and over and talking about getting wasted and getting high. I just wanted to throw myself in front of the Amtrak bus and just end it there.
The late-night Amtrak train to Chico wasn't too bad...just extremely late at night. It was about at this point that I started getting a little delusional from being up for almost 24 hours. The 9-hour jet lag was really started to affect me. Several times I woke up out of my groggy haze and thought, "Crap, Eric, we gotta get off the train or we'll miss our stop!" and then I'd suddenly realize that Eric wasn't there, and I wasn't in Europe anymore. Yep...I was really starting to mentally lose it. Once I got off at the Chico train station at 2 am, I started looking at some of the other folks getting off. Talk about some scary-looking individuals. I mean, I was nothing great to look at either after being a bum in Europe for 10 weeks, but compared to some of these folks, I wasn't doing so bad.
So now I'm back in Chico at my home, ready to get my life back together and move on with the next phase in my life. I think it's going to be a slow process these next few days. I've suddenly realized how dumb I've become when it comes to doing some of the simplest things...like operating a cell phone. I'm afraid to see what's going to happen when I try to drive my car again! Yes, living in the land of America again will be a little odd for me. When you go from having nothing but the junk on your back...to suddenly having access to cars and computers and refrigerators and a nice comfortable bed to yourself...you suddenly realize how good you really do have it in America, and you feel a little spoiled. You also realize that you really don't need to accumulate a lot of stuff in life to make yourself happy. For me, what makes me happy is travelling around, and seeing things, and taking pictures, and then writing about it and sharing it with others. I like stories and memories. I've even debated writing a book about the experiences I just had in Europe. I hardly doubt anything would come of it if I do write it, but at least I'd have it for my own benefit.
To all of you who've kept up with the blog this summer, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. And I hope it inspires some of you to go off and check out some of the wonderful things that this world has to offer. As I've learned during my 32 years on this planet, life is short, so take full advantage of the time you've got here and see as much as you can.
Well, I guess that's it for The Travelin' Fool. Hey.... you don't need to cry. Here... dry those tears with this napkin I picked up at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. There you go! There's no need to cry, because there will be other adventures in the future. The Travelin' Fool will live on... but for now, it's time to put away the blog and move on to other things... such as finding a job so I can support future trips around the world! Oh, once the travel bug hits, it's a deadly thing. So much to see in this world, so little time.
Brian
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Brit Happens
Well, isn't that something.
I'm sitting here in London, in the basement of the hostel, eating my breakfast of toast, cereal, juice and coffee, and who should be looking at me but that crusty old sea captain painting that I encountered at the beginning of my trip.
But something is different this time. When I was just starting this trip, he seemed to have a scowl on his face, like he didn't approve of me or anything I'd done with my life. His look seemed to say, "How did you end up in MY scullery room, you bloody prick? Off with you!" But now that I look at him again, 10 weeks later, he's different. His scowl is no longer a scowl, but a slight look of surprise that seems to say, "Wow...you survived your trip. I AM impressed. Good job, my boy. Good job."
It's a good feeling to start coming back to what I know. It feels as if everything is now coming full circle, and like walking backwards in time, I'm seeing everything pass before me again a second time as I head back west. The creature comforts of the world I know are starting to come back: English keyboards, people speaking English again, CNN and BBC. It feels nice to know that I'll be shedding my backpack in a matter of a day or two, ditching the campgrounds and the hostels and getting back to my normal life. Not to say that anything of my experience this summer was bad. As a matter of fact, it was all pretty incredible. But after doing it for 10 weeks, you need a vacation from the vacation.
When you backpack, you end up making a lot of sacrifices that you never expected. First of all, your privacy disappears. You're stuck in rooms crammed with 30 other people, all bumping into each other. Or you're stuck in a tent next to someone who stinks just as bad as you. Each bathroom you go to looks like a toxic waste dump because 100 people trashed it right before you got there.
And then there's the continuous moving around from place to place, constantly packing...and repacking...and packing again. You realize your backpack can't nearly fit everything you had hoped it would, so you're continuously telling yourself that you can't acquire things. And then you start seeing yourself wearing the same clothes over and over. You feel like you're some cartoon character or cast member from "Gilligan's Island" who never has a new outfit to show.
At first, all of this is no big deal. But after a while, you start to miss the privacy...and the cleanliness...and the variety of clothing that you had in your former life. That's when it's time to pitch the backpack over into the river and call it quits and go home, which is where I'm at right now. Except I'm not throwing my backpack in the River Thames...it cost me way too much.
I think my breaking point was two days ago in Munich when I was at the Euro Youth Hostel. I was awoken at 2 am to the sounds of these young drunk American kids yelling and making a racket about something. One of them had thrown up on the floor of the dorm room, and glass was broken all over the floor. They just started waking everyone up, turning on lights, and making a scene. That's when I started realizing, "Hey...I'm 32 years-old. I really don't need to put up with this crap anymore. I'm done with this."
Yep. I think my backpacking days of wandering around willy-nilly across the globe are done. Not to say that I won't do a little more of it in the future, but nothing of the magnitude I've just done. I'm an adult now, and don't need to subject myself to this fraternity house atmosphere anymore. It was all good and fun, but now, I ready to move on. I got it all out of my system, and it feels good.
I'm sitting here in London, in the basement of the hostel, eating my breakfast of toast, cereal, juice and coffee, and who should be looking at me but that crusty old sea captain painting that I encountered at the beginning of my trip.
But something is different this time. When I was just starting this trip, he seemed to have a scowl on his face, like he didn't approve of me or anything I'd done with my life. His look seemed to say, "How did you end up in MY scullery room, you bloody prick? Off with you!" But now that I look at him again, 10 weeks later, he's different. His scowl is no longer a scowl, but a slight look of surprise that seems to say, "Wow...you survived your trip. I AM impressed. Good job, my boy. Good job."
It's a good feeling to start coming back to what I know. It feels as if everything is now coming full circle, and like walking backwards in time, I'm seeing everything pass before me again a second time as I head back west. The creature comforts of the world I know are starting to come back: English keyboards, people speaking English again, CNN and BBC. It feels nice to know that I'll be shedding my backpack in a matter of a day or two, ditching the campgrounds and the hostels and getting back to my normal life. Not to say that anything of my experience this summer was bad. As a matter of fact, it was all pretty incredible. But after doing it for 10 weeks, you need a vacation from the vacation.
When you backpack, you end up making a lot of sacrifices that you never expected. First of all, your privacy disappears. You're stuck in rooms crammed with 30 other people, all bumping into each other. Or you're stuck in a tent next to someone who stinks just as bad as you. Each bathroom you go to looks like a toxic waste dump because 100 people trashed it right before you got there.
And then there's the continuous moving around from place to place, constantly packing...and repacking...and packing again. You realize your backpack can't nearly fit everything you had hoped it would, so you're continuously telling yourself that you can't acquire things. And then you start seeing yourself wearing the same clothes over and over. You feel like you're some cartoon character or cast member from "Gilligan's Island" who never has a new outfit to show.
At first, all of this is no big deal. But after a while, you start to miss the privacy...and the cleanliness...and the variety of clothing that you had in your former life. That's when it's time to pitch the backpack over into the river and call it quits and go home, which is where I'm at right now. Except I'm not throwing my backpack in the River Thames...it cost me way too much.
I think my breaking point was two days ago in Munich when I was at the Euro Youth Hostel. I was awoken at 2 am to the sounds of these young drunk American kids yelling and making a racket about something. One of them had thrown up on the floor of the dorm room, and glass was broken all over the floor. They just started waking everyone up, turning on lights, and making a scene. That's when I started realizing, "Hey...I'm 32 years-old. I really don't need to put up with this crap anymore. I'm done with this."
Yep. I think my backpacking days of wandering around willy-nilly across the globe are done. Not to say that I won't do a little more of it in the future, but nothing of the magnitude I've just done. I'm an adult now, and don't need to subject myself to this fraternity house atmosphere anymore. It was all good and fun, but now, I ready to move on. I got it all out of my system, and it feels good.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
A Day at Dachau
Boy...talk about going from Yin one day, and going to Yang the next.
I woke up this morning, without a clue in the world as to what I was going to do. Some American expat named Mike handed me a brochure on taking a biking tour of Munich, telling me that "It´s the most fun that I´d have in Munich with my pants on." I don´t know quite where he´s coming from...I have lots of fun with my pants on. Besides, if I went around town wandering with my posterior all exposed, who knows what German prison I would end up in. And besides that, think about the chafing and sunburns from being naked down there. Ooooh...don´t like the thought of it. I think I´ll keep my leiderhosen on.
Anyway, I decided to not go along on Mike´s Bike Tour, considering I somehow ended up visiting every "hidden, off-the-beaten-path" place by accident yesterday for free that he takes people to for 20 Euros a whack. But I didn´t see the nudist section of the English Garden, as Mike promises he will take me to. But I´m sure there´s a lot of "bad naked" there and not the "good naked," so I think I´m better off without his tour.
What I did do today is go to Dachau. I knew absolutely nothing about this waking up this morning. I read that it was a former Nazi concentration camp, and I was shocked that it was so close to Munich. So within minutes, I bought a ticket and hopped on the train and bus to get out there. I figured it would only take about 2 hours max to see this place. I spent 6 hours there total, and despite it being very sad and depressing, I´m really glad I went today. I learned more about why WWII came to occur than I would watching the The Hitler Channel...sorry...The HISTORY Channel all day long. Dachau put a lot of what happened during the Holocaust into perspective for me. And after doing a year-long stint with the California Dept. of Corrections, it really affected me being in a prison setting again, trapped inside barbed wire and seeing where people were housed like animals. It´s disturbing, but I think that once again, all Americans should see this once in their lifetime. I also once again feel proud about my country, because they were the liberators for the prisoners of Dachau.
I´d type more, but I´m running out of Euros. Gotta save them for my final day in Germany tomorrow. Will type more later.
I woke up this morning, without a clue in the world as to what I was going to do. Some American expat named Mike handed me a brochure on taking a biking tour of Munich, telling me that "It´s the most fun that I´d have in Munich with my pants on." I don´t know quite where he´s coming from...I have lots of fun with my pants on. Besides, if I went around town wandering with my posterior all exposed, who knows what German prison I would end up in. And besides that, think about the chafing and sunburns from being naked down there. Ooooh...don´t like the thought of it. I think I´ll keep my leiderhosen on.
Anyway, I decided to not go along on Mike´s Bike Tour, considering I somehow ended up visiting every "hidden, off-the-beaten-path" place by accident yesterday for free that he takes people to for 20 Euros a whack. But I didn´t see the nudist section of the English Garden, as Mike promises he will take me to. But I´m sure there´s a lot of "bad naked" there and not the "good naked," so I think I´m better off without his tour.
What I did do today is go to Dachau. I knew absolutely nothing about this waking up this morning. I read that it was a former Nazi concentration camp, and I was shocked that it was so close to Munich. So within minutes, I bought a ticket and hopped on the train and bus to get out there. I figured it would only take about 2 hours max to see this place. I spent 6 hours there total, and despite it being very sad and depressing, I´m really glad I went today. I learned more about why WWII came to occur than I would watching the The Hitler Channel...sorry...The HISTORY Channel all day long. Dachau put a lot of what happened during the Holocaust into perspective for me. And after doing a year-long stint with the California Dept. of Corrections, it really affected me being in a prison setting again, trapped inside barbed wire and seeing where people were housed like animals. It´s disturbing, but I think that once again, all Americans should see this once in their lifetime. I also once again feel proud about my country, because they were the liberators for the prisoners of Dachau.
I´d type more, but I´m running out of Euros. Gotta save them for my final day in Germany tomorrow. Will type more later.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Budapest Exposed
Hoohah! What an awesome day so far in Müchen (a.k.a. Munich). Already, I hit the Hoffbrauhaus for lunch (and waited over an hour just to get served by my pissed-off waiter who had some grudge against me. Very odd. Maybe I sat down at the wrong table. Maybe he hates tourists...especially Americans who come in wearing their Sierra Nevada Brewery T-shirt. Don´t know. The Hoffbrau is a nutty place with chaos all around. I don´t know how they keep anything straight), wandered around the city, checked out the broken Glockenspiel (are the people on it supposed to move around and dance to chimes or something???), climbed up the St. Peter tower to see the city from high above, watched Germans surfboarding on the canal (I kid you not...they´ve got a pressurized stream of water pouring out from under a bridge, and it´s a surfboarding park now), and then ended up eating and drinking at the giant beer garden called Englischer Garten (that´s how Germans pronounce "English Garden" when they start getting wasted. I swiped the huge 1 Liter beer stein I put a deposit on, as those snooty Arizona girls from back in Prague had told me they had done (maybe they weren´t total idiots after all). Makes a nice souvenir.) My my...Munich is really shaping out to be everything I expected it to be.
But then there´s Budapest, which didn´t do hardly anything for me. I don´t know...maybe some external factors were influencing my opinion of this place...maybe I was just getting tired of seeing the same types of stuff over and over. But as a whole, Budapest didn´t seem to have a lot of the high cultural attactions that I´ve seen in the other cities I´ve visited. I felt like Budapest was still trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps after years of being suppressed by the Communists. Sure, Budapest has some churches to check out, but they´re nothing spectacular as compared to other cities. For example, I tried checking out the Jewish synagogue in town, but they were charging way too much for nothing (way to go, Judiasm, for perpetuating your demeaning stereotype), so I went to the Catholic Church instead (which was free...hooray!) and saw the severed hand of their saint. It was about 1,000 years old and clenched up in a fist like it didn´t want to let go of its control. It was a little disturbing, but I guess these Hungarians cling onto any holy relic they can get their "hands" on! Ha! Oh, I´m just killing myself here! There´s a whole entire history about how this "hand" has changed hands over the millenium. It even ended up in the USA while WWII was going on.
Other than the severed hand, everything else in Budapest tended to revolve around war, or terror, or their past association with communism. Oh, wait now...there was a silly musical fountain that would dance to opera music. That was pleasant. Everything else...not so pleasant. Their warfare museum was interesting in the fact that I got to see the losing side´s interpretation of WWII (Hungary sided with the Nazis. Bad mistake.). Although the signage was horribly translated in English (which I´ve also noticed in all the other countries I´ve visited. Europe needs an official English copy editor to proofread all their stuff), I could still get the gist of what they were saying, and it came across to me that they were rewriting history. They put themselves as innocent victims to Hitler and Germany and just HAD to go along with them with all the mass genocides... and it was their God-given right to reclaim the lands taken away from them at the end of WWI. So, my B.S. meter was going off the charts. Further on in the museum, they had some swastikas and uniforms displayed that rather shocked me. I figured they would have removed all that stuff completely. I guess not.
Another thing that´s shocking is how there´s a wax museum at the top of the Citadel on the Buda side of the city has Nazi soldiers putting prisoners-of-war in horrible situations. They title the attraction "1944." Once again, I find it horribly wrong that a country is continuing to display inappropriate stuff like this. I mean, this ain´t "Hogan´s Heroes" we´re talking about here with that crazy, lovable Colonel Klink. If this was America, Jewish groups, Holocaust victims, and even Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Push Colition would be out protesting this thing. Here in Hungary, it´s all good fun. Oh, here kids...put on these funny Nazi hats down at the gift store and let´s take your picture. Oy vey!
One attraction that I checked out, that I´m glad they did keep, was called Statue Park. It´s located about 5 kilometers south of the city, way far away from everything, and contains all the old statues that used to be around during the days of communism. Once communism starting falling in the early 90´s, anything even connected with communism was quickly removed and destroyed. Luckily, Budapest saw the need to preserve some of this stuff to show future generations what communism was like. The park contains about 40 statues, some of which are Lenin with his business suit on, holding out his hand as if to say "Welcome to my repressive kindgom. Can I show you around?" But most are done in that bland propagandist style where "the worker" is made up into a giant superhero. All the people have blockish features to them, and their muscles are just bulging out all over like they´re Barry Bonds on steroids. They´re a real trip to look at. I would have hated to be one of the artists making those at the time, because they were limited on what they could do. "Oh, so you want me to make ANOTHER non-descript big worker waving a flag? And put the communist star somewhere in there? Boy, like I haven´t done THAT before!" The funniest part about Statue Park is when you leave it. At the exit, they´re selling T-shirts, most of them with tie-ins to South Park and McDonald´s (I´m sure Lenin is just rolling in his glass viewing box). There´s also one of those boxy crappy cars (Der Trabis???) that everyone in Communismland would have to drive just sitting there as you leave. Yes, communism is dead. But I´m glad someone perserved some of these old relics so I can appreciate what I have in my country.
Our "hostel takeover" in Budapest was also pretty bad. The first hostel we stayed at was called "Amazing Hostel." The only thing amazing about it was that it wasn´t shut down and condemned by a safety official. It was inside an old apartment building that looked like a Russian tank had tried to blow it up from the outside. It was completely empty and falling apart except for 3 rooms way in the back that had been renovated. Just walking to my room everyday was putting my life on the line. One false step, and I would have fallen over the 3-story railing and plummeted to my death. The rooms were crammed with beds, giving you no room to even move around or pack your stuff. Eric had a classic Chicago "porch disaster" in his bed when the wooden frame broke. Luckily, he was on the bottom of the bunk bed and only fell a foot. I put on my structural engineer hat to access the damage to see if I was in danger of falling, but I appeared OK. Then the next morning, Eric fell again in his bed. Poor guy. Then his locker door fell on top of his head. Yes sir...welcome to Fawlty Towers.
The other hostel, Island Hostel, was located on (surpise!) an island in the middle of the Danube River. It was a dump as well...looked like it used to be a summer beach home at one time, then had fallen into disrepair and was eventually turned into a hostel. The smell of mildew just hovered in my room. However, the hostel´s one redeeming feature was that it was located on the river. Beautiful view at night. Just gorgeous. Oh well. I guess you gotta take what you can get when you´re cheap.
But then there´s Budapest, which didn´t do hardly anything for me. I don´t know...maybe some external factors were influencing my opinion of this place...maybe I was just getting tired of seeing the same types of stuff over and over. But as a whole, Budapest didn´t seem to have a lot of the high cultural attactions that I´ve seen in the other cities I´ve visited. I felt like Budapest was still trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps after years of being suppressed by the Communists. Sure, Budapest has some churches to check out, but they´re nothing spectacular as compared to other cities. For example, I tried checking out the Jewish synagogue in town, but they were charging way too much for nothing (way to go, Judiasm, for perpetuating your demeaning stereotype), so I went to the Catholic Church instead (which was free...hooray!) and saw the severed hand of their saint. It was about 1,000 years old and clenched up in a fist like it didn´t want to let go of its control. It was a little disturbing, but I guess these Hungarians cling onto any holy relic they can get their "hands" on! Ha! Oh, I´m just killing myself here! There´s a whole entire history about how this "hand" has changed hands over the millenium. It even ended up in the USA while WWII was going on.
Other than the severed hand, everything else in Budapest tended to revolve around war, or terror, or their past association with communism. Oh, wait now...there was a silly musical fountain that would dance to opera music. That was pleasant. Everything else...not so pleasant. Their warfare museum was interesting in the fact that I got to see the losing side´s interpretation of WWII (Hungary sided with the Nazis. Bad mistake.). Although the signage was horribly translated in English (which I´ve also noticed in all the other countries I´ve visited. Europe needs an official English copy editor to proofread all their stuff), I could still get the gist of what they were saying, and it came across to me that they were rewriting history. They put themselves as innocent victims to Hitler and Germany and just HAD to go along with them with all the mass genocides... and it was their God-given right to reclaim the lands taken away from them at the end of WWI. So, my B.S. meter was going off the charts. Further on in the museum, they had some swastikas and uniforms displayed that rather shocked me. I figured they would have removed all that stuff completely. I guess not.
Another thing that´s shocking is how there´s a wax museum at the top of the Citadel on the Buda side of the city has Nazi soldiers putting prisoners-of-war in horrible situations. They title the attraction "1944." Once again, I find it horribly wrong that a country is continuing to display inappropriate stuff like this. I mean, this ain´t "Hogan´s Heroes" we´re talking about here with that crazy, lovable Colonel Klink. If this was America, Jewish groups, Holocaust victims, and even Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Push Colition would be out protesting this thing. Here in Hungary, it´s all good fun. Oh, here kids...put on these funny Nazi hats down at the gift store and let´s take your picture. Oy vey!
One attraction that I checked out, that I´m glad they did keep, was called Statue Park. It´s located about 5 kilometers south of the city, way far away from everything, and contains all the old statues that used to be around during the days of communism. Once communism starting falling in the early 90´s, anything even connected with communism was quickly removed and destroyed. Luckily, Budapest saw the need to preserve some of this stuff to show future generations what communism was like. The park contains about 40 statues, some of which are Lenin with his business suit on, holding out his hand as if to say "Welcome to my repressive kindgom. Can I show you around?" But most are done in that bland propagandist style where "the worker" is made up into a giant superhero. All the people have blockish features to them, and their muscles are just bulging out all over like they´re Barry Bonds on steroids. They´re a real trip to look at. I would have hated to be one of the artists making those at the time, because they were limited on what they could do. "Oh, so you want me to make ANOTHER non-descript big worker waving a flag? And put the communist star somewhere in there? Boy, like I haven´t done THAT before!" The funniest part about Statue Park is when you leave it. At the exit, they´re selling T-shirts, most of them with tie-ins to South Park and McDonald´s (I´m sure Lenin is just rolling in his glass viewing box). There´s also one of those boxy crappy cars (Der Trabis???) that everyone in Communismland would have to drive just sitting there as you leave. Yes, communism is dead. But I´m glad someone perserved some of these old relics so I can appreciate what I have in my country.
Our "hostel takeover" in Budapest was also pretty bad. The first hostel we stayed at was called "Amazing Hostel." The only thing amazing about it was that it wasn´t shut down and condemned by a safety official. It was inside an old apartment building that looked like a Russian tank had tried to blow it up from the outside. It was completely empty and falling apart except for 3 rooms way in the back that had been renovated. Just walking to my room everyday was putting my life on the line. One false step, and I would have fallen over the 3-story railing and plummeted to my death. The rooms were crammed with beds, giving you no room to even move around or pack your stuff. Eric had a classic Chicago "porch disaster" in his bed when the wooden frame broke. Luckily, he was on the bottom of the bunk bed and only fell a foot. I put on my structural engineer hat to access the damage to see if I was in danger of falling, but I appeared OK. Then the next morning, Eric fell again in his bed. Poor guy. Then his locker door fell on top of his head. Yes sir...welcome to Fawlty Towers.
The other hostel, Island Hostel, was located on (surpise!) an island in the middle of the Danube River. It was a dump as well...looked like it used to be a summer beach home at one time, then had fallen into disrepair and was eventually turned into a hostel. The smell of mildew just hovered in my room. However, the hostel´s one redeeming feature was that it was located on the river. Beautiful view at night. Just gorgeous. Oh well. I guess you gotta take what you can get when you´re cheap.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)