ex-Berliners

Still on the train to Copenhagen by Hamburg, and sleepy since we woke up before five.

In Berlin, we stayed at Eleanor’s house….all the time.

We saw her, her kitchen, her living room, and her vacationing housemate’s bedroom-suite, where we slept and pretty much spent all our time in Berlin, since Annalise had a minor cold and I had tons of work. Eleanor is a casual acquaintance of mine from Carleton, ‘0myyear. She went to the same publishing institute that Annalise attended in Denver. She moved to Berlin with her boyfriend, after they lived in Denver for about a year, and upon arrival, he moved to Dumpsville, population him. Now she goes out with another person, German, and is an editor for an English magazine called Ex-Berliner. We think that’s pretty cool. Anyway, she was incredibly hospitable, giving us keys to her apartment and an enormous room to stay in, which we did.

It’s a shame that we didn’t really get to see any of Berlin, but that’s how it goes sometimes. And it’s not a place we could have come close to covering in two full days anyway. And we actually did get out, so it’s not fair for me to say that. Eleanor lives in what appears to be the hippest place in Berlin, like Bucktown with a can of spray paint. We went to a couple cafés and a first-rate falafel/shawarma place, and it was a new experience to stay in a part of a major city that was not old and visited, but instead rather lived in.

By the way, the Berlin toilets are wacky and unlikable. They don’t have water, it’s dry and bare. When you flush, water mercifully arrives to whisk any droppings from the platform and down the hole, though Eleanor says sometimes the aid of a brush is necessary. Gross.

Staying with Eleanor is kinda like the beginning of the end for us, mostly because we knew her already and it was really comfortable and easy to be there. Now comes more people we know to the north (via Hamburg.)

Only a few pictures. Annalise wishes we would have taken some shots of her falafel plate, if just as proof that we left the house.

Vienna

On the train to Copenhagen (via Hamburg) now.

We left Prague to Vienna last Wed., I believe, and stayed at one of Europe’s premier hostels—Hostel Ruthensteiner. Almost everyone there had come from Melbourne. We also went to this place called the Gosser Bierklinik several times for some of my favorite beer that I would drink in Chicago and Northfield all the time. We also saw some great museums and churches and had an all-around swell time, but there’s nothing fascinating to report. One night, I ate two frankfurters, two bratwurst and a donut at a Xmas market—followed by some Gossers. We ordered locally here, and one night I got gulash, which came with a fried egg and a hot dog with ends shaped like jester’s caps—true Vienna beef.

Pics.

PragueRock

Oh man, three posts in two days! Pretty soon, I'll blog things we haven't even done yet!

In Prague, we stayed at a hotel that was not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE STARS! This is five stars higher than what we are used to. It was an amazing travel zoo deal for 63 Euros a night, including free Internet.

In the Czech Republic, people speak Czech.

For example, we Czech-ed into our hotel, only to discover it was the wrong one. I had taken us on the metro to the other Corinthia hotel in Prague, which was a star less and so completely unacceptable. Anyway, we had a vast breakfast buffet at our hotel, plus we had MTV in German, which was hilarious when it came time for dubbed South Park. Remind me to imitate that for you in person.

The first night we Czeched out the Christmas Market. It was worlds better than Toulon and even cooler than Wurzburg. We bought glasses of hot wine. In the city square we saw something really bizarre: there was this woman in a 10 ft by 10 ft glass cube doing step aerobics to dance music. We’re pretty sure she was advertising for a local gym.

The next day we visited the oldest synagogue in Europe still in use. It was built in 1275. A Czechered past, if you will. It was nice since we had seen about a million cathedrals, but no mosques nor synagogues. We also went to the museum of medieval torture. Glad I was born when I was born.

All around, Prague was great. In fact, I think you should vacation there. It’s cheap relative to the rest of Europe. It’s safe and there’s tons to see, without so many crowds. And St. Vitus Cathedral has stained glass equal to, if not surpassing, that of the cathedrals in France.

While walking on the Charles Bridge, which I think is the longest pedestrian bridge in Europe, and probably the most beautiful as well, we saw a man playing one of those organ grinders. (You know, one of those organ grinders.) The CD said fur alle Anlasse on it, and I liked the music at the time, so, on an impulse, I bought ourselves our first souvenir. What a mistake. It’s like ballpark organ music, but to ABBA. Oh dear.

On our way out, we almost missed our train to Vienna because Annalise had to toast her bread and peel her egg for a soft-boiled egg sandwich. Czech Please!

(Pictures? Czech. Tons.)

Things Get Wurz

(Wow, two posts in two days!)

When Katie, a Carleton friend of mine and former language assistant in France, heard that Annalise and I were applying for teaching positions there about 1.5 years ago, she advised against asking for the southern port town Toulon. She, like us, blogged her experiences, which involved lines like “The top ten reasons I hate Toulon,” and “I saw another homeless man masturbating on the sidewalk today while walking home from school, and for some reason this time it made me want to cry.”

Imagine her surprise when I Skyped her from a bar in Toulon! (Stop, what you’re doing right now and imagine it!)

This was unplanned. The original plan had been two nights in Wurzburg, in central Germany, to break-up the interminable journey ahead—from the south of France to Prague. We’d grab the bus back to Marseille, take the seven hour high-speed domestic train ride north (Strasbourg, about an hour away from Nancy), hit four more high-speeds in Germany to arrive in the center, in Wurzburg, at 23:45, fourteen hours after our departing Provence.

Unfortunately, the train to Strasbourg was completely booked. Not knowing what to do, we panicked and got on the next train to anywhere, figuring we could reassess while moving north or east, since time was of the essence.

That was a somewhat stupid idea, and ultimately of no consequence. Instead of drawing up a new game plan, we realized there was no game plan, nothing to do but to delete our first night in Wurzburg and figure out where to go on the way in the north or center of France. All hotels were booked everywhere desirable, including Strasbourg, since it was a) Friday and b) the time when fairy tale Christmas markets were popping out of the grounds of town centers throughout Europe, kinda like the alien tripods at the beginning of War of the Worlds but benevolent. Already knowing all this, we got off at the first town after Marseilles, Toulon, to get down to business.

(As I write this on a train in Germany, I wonder: why can’t European parents discipline their kids? This is getting ridiculous! Everywhere we go, if kids are on the train car, they are running and/or screaming. These German parents smiling. Unbelievable. Our first night in Provence, this Italian couple’s kids were pulling leaves off the plants and shrieking while Fleur-du-cap’s wonderful Harald pulled at his graying hair. Right now, there’s this kid who ran down the aisle to the empty seat behind me. He’s begun pushing the tray table and making all sorts of commotion. German noise is the worst type of noise. His sweatshirt, by the way, says Indiana University. His father is looking at either him or me, smiling like “what can you do?” Everything, asshole! He thinks the train is his kids’ personal playground/babysitter. The primary school kids in France were also misbehaved. I hate hate hate hate European parents.)

So we first had to call to cancel our first night in Wurzburg, which meant we had to find free wifi (why public phonebooth calls from France to Germany are next to impossible is fodder for another, more boring and even more hateful post). We found it here, in front of this abandoned internet café, which was comical even in the moment. Then, we went back to the train station, where we learned the only way up north would be via night-train to Strasbourg. So, instead of taking a seven hour high speed train ride in the day to Strasbourg from Marseille, we were taking a ten hour low-speed one from Toulon. Between now and then, we had 12 hours.

Although at first blush Toulon seemed nice, we don’t question Katie. There were lots of fashionable stores and cafes, and though we didn’t make it to the seashore, we did check out the crappy Christmas market. The palm trees were sloppily strewn with lights by someone who could almost give a shit, and there was an animated polar bear in a Santa hat that swayed its hips sideways while making masturbatory gestures. We went to a Chinese restaurant, and a bar with wifi called Shannons, at which I caught up with Katie, and then we went onto the sleeping car.

The sleeping car was a memorable experience. We had actually tried to get seats, because passengers in sleeping cars are very vulnerable to being robbed, but already all the seats on the night train had been reserved, so couchette it was.

Squishing the definition of the word “room,” a couchette consists of six spare bunks, three on each side, with room in the middle for someone not overweight to be able to turnaround. Each passenger gets a bottle of water, a piece of paper (blanket) and a bag (pillow). I kid, kind of. It’s actually worth the price: there’s nice little reading lights that illuminate only the area of the bed where your head should be placed, and the water bottle is an unexpected amenity. We each had second-level beds across from each other. We thought we were the first ones on the couchette.

“Oh my God! This is hilarious!” Annalise shouted, as she proceeded to take pictures of the “room,” blinding the compartment with flash.

“This is Awesome!” I shouted back. “Check out these lights for reading!!!!”

“I wonder if anyone else will even be in this car, or if we’ll have the whole room to ourselves!”

“I can’t even fit in the bed, ha ha ha!!! Here, eat the laptop so no one steals it!!!!”

“Oh my God, I just noticed the guy up there sleeping! Did you!!!”

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU THINK HE’S ASLEEP?????!!!!!!”

Then we realized that we should be quiet, that we were making fools of ourselves and should not really be talking at all. Which was weird, since it was only 10 p.m., and our plan had been to snack, chat, read and then try to sleep but not succeed.

At the next stop twenty minutes later (back in Marseille), the remaining beds filled. It was Annalise and five guys.

I read for a little bit; Annalise kinda stared off (or so she told me later, it was very dark in the room when the door was closed.) I never got a look at the guy above me because he had already arrived and laid down to sleep before our boisterous entry (see above). When not rolling around awake, he snored damply, like he was draining his sleeping fluids. And man, the guy below Annalise must have thought he had just re-entered the womb. He fell right to sleep and snored (and farted) the whole night.

The couchette was truly a miracle though. Prior to this Europe trip, anyone would tell you that I am a dainty sleeper. I always have earplugs, just in case, and sometimes a blindfold. In the couchette, however, there was no room for me to take off my shoes, and I slept without earplugs to stay alert for intruders, and in all my clothes, my arms around my jacket, which contained my wallet, our passports, and our train passes, and with my computer bag wrapped around my legs, and on top of the blanket. And I slept! Sure, I woke up every time the train braked into a station, almost throwing me out of bed. Otherwise, I was amazed. Annalise did fine too.

At five in the morning the train began hitting stations at which people would disembark. I woke at 5:30 to see a pasty man in a blue coat in our couchette who I didn’t recognize, and within an instant I had seized his arm and yelled “Who are you! Where are you going!”

To this he replied, “Monsieur! A la gare! Maintenant, j’arrive a la gare!” (Mister! At the train station! I arrive at the train station!) and he pointed up to the bed above me, to indicate he had been sleeping there and to pull down a trash bag of stuff. Turns out it was the man who we had no doubt woken upon our entry but had never actually seen.

At 7:30 I waited for Annalise to wake up. Our couchette was still black because the window and door were shut. At 7:58 everyone else disembarked, and Annalise woke up and asked “where are we?”

Within two minutes we were on our half-hour tour of Strasbourg, which pretty much involved free wifi at McDonald’s and a famous cathedral.

We pulled into Wurzburg at 2 in the afternoon, did laundry until 5, walked the town, did the Christmas Market, and hit a bar. I tried a “beer cocktail” called the blackout. You’re probably thinking that must be a really fruity drink with lots of rum and a hint of lager? You weren’t? Neither had I. So it goes.

The hostel was spacious and clean, and we got on six hours more train eight hours later, off to Prague to begin the rest of the trip, which, apparently, will involve only capital cities here on out.

Oh, I almost forgot: pictures.

Provencal Views

Sorry about the hiatus. I'll try to pump out some massive blogging. One of the less interesting stories is about searching for wifi spots to get gobs of work done, because, as some of you know, we rely on our Dell for phone as well as web and email. Essentially, the publication I'm writing for has me doing product reviews, which requires being on two 1.5-2 hour calls every evening, Mon-Thu., until Dec. 22, and then writing them at some point. I'm writing this right now, in between two Friday calls for a separate article. It's a hassle, causes the blog and the sightseeing to suffer, but it's great to be able to almost finance all our travels, so I won't complain. In fact, I'll rejoice! Yay! I'm kinda doing this stream of consciousness, hope it's not boring.

Chambery, after Rome, was a bust. It's mostly my fault. We chose Chambery because it'd make a good 2-day, Alpine stopover between Rome and Provence. So, we booked our hotel while in Rome. Staying in Italy, we had been able to miss the concurrent strikes of historical length going on in France and Germany. We did not, however, miss Black Friday, the one-day Italy transit system walkout, the first in a quarter-century. Trenitalia had been emboldened by its neighbors on tracks up north, and with the support of slacking cabbies, voted to throw the country into chaos. Not that it mattered to us, we just canceled our first of two nights in Chambery and Lisa let us stay another night in her apartment (see Rome post).

So, we left to Chambery, set to only see it for a few hours at night before heading to Provence.

The problem is I screwed up the directions on Google maps. I popped in the hotel's number and street, got the address, and we walked the mile from the train station to 66 Place de la Republique, only to learn from an excruciating halfhour of idoitic detective work that we were in the wrong town, that we needed to be at 66 Place de la Republique in the neighboring town in a hotel off the side of the expressway advertising itself as in Chambery. So, we paid the cab-fare and went to this pod of land containing the hotel and its parking lot, no food.

Tourist tip: don't do what we did.

We ate vending machine that night. Not the machine itself, actually, just some of its contents. If you think of this as the first night that we really "roughed it," it isn't so bad, but I had an awful stomach ache from excessive synthetic shortbread consumption (It was forty percent of my five course meal: two bags of potato chips, the two instances of the shortbread, and a chocolate bar. Annalise opted for the two-course prix fixe: bag of chips, some peanut M&M's).

We took another cab to the early morning train to Marseille. It was cold, and my stomach was being raked by bacteria from overly processed food. In Marseille, we took a bus to the small town of St. Maximin, to be transported by the co-owner of a B&B to an even tinier town called Bras. (French for "arm.")

I feel we're going to not do our time in Provence justice here in the blog: please know it was the best hotel/B&B we stayed at, but, going back to the subject opening this post, we really just wanted to relax from travel and to get work done. The two guys who owned the place were amazing, and the surrounding scenery was gorgeous and has subsequently added to our appreciation of van Gogh landscapes. Harald, the co-owner who picked us up, took us on a couple day trips, talked with us for hours over breakfast about European politics, let us buy stuff from his private fridge and cellar without mark-up, and waited with us for the bus when we left. He helped us with everything, and we hung out with him a good deal, forgetting that we were his customers. If you ever visit France, you'll probably go to Paris, but consider renting a car and staying at Fleur-du-cap instead. This way, you can relax, meet Harald and Joel, and see the Riviera, Nice, Avignon, Marseille, Verdun Canyon, Arles. In the same way that a professor makes or breaks a class, or a boss makes a job manageable or hell, the hotel you choose plays no small role in your travel experience. Harald and Joel and their Bed and Breakfast are, without a doubt, as good as they come.

Anyway, our stories from there aren't particularly remarkable. I got nervous I may have clogged the septic tank with Kleenex, and for that reason was glad to leave. There was also a small terrier in town that terrorized me, walking alongside my ankles barking hate. Everything was closed all the time, so we stayed in to break from the blur of sights, to be able to appreciate the upcoming ones more. In this respect, the trip was a total success.

By the way, I'd like to address the topic of my coat. My coat has suffered so much wind and rain the past ten years, and in the thirty years or so when it was Jeff's. But never has it been dealt the abuse that Annalise, and my family in general, has heaped upon it. I'm laying it out there now. What has my coat done to you? It has kept me sufficiently warm for five years at Carleton. What do you care if I wear it? How is this your business? Year in, year out, the criticism of my coat never stops, and Annalise is the worst. She says even a homeless man would reject it. I think even a homeless man would reject her, to protect the inner lining of his pysche. Anyone criticizing my jacket, I'll tell you what, your heart is like the neck part of my jacket: black from so much filth. Now that it's zipper's broke, I think I'll need to replace it, and I'll miss it much.

Anyway, we left Provence replenished from amazing croissants, coffee and company.

Pictures.

Thoughts in Transit

The train bathrooms in Italy are in poor condition. On the one to Naples, there was just a hole and you pee on to the track. I assume this was a problem bathroom, because if it weren’t, all rails in Italy would be coated in the feces of travelers. Still, the improving/deteriorating conditions of public facilities is as good an indicator of border crossing as any, as the ones we used while criss-crossing the south of France were markedly better.

It makes me indignant that you have to pay to use public bathrooms. We’re on a budget! Every cloud has a silver lining: we now possess advanced capabilities for retention.

Perhaps they have to charge though. In Dijon, there was a free bathroom, and the seat presented itself like an over-frosted chocolate donut. Waste makes haste!

The new Ween album, ‘La Cucaracha,’ is the only music I have purchased on the road. It has not been a let down.

Finding the Firefox browser clunky and always conflicting with what I guess is Vista, I gave Opera a shot. If you’ve had the same thought, and are a Windows user, look no further than Firefox if you rely on Google. Opera cannot render a Gmail Inbox.

Read Dave Eggers’ What is the What. Way better than a HWSG, though they’re the same in being tragic, inspiring, and very memorable.

On a rainy day in Paris, across the cobblestone street from McDonald’s, you can visualize Europe’s almost imperceptible slide out of charm and into the 21^st-century. You can hear it in the pop music setting the ambience at sit-down restaurants, local or touristy. Irreversible, this trend is probably bad. It shouldn’t be in on that scene. It’s unbecoming, like an old man on a skateboard. It reminds you of what it doesn’t have at present, in spite of its dignified history.

A friend pointed out that it’s interesting to see all the different things McDonald’s offers across the continent. She’s right. In Nancy, we could get Niocese salad. In Florence, gelato. We’ve gotten wifi there, and a coffee.

People drive their motorcycles on sidewalks, usually to park. In Naples, a man was window-shopping on one.

“I’m blue, abu-di, abu-die, abu-di, abu-die, abu-di…” Europe is where songs from 1995-2005 go to not die.

We’ve heard Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven a couple times now. It must really suck to be the nanny responsible for that kid falling out a window. Wherever she goes in the world, throughout her life, there’ll be that Grammy-winning song dedicated to the horrible loss she wrought on others.

In Europe, the train operators strike with frequency over sooo much less than the CTA has at stake. I say this because there has been talk of a CTA strike. Unless I’m not up-enough on my other local news, I think they should, without a doubt, go for it.

Forgot to add these two links

Here's the one for Lisa's apartment in Rome, where we stayed for five days: http://web.mac.com/finerty/Via_Cimarra/Welcome.html

If you want stay there, she rents it out at reasonable rates.

And here's what she does: http://www.secretgardensitaly.com

Belated Thanksgiving

Last Sunday, we met this guy.

We also dined with the author of this Oprah-publicized-but-un-clubbed book, as well as with a BBC reporter who was recently knighted by the Queen for some very valiant reporting.

In addition to these, and our Carl-connex co-hosts, there were thirteen other expatriates, locals, one Dutch “archeological artist,” a German shepherd and a “Roman” dog, which apparently means gray and non-descript…all at a Sunday-afternoon Thanksgiving dinner.

We learned about the Neapolitan mob from a man named Marco, and got sightseeing tips from Maria, a Boston native turned Rome-based TV producer/reporter/web designer. For the first time in my life, I ate chestnuts on an open fire.

This was all arranged by Tom and Lisa Finerty.

Lisa Finerty is Carleton ’76, and, even better, from Chicago. Tom and Lisa had lived in Bucktown before selling their home to Rick Bayless, the chef behind Frontera. In fact, Bayless films his cooking show from the old Finerty place. They then lived in Santa Barbara, until selling their place there to buy ten acres of Otricoli land and design and construct a house on it. Located high enough in the rolling hills outside of Rome that clouds pass through it, when the surroundings are not foggy from these clouds, this is the view from the kitchen. Tom still does production work, and Lisa conducts tours of Rome and heads Democrats Abroad, Rome.

Thanksgiving, for me, brings to mind images of long, crowded tables full of family, food and warmth. Although extremely long in table, this dinner was unique in being wholly overwhelmed by the food aspect. The fact that Italian cuisine is maybe better than that of all other countries combined does not go unvocalized by expats here. Never taking food for granted any time of year, Thanksgiving in Otricoli took on gastronomical propotions.

Upon our arrival, the night before the big dinner, Lisa immediately put Annalise, Maria and I to serious work in the kitchen. I took instructions on how to make cranberry sauce rich in orange and lemon zest, Annalise did the garlic bread, and everyone together dissected a pumpkin, carving and deploying all parts with the utmost efficiency, kind of analogous to what we’ve all learned about how Native Americans “used every part of the buffalo!” We used the pumpkin’s guts for soup content, the peel for bowl, and its seeds for…baked seeds.

But the next morning the pumpkin soup, though to me delicious, was deemed “unsatisfactory” by a few sophisticates and thus not even presented for dinner. Eating here is some serious shit. Luckily, ad hoc lasagna was concocted, with very fresh cheese furnished by the dairy dude pictured in the beginning of this post. Diane, a photographer hotshot and more, knocked out both this and a carrot-pumpkin dish. Others brought the aforementioned chestnuts, a spinach-heavy quiche, pies pumpkin and pecan, and carrot cake. Somewhere at some point some people (including Annalise and I) also assembled gingery stuffing, salad, broccoli and vegetables, garlic aioli potatoes, mashed potatoes, and other things to surround the spiced-up, thirty-four pound (!!!) turkey that had been slaughtered on Friday.

Well, it was great. And it was well-timed since we had done pasta and pizza the past eight days. It was also poorly timed because I had gotten run down and so my nose was stuffed, and taste is three-quarters smell you know (I actually learned that fact from a former co-worker a few years ago, who can’t smell. She explained that, because of this condition, she didn’t know what food tastes like. That seems like it sucks, but way better than being blind or deaf. Mute or not being able to turn your neck would probably be a toss up with not being able to smell or taste. What do you think?).

Lisa and Tom are awesome, by the way. We are very thankful and wonder if it’ll ever be possible to reciprocate their incredible hospitality. It was unbeatable. We not only had our own room, but our own wing of the house, replete with bathroom. We woke up to their neighbor’s sheep bleating, and some local hunters gunning down wild boar. Lisa drove us back to the train station Monday morning, and let us stay in an apartment they own in Rome, located a few blocks from the Pantheon and Colosseum and all that, and wired to the Internet. And then, when the Italian train system went on strike, for one “Black” Friday, they let us stay a fifth day for free, thus saving us a total seven days in hotel charges. Unbelievable.

When in Rome, we sightsaw, and other things Romans don’t do. It’s funny that there’s way more to write about Otricoli than Rome. Not that we didn’t see and learn in Rome, but we did about what you’d expect, whereas the generosity and food of Otricoli were most noteworthy. Rome’s a big city, but not all that different in feel from, say, Florence. Walking into moving traffic there, though not nearly as death-defying as Naples, is still uncomfortable.

To be honest, things are beginning to blur together a little more, and the cities we’re visiting now, I feel, might be getting a little less appreciation as result of the late treatment. It was kind of like the spinach quiche at Thanksgiving—it was great, another 10-out-of-10, but it was third course, after two helpings of turkey, potatoes and stuffing. I knew it was perfect, sure, but I wished it had come earlier, or that I could wait until tomorrow, when I’d have more room to take it all in. Rome is like the thirteenth course. Now, here we are, in the heart of history and of the most influential religion ever, and not feeling awed. It must have to do with seeing everything one on top of another, without break, which has advantages and disadvantages that I probably can’t sort out while so caught up. Plus, I had much more work than usual this week, and we also planned out the rest of the trip, which wasn’t easy.

Now we are taking a sort of vacation from the vacation, heading to Provence for five days to just rest, work and convalesce. After that, we should have enough break to be appropriately amazed through to January.

We’ll keep you blog-posted with things that happen in the next few days, perhaps with more thoughts so reading this journal doesn’t get self-centered, diary-like and list-heavy. We’re thankful you made it this far with us.

Pictures.