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| Brings Speedo Powers! Parliament, England |
Friday, April 15, 2011
One month to go...
Or maybe even less, depending on how you look at it. I'm scheduled to arrive in the U.S. on May 1st. NYC and nearby areas for two weeks and then it's on to my final stop, Seattle, on May 15th - 3 days shy of an entire year of travel. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I can't help it. The closer it comes, the more surreal it seems. I have to keep reminding myself to enjoy my time on the road while I still have it.
On that note, today I'm in Belgium. I made a brief stop in London for 2 days, then bused on over to Brussels to stay with one of my best friends (from when I was an exchange student in Brazil) for a week or so. Interestingly enough, the bus you take across the chunnel is loaded onto a train. I didn't realize they did that. Also interesting was how much security and trouble they gave us in crossing the border between England and France. Actually, as far as most border crossings go, I suppose it was fairly standard. They checked our passports, made us get off the bus and pass all our bags through an X-ray machine - but for an EU border, the process was quite the pain. I guess I got a bit spoiled in going between all the other countries within the EU that didn't even bother looking at my passport once. Apparently, England is a bit notorious for being a bit more strict than the other countries of the EU. So in all fairness, France returns the favor when they have people entering their country from England. I think there is a bit of sour relationship along the chunnel border though, my friend informed me that England put small electric fences along the ground to prevent rats coming through the chunnel into England. haha.
Before the border crossing by bus, I also experienced a very mild interrogation upon arriving at Heathrow Airport in London. Little did I know, you're supposed to have "proof" of a return flight or ticket of your departure from England. Having a "World Ticket" with 16 stops means I haven't physically carried a single ticket on me this entire trip. It's all electronic. The woman believed me, but she ended up asking me a million other questions to see what my story was and how legitimate I seemed. In short I ended up telling her about my research, where all I had travelled to, and even how much money I had left. By the end I was thinking she was about to ask me for my phone number or hand in marriage - after all, who wouldn't want to be with a world traveller with X amount of money left who knows all about the effects of Wind Turbines on Breeding Grassland birds?! - but no, that didn't happen. Your loss Riddler.
My brief stint in London was on purpose. I've already seen a decent amount of London on a previous trip, so I felt no great urge to lose so much money to the British Pound. Although the exchange rate is MUCH better than it was last time I visited. Sometimes lady luck pays me a visit on this trip. Such was the case in London because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. 2 days in London in the first half of April - 20 degrees C and nary a cloud in the sky. I spent nearly an entire day smelling the flowers and enjoying the sunshine in Hyde Park. Doesn't get much better than that. It was very weird being in London. Hearing English everywhere I went, being able to comfortably communicate with everyone (ordering food, asking for directions), watching the news, etc. etc. It has been a loooong time since I've been in place like that.
So Belgium huh? What can I say? More Beer, more chocolate, and the proud inventors of fries! Why they hell we call them "French" is beyond me. But maybe you don't - maybe you switched to "Freedom Fries" when that was all the rave. I think that rave lasted about the time length it took to report the story of people wanting to call it "Freedom Fries." In actuality, I've been doing fairly normal activities again, so I can't enlighten you with crazy tales of adventure and debauchery. Staying with my friend and his girlfriend, going to a movie tonight, eating lunch with his entire family tomorrow, playing video games, uploading 40 million new photos on facebook (actually didn't take as long as I expected), walking their dog, seeing the city, blah blah blah. We have planned one fairly exciting activity however. On Sunday we'll be going to the Beach to race in these little cars that have sails attached to them. I have no idea what they are actually called, but imagine a little go-kart type thing where you're almost lying down - attached to it is a sail. The things can actually get going quite fast - should be fun, and definitely a different experience.
I suppose I glossed over another part of my trip - and that was my 5 day stint in Munich. I really don't have the most time to write about it and it's all kind of a blur at the moment, but I will say that the NeuSchwanstein Castle (2 hours by train, west of Munich) was simply stunning and everything I hoped it would be. It makes sense that Walt Disney chose to design his castle after this one, as it was truly impressive. I got to hike around a large part of it and with each new height it got better and better. You can kind of see what I mean with the picture below.
Dinner time is nearly upon me here in Belgium. Hope everyone who reads this is doing well.
On that note, today I'm in Belgium. I made a brief stop in London for 2 days, then bused on over to Brussels to stay with one of my best friends (from when I was an exchange student in Brazil) for a week or so. Interestingly enough, the bus you take across the chunnel is loaded onto a train. I didn't realize they did that. Also interesting was how much security and trouble they gave us in crossing the border between England and France. Actually, as far as most border crossings go, I suppose it was fairly standard. They checked our passports, made us get off the bus and pass all our bags through an X-ray machine - but for an EU border, the process was quite the pain. I guess I got a bit spoiled in going between all the other countries within the EU that didn't even bother looking at my passport once. Apparently, England is a bit notorious for being a bit more strict than the other countries of the EU. So in all fairness, France returns the favor when they have people entering their country from England. I think there is a bit of sour relationship along the chunnel border though, my friend informed me that England put small electric fences along the ground to prevent rats coming through the chunnel into England. haha.
Before the border crossing by bus, I also experienced a very mild interrogation upon arriving at Heathrow Airport in London. Little did I know, you're supposed to have "proof" of a return flight or ticket of your departure from England. Having a "World Ticket" with 16 stops means I haven't physically carried a single ticket on me this entire trip. It's all electronic. The woman believed me, but she ended up asking me a million other questions to see what my story was and how legitimate I seemed. In short I ended up telling her about my research, where all I had travelled to, and even how much money I had left. By the end I was thinking she was about to ask me for my phone number or hand in marriage - after all, who wouldn't want to be with a world traveller with X amount of money left who knows all about the effects of Wind Turbines on Breeding Grassland birds?! - but no, that didn't happen. Your loss Riddler.
My brief stint in London was on purpose. I've already seen a decent amount of London on a previous trip, so I felt no great urge to lose so much money to the British Pound. Although the exchange rate is MUCH better than it was last time I visited. Sometimes lady luck pays me a visit on this trip. Such was the case in London because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. 2 days in London in the first half of April - 20 degrees C and nary a cloud in the sky. I spent nearly an entire day smelling the flowers and enjoying the sunshine in Hyde Park. Doesn't get much better than that. It was very weird being in London. Hearing English everywhere I went, being able to comfortably communicate with everyone (ordering food, asking for directions), watching the news, etc. etc. It has been a loooong time since I've been in place like that.
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| Cherry Blossoms in Hyde Park, London |
So Belgium huh? What can I say? More Beer, more chocolate, and the proud inventors of fries! Why they hell we call them "French" is beyond me. But maybe you don't - maybe you switched to "Freedom Fries" when that was all the rave. I think that rave lasted about the time length it took to report the story of people wanting to call it "Freedom Fries." In actuality, I've been doing fairly normal activities again, so I can't enlighten you with crazy tales of adventure and debauchery. Staying with my friend and his girlfriend, going to a movie tonight, eating lunch with his entire family tomorrow, playing video games, uploading 40 million new photos on facebook (actually didn't take as long as I expected), walking their dog, seeing the city, blah blah blah. We have planned one fairly exciting activity however. On Sunday we'll be going to the Beach to race in these little cars that have sails attached to them. I have no idea what they are actually called, but imagine a little go-kart type thing where you're almost lying down - attached to it is a sail. The things can actually get going quite fast - should be fun, and definitely a different experience.
I suppose I glossed over another part of my trip - and that was my 5 day stint in Munich. I really don't have the most time to write about it and it's all kind of a blur at the moment, but I will say that the NeuSchwanstein Castle (2 hours by train, west of Munich) was simply stunning and everything I hoped it would be. It makes sense that Walt Disney chose to design his castle after this one, as it was truly impressive. I got to hike around a large part of it and with each new height it got better and better. You can kind of see what I mean with the picture below.
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| NeuSchwanstein Castle, Germany |
Dinner time is nearly upon me here in Belgium. Hope everyone who reads this is doing well.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Another two weeks gone, another blog update to give. Today's message is brought to you from Vienna, Austria. In the past three weeks (roughly), I've covered quite a bit of ground and have seen a number of different countries and cities. Unless you really want to hear more some nitty-gritty details from particular places, I'm only going to highlight a couple different moments. Since flying into Frankfurt, I've bused to Hamburg, took a car-ride share to Dresden, trained to Berlin (and back to Dresden), bused to Prague (Czech Republic), and finally bused to my current location, Vienna. One of Europe's hallmarks (in my opinion) is being able to see so many different places so easily. Everything is relatively close. However, this means travelling lately has been a little more "intense" than what I've grown accustomed to. It's not all THAT stressful, more so tiring. I like to think of it as one last hurrah before finally going home (which is scary close).
The other Hallmark of Europe, (again, in my opinion) is history, and boy do they have a lot of it. I wouldn't even know where to begin... the Hapsburg's in Vienna, WWII stuff in Berlin, the golden city of Prague - the history and significance of so many different places - I was eager to discover everything initially, but now all the information is simply overwhelming. My brain feels like mashed potatoes, pulverized to a fine paste. Feel kind of stupid for carelessly walking around and simply observing an old historic looking building and leaving it at that. Haha, seems like a crime, but I just can't help it after a while because there is just too much. So when the photos eventually come out on facebook, I apologize in advance for the lack of labels and descriptions. Of all the neat cities and historic places I've seen though, I must comment on one in particular that I found to be quite unique. In a small Czech town called Kutna Hora, there is a very creepy and interesting sight, most commonly called "the bone church." True to its unofficial name, the inside of the church is decorated with the remains of approximately 40,000 humans! From chandeliers and crests, to pyramids of skulls, the place left me with very mixed feelings. Obviously eerie and creepy, but in a way, also extremely fascinating. The reason behind such a scene goes somewhat like this (in other words, not an exact account, but you'll get the basic idea). A person (may have been the pastor or person in the church) had gone to Israel and brought back some soil to the church. After bringing it back, everyone now considered the ground where he had put the soil extremely holy/sacred. Any person who was anyone now wanted to be buried there, and they often had to pay high prices to do so.
With enough time, too many people were buried there and there were more bones than they knew what to do with - so the church gave permission to some guy (I leave this as a general statement because I don't remember if he was actually affiliated with the church or not and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment) to do what he wanted with the bones. As any normal person would obviously do, the guy cleans the bones and decks out the entire church with them. In terms of strange and bizarre, this place takes the cake. Although, I have to admit, I have never been to a Ripley's believe it or not wax museum.
OK, so there's a little sight seeing history. What else have I been doing? Visiting friends and staying in homes! Home cooked meals, my own bed/couch, and free laundry whenever I desire. Truly, I have been very spoiled lately. For the record, I still have some practices that are rather "traveller" oriented. I still only shave with water, a pair of jeans typically lasts for at least 5 days before I change them, and one string of floss is often reused for at least 5 days as well. All of that was true except for the last part. C'mon, I do some things basic, but I'm not entirely uncivilized...yet. Spending time with friends is incredible because I get to do a lot of things that I wouldn't normally be able to do on my own, or more correctly, that I wouldn't know to do. In the small town outside of Dresden (Eastern Germany) where my friends lived, we spent an entire day at the local spa/sauna, another day we watched a local soccer match, and another afternoon we went for a lovely stroll around the countryside on some bicycles. Now you see why it's a little hard to recount what I've been doing. Not extremely exotic or out of the ordinary, but never-the-less still different to some degree as this is still a foreign country with different ways of living. I'm a huge fan of the German breakfast - which commonly requires one to go to the local bakery to pick up some fresh baked goods. Oh man, I'm a sucker for baked goods. And although I can do without the room temperature beer, I must admit, prices in Germany on most grocery goods and beer are quite cheap. Plus, as long as I'm willing to practice a little bit of patience, the room temperature beer problem can easily be solved with a little modern thing called a refrigerator. I know, I was amazed to discover that they have them here as well!
Another amazing food item (especially in Germany) that some may be surprised to hear about is Donner and Kebabs. The Turkish population in Germany is actually quite large and everywhere you go, there is a Donner place. According to several people, more kebabs are consumed than hamburgers in Germany. Alright! Go Germany! Haha, and in a bit of irony, I find the kebabs to be better here than the ones I had in Turkey. They tend to have more sauces on them here - obviously they've adapted them a bit to the local taste and what Germans enjoy. Maybe a little bit like Tex-Mex and places like Taco Bell. I think it's a little apparent that I'm hungry at the moment because I don't know if I've ever written so much about food in any of my blog posts. Let's move onto something else.
During the course of this blog, I've had 2 posts relating to my reflections and how I think I've changed as time has progressed on this trip. Recently, I was asked by a friend how I thought I had changed. Even though I had these 2 "reflection" posts, I couldn't easily answer the question. It's like I needed to do a new mental reevaluation. I think this time, I thought of the question in more permanent terms. I've changed, and learned a lot on this trip, but are any of these changes measurable or visible? Do I actually seem different to myself, and will some of you, family and friends, feel I am slightly different in some fashion or form once I see you again? My experiences have effected my way of thinking and doing some things, but does this directly translate to my behaviours and sense of personality? These were all questions that raced through my head. I don't think I have an effective answer for any of them right now. Whether good or bad, most ways I act, think, or behave are almost always influenced by my previous experiences and exposures. Because of this, I know that this trip has changed me in a particular way - the question is, will these past experiences be apparent in my actions, behavior, and being? I'm not 100% certain there is any way to distinct such a fine point of "being" to the time span of a year, but I think it is safe to say that this has been a very influential part of my life. I like to think of "me" (who I am) as some sort of amorphous blob constantly changing shape - kind of like Flubber (ya, I didn't think I'd ever incorporate a reference to flubber in one of my blog posts either). Sometimes change comes about slowly and is nearly undetected, sometimes it's as quick as the accidental F-bomb you dropped in front of someone you shouldn't have, either way, it's happening. I'll be curious to try and figure out just how much this trip has changed me and my life once I get back - for once I'm back in familiar territory, with familiar situations and people, well....then I think I will have a much better idea.
Quick update on future plans for those that care to know: Vienna for 2 or 3 more days, day trip to Budapest, 2-4 days in Munich (and possibly Salzburg), back to Frankfurt on the 10th to fly to London. ETA on return back to the U.S. - May 1st.
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| Opera House in Dresden, Germany |
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| Bone Church in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic |
OK, so there's a little sight seeing history. What else have I been doing? Visiting friends and staying in homes! Home cooked meals, my own bed/couch, and free laundry whenever I desire. Truly, I have been very spoiled lately. For the record, I still have some practices that are rather "traveller" oriented. I still only shave with water, a pair of jeans typically lasts for at least 5 days before I change them, and one string of floss is often reused for at least 5 days as well. All of that was true except for the last part. C'mon, I do some things basic, but I'm not entirely uncivilized...yet. Spending time with friends is incredible because I get to do a lot of things that I wouldn't normally be able to do on my own, or more correctly, that I wouldn't know to do. In the small town outside of Dresden (Eastern Germany) where my friends lived, we spent an entire day at the local spa/sauna, another day we watched a local soccer match, and another afternoon we went for a lovely stroll around the countryside on some bicycles. Now you see why it's a little hard to recount what I've been doing. Not extremely exotic or out of the ordinary, but never-the-less still different to some degree as this is still a foreign country with different ways of living. I'm a huge fan of the German breakfast - which commonly requires one to go to the local bakery to pick up some fresh baked goods. Oh man, I'm a sucker for baked goods. And although I can do without the room temperature beer, I must admit, prices in Germany on most grocery goods and beer are quite cheap. Plus, as long as I'm willing to practice a little bit of patience, the room temperature beer problem can easily be solved with a little modern thing called a refrigerator. I know, I was amazed to discover that they have them here as well!
Another amazing food item (especially in Germany) that some may be surprised to hear about is Donner and Kebabs. The Turkish population in Germany is actually quite large and everywhere you go, there is a Donner place. According to several people, more kebabs are consumed than hamburgers in Germany. Alright! Go Germany! Haha, and in a bit of irony, I find the kebabs to be better here than the ones I had in Turkey. They tend to have more sauces on them here - obviously they've adapted them a bit to the local taste and what Germans enjoy. Maybe a little bit like Tex-Mex and places like Taco Bell. I think it's a little apparent that I'm hungry at the moment because I don't know if I've ever written so much about food in any of my blog posts. Let's move onto something else.
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| Astronomical Clock in Prague |
Quick update on future plans for those that care to know: Vienna for 2 or 3 more days, day trip to Budapest, 2-4 days in Munich (and possibly Salzburg), back to Frankfurt on the 10th to fly to London. ETA on return back to the U.S. - May 1st.
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| Mayor's Crib in Vienna, Austria |
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