almostentirelylost-blog - Tumblr blog

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Teatro Olímpico, Vicenza

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Not travel related, but hilarious and awesome.

Today on “rules of English language I didn’t realise were a thing until someone pointed it out”

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Farewell, Trieste. I'll be back again someday

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La Forza Della Destino

Part I:  The Slacker

 That's me.  I've been slacking.  I think the last thing I wrote was about Salzburg?  That being said, I do have a lot to write about now!  So let's see, I left off in Salzburg, which would mean that the next part is Munich!

Part II:  Munich!

 What a city.  I love that city, and I will without a doubt be returning.  I don't know if I've made this clear yet or not, but I have this really terrible habit of booking my hotel/airbnb the day I'm arriving.  This entire trip has been totally spontaneous, and usually I don't decide on where to go next until the day I want to leave.  Munich was a little premeditated, just that I had a general sort of idea that I wanted to go there at some point.  So while I was on the train from Salzburg to Munich, I booked an airbnb and got a prompt message from the host; " Sorry, not expect to book tonight.  At work until 1900 ".  This meant that I wouldn't be able to drop off my luggage until later on, so I did the only reasonable thing in my situation, and got completely lost in Munich with all of my possessions on me.  There are certain folks that would murder me if they knew I did that, but they also don't have access to internet (don't tell them).  That was a grand adventure, but not nearly so bad as it might sound.  Munich is a very polite, very pretty place.  Lots of parks and open spaces with trees to sit under, grass, and even a canal that has re-routed a substantial amount of water into a park called the English Gardens.  The English Gardens will have a part to themselves later on.  I eventually decided that my feet hurt and because of that I deserved lunch and a beer.  I found those things.  Standard German fare, nothing special to report, with a half litre of Augustiner Brau.  They're everywhere, by the way, the Augustine monks.  They've seemingly monopolized the monastary based commercial brewing business.  Okay, let's see if I can remember this timeline.  Today is Thursday, the 15th of June.  I got into Munich on... the 9th of June.  Yes that's right, I got into Munich on a Friday.  Okay, so now that's all sorted, the story can go on.    The place I ate at was called Zum Durnbrau.  Standard beer hall, standard beer food, standard German social standards in that you have to talk to other people because there are only long, wooden tables with long, wooden benches.  There weren't many people there, though I did get to talking to a couple from Koln, who were interested in my t-shirt.  Well, metal discussions and beer go hand in hand like a dictatorship goes with oppression.  The point of that being that they both usually spiral downward and out of control.  One beer turned into several, three people turned into fifteen, and we had ourselves a riotous good time.  By that time I really should have been getting to my airbnb, to drop my things off at the very least.  I did no such thing, and instead continued looking for things that would be fun to see.  Altstadt Munich is super touristy, so it's hard to get out of the hordes of people, and even when you do you barely hear German.  But I wasn't really there for the people, I was there for the sake of seeing sights, and nothing better for that than ancient Catholic cathedrals.  I've been consistently visiting churches in every city I go to, and for good reasons too.  A lot of these churches are older than the USA.  You simply don't see that in the US, because it doesn't exist, because it couldn't have existed since that country is still more or less a baby on the global level.  The paintings inside are exceptionally beautiful, the organs are consistently these grand, arching masterpieces of human ingenuity, and the alters are serene, quiet and emanant of a time long past.  The Frauenkirche was no exception.  Got my sightseeing itch taken care of, sent my airbnb host a message, and went on my way.  Subways (u-bahn) are sometimes the most convoluted systems of transportation.  Effective, of course, once you figure them out and usually they're far more simple than first impressions would lead to believe.  I've gotten pretty good at them.    My host was extremely kind, and so was his girlfriend.  I don't think I could pronounce their names if my life depended on it, but that's alright.  Just a really relaxed Indian couple that were in Munich to finish their degrees.  They were astounded that I wanted to go back out, and had really only shown up to drop my luggage off, shower, and change.  Fifteen minutes later and I was back out the door, on my way to a metal bar that a friend had recommended to me.  Met some people, had some drinks, listened to some metal, and then made my merry way back to the airbnb for bed.  The next day was gonna' be a big one.  The next day was definitely a big one.  I headed back into the city and first just found myself something to eat and a bottle of juice, things to keep me going while I walked.  Then I just explored the city.  For those that don't know, Munich is host to the world's largest and most notorious beergardens, as well as Oktoberfest.  Well, not just Oktoberfest, but various other beer related parties and holidays.  So after seeing some of the major landmarks around, like the Sendlinger Tor, Das Bayerisches Hof, and the Victuals Market (Saturday morning market with everything you could possibly imagine).  The Sendlinger Tor is more or less just the ancient old gate to the city.  It's huge, it's made out of rocks, and it has something unreadable engraved on it in Latin.  Das Bayerisches Hof is now more or less a really impressive hotel, though it's been around forever too and has hosted some very prominent people (supposedly), and I'm sure has been a drunken riot at some point or another during Oktoberfest (read: every Oktoberfest).    The Victuals Market was everything from a market for locals to buy their weekly fresh produce from outlying farms, to tourists discovering the wonders of Munchener Weisswurst.  Weisswurst is a white sausage with little bits of chives (I think) in it.  I couldn't tell you how it's made, or what it's made of, but I can tell you that it's delicious, that you should peel the skin off, and that you should smother it in whole grain sweet mustard.  That's a South German delicacy.  Maybe not delicacy, but it's delicious.  I also found some Turkish Delights, which are these bizarre jelly cubes covered in powdered coconut, I don't really know anything about them, but they were stupid expensive and way too addictive.  I promise I only ate two.  Anyways, I didn't have lunch because I didn't really need to.  The Victuals Market was loaded with folks giving out samples of their wares, so I sampled my way from one end of the market to the other, and then found myself a nice tree in the English Gardens to have a nap under.  Like I said earlier, the English Gardens get a whole section to themselves.  They're meant to be various gardens all coming together as one, enormous, splendid nature park.  They do that, but the different gardens have their own personalities and people.  I really spent all afternoon just walking through these gardens.  Turns out that there's a place along one of the canals where you can surf.  You're not really supposed to, but that wasn't stopping a crowd of locals standing on either side of the canal in wet suits, waiting their turn to throw down their boards and hop on, to either flail and crash horribly, getting swept away by the current... or to find their balance and show off their skills until inevitably crashing and getting swept away by the current.  Very popular, it seemed, as they had a pretty sizable audience standing around.  I watched for a while and then moved on, my goal was to find a more secluded part of the park, and the gardens.    I found it eventually, an island on a tiny little pond covered in lilies, surrounded by rushes and flowers.  It seemed like privacy incarnate, and was, of course, locked to the public.  Turns out it was a traditional Japanese tea garden.  That sounded like my cup of tea, so I did some digging and found out how to get on that island, did it, drank some tea, wrote down a bunch of ideas for a thing I'm going to do, and inevitably got kicked out because for whatever reason I wasn't allowed to spend all day there.  That traumatized me, and maybe it was also getting late, so I went to the biggest beergarden Munich has to rehabilitate myself.  The Hirschgarten.  The scope of this thing is incredible.  It's a beergarden located firmly away from civilization (probably for good reasons) in the middle of a park, it's catered by the Augustine monks and various local food stands/restaurants.  There's also a little animal sanctuary right up against the beergarden, loaded with peacocks and deer, and other such things.  To be honest I wasn't really interested in the animals that weren't turning on a spit, sizzling and dripping, crisped to the perfect level.  Chickens in these beergardens are called Handl, with an umlaut in there somewhere, and you can either order an entire chicken or a half.  The beer is less flexible, the monks will only serve you one liter at a time and there's only one variety.  That one variety, though, comes from wooden barrels that the monks have to hammer spigots into.  Wooden hammers and everything.  I'd be willing to bet that their fermentation vessels are stainless steel just like every other brewery, though.  So, information on the Hirschgarten.  It can seat about 8,000 people, maybe more at max capacity.  The space around it has been cleared of trees, and the open fields are apparently the ideal place to play soccer and do picnic related things, and besides the monks driving around stacks of barrels with forklifts, there's no machinery to be found.  Beer is cheap, the food is very good, and apparently there's an old Bavarian hunter's club that refuses to let the old ways die out, walking around in lederhosen, wool shirts and socks, and hats with tufts of deer fur sticking out of the top.  Apparently membership requirements include being enormously fat, and world class beer drinking skills.  I talked to them for a while, even if I could barely understand what they were saying.  It was worth it just to see the physics of their moustaches up close, or lack thereof.  I'm developing a theory that extraordinary moustaches don't actually obey our world's laws of relativity and physics, but instead exist in a dimension of their own.  More on this later.  The last day in Munich was sadly, not very exciting.  Mostly just packing my stuff up, getting back to the trainstation, and finding my train to my next destination; Venice.

Part II: The Next Destination  Venice is hot, muggy, and stinky.  Those were the overbearing first impressions I got of the place.  Besides that, Italians are loud and hard to understand.  Even worse, I haven't seen so many toursist in one place before.  The main means of travel in Venice are via canals (duh), by ferry, water taxi, or gondola.  The gondoliers charge an obscene amount for their services ( 100 euros per half hour) and water taxis are only worth it if you have a group... so I forced my way onto a crowded main canal ferry.  I was staying at the Hotel Rialto, only because I had found an extraordinarly good deal on the way there, and fully intended to use that hotel room for all it was worth.  The Hotel Rialto is actually pretty nice, it's right on the main canal and also right next to the Rialto bridge, which is the biggest and most ornate bridge in the city.  All very pretty stuff, if you have the rare opportunity to actually see any of it through the suffocating masses of tourists.  Dropped off my stuff, grabbed my camera, and immediately went on adventure.  The first thing I discovered was that Venice was the most expensive city I've ever been to.  Also absolutely everything costs money.  My grandparents had warned me about that fact, but I sort of ignored them, thinking to myself, " No... that's too ridiculous, they couldn't get away with these things. ".  They do though.  At most restaurants you get charged for the placemat and silverware.  There's autograt on literally everything, including at gelato stands.  Bars charge for use of the glass  you're drinking out of.  Churches charge you just for walking through the door, museums all have guided tours where you're charged based on time, autograt is included, and you're still expected to tip the guide.  It's insane.  I made one executive decision that day; I would treat myself to one very high end dinner overlooking the lagoon, and then I would find myself a grocery store and live like a peasant for the next few days.  I had my nice dinner, and actually managed to find a place that wasn't too horrifically overpriced, the food was outstanding, the house wine would probably be a $50 + bottle in the US... I was very happy with that restaurant.  Made out like a bandit with a tab at 70 euros.    Another notable thing about Venice is that you will get lost.  There's no helping it, the streets aren't streets, they're narrow alleyways that almost feel like caves because of how the buildings lean in toward one another.  You'll run into dead ends at canals, which is great at night because there aren't streetlamps or signs saying " There's water at the bottom of these stairs you're walking down ".  I know this has a very negative tone so far but I actually really enjoyed the walking around Venice part of Venice.  I also randomly stumbled upon a supermarket sort of thing in a dark alleyway, with no signage, that was actually very cheap.  Like cheaper than most of Europe cheap.  Must be where the locals buy their groceries.  Got myself a nice Chianti, some salami, cheese, and bread ( I know, no brains and f-f-f-fava beans), and had a very romantic date with myself sitting on one of the steps looking out over that lagoon Venice is surrounded by.  It was almost even quiet...  Anyway, my visit to Venice was honestly very uneventful, mostly just because I couldn't afford the place and spent the large majority of my time wandering those pretty little alleyways and running into dead end canals.  I did watch a gondolier fall off of his boat, with tourists in it (again, they charge 100 euros per half hour).  I went to a surprisingly modestly priced Vivaldi concierto, and spent one of my nights drinking with a group of extremely opinionated Australians.  Then I left that city behind and came to Trieste, where I am now.  I enjoyed Venice, but I doubt I'll go back there.

Part III: The Seaside City Without a Beach  Trieste is a recommendation my grandmother made to me.  It's a gorgeous little city right up against the ocean (Adriatic, I think?)  It gives a very industrial impression at first, but once you get to walking it opens up into a much more old style, with regal looking buildings and wide, tree lined streets.  Unfortunately no beach, but in a way that's nice too because it keeps it from being a real tourist destination.  My airbnb was easy to find, and I was greeted by a wonderfully friendly elderly lady named Marina, and her black lab, Jack.  Jack is the namesake for their bnb (St. Jack's) and I would take him home with me if I could.  Such a good boy.  Anyways, dropped my stuff off and went to find dinner before retiring for the evening.   Dinner ended up being half the price of what I payed in Venice, and even better.  Still overlooking the sea, though with docks in the way and some sort of enormous industrial ship doing industrial things while anchored a ways off the coast.  But still, the ocean always has a certain charm to it for me, or maybe that's just because I'm not used to seeing it at all.  The next day was wonderful.  Excruciatingly hot, but still a wonderful day.  I made my way to the local castle and was very happy to find that I could really explore all of it.  Most castles have very limited access for tourists, either because they're crumbling old ruins and are dangerous, or because some historical society is doing everything they can to keep it in as good of shape as possible.  This one was both well preserved, and open enough that I was able to see all the things that I wanted to see in a castle.  I got up on the walls, took some breathtaking pictures of Trieste below me (any good castle has a commanding view of everything around it), and then went to explore the armory and the mazelike passages below the main courtyard.  It's pretty incredible how cold those lower passages get, and humid too, with water running down the walls in places and all of that old iron still in place.  Barring off certain hallways and rooms.  They'd had an exhibit too, featuring the old carvings from the castle's cathedral.  I can't imagine what these castles must of have been like in their prime, filled with people, the royalty and military stationed in their garrisons and lavish halls, the peasants milling around the courtyard trying to make appeals or selling wares.  Even in more recent times when cannons were set around the gates, ready to fire at invading forces... I love that stuff.    The cathedral there had an incredible mosaic in it too, covering the entire ceiling and most of the walls behind the altar.  I couldn't tell you what biblical scene it represented, but it was done in such a way that the afternoon sun coming through the stained windows caught the tiles perfectly, lending the altar a sparkling, ethereal quality.  Honestly would've been better if not for the massive group of German tourists milling around, talking and taking up all the space.  I spent my time there, payed my respects to the craftsmen that had likely poured their life into the art in that space, and to the old building itself.  After that I just walked.  Picked a direction and just starting walking, for the sake of seeing more of the city.  See it I did, and I also learned how truly insane these Italians are behind the wheel.  Trieste isn't quite mountainous, but it is very hilly.  So the streets are narrow and often on a pretty extreme incline with sharp turns and sudden dead ends.  Still, everyon drives at breakneck speeds, often honking as they go around corners rather than slowing down.  Streetlights seem more like suggestions than the law, and pedestrians are constantly double checking behind themselves to be sure they don't need to dive out of the way of some car or moped.    I also found my way to the Piazza Unita, which is (according to a local I asked) the biggest seaside square in Europe.  Its charm was lost on me, because most of it was occupied by construction crews setting up some sort of stage for a concert or show of some sort. All the same, nice to see, and it was nice to take a break sitting on the docks with my feet in the water.  Sadly, however, the weather was starting to turn for the worse.  It's a pretty neat thing to watch a storm rolling in over the ocean.  Pretty intimidating, honestly.  So I made my way back to the airbnb, sat down in my room to enjoy a beer and maybe write a little bit, and had a knocking at my door.  It was the other guest that was staying there at the time, a Swiss guy named Jorg.  He wanted to know if maybe he could pay me to use my cellphone so he could call a woman he was trying to woo back home!  I may or may not be a hopeless romantic, and I also love Swiss German, so I said sure thing and let him in to call her.  We ended up talking for a while after, and he invited me to go to dinner with him since he was travelling on his own as well, and wine and food is best enjoyed in company.  So we got our shit together and went for dinner, again, extremely well priced and high quality.  The neat thing about European cities is that street musicians are not only fairly common, but also usually very talented.  The old man in a suit that started playing violin in the restaurant was certainly no exception, and also the inspiration for the title of this entry.  La Forza Della Destino

  More will come soon-ish, and I'll probably upload photos when I have time to sit at a computer for a few hours and do nothing but that.  For now, adventure awaits! Happy Birthday Sophie, I hope you like your present.

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This is for you, you book worm. It doesn't look like much at first glance, but that's a boat full of books, paintings, and cases of wine. Imagine floating through the canals of Venice with all the literature you could want. You know who you are, and I know you'll appreciate it. I hope my books are treating you well.

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I promise this isn’t going to become a music blog, but this album and this track in particular are so astoundingly good that they just need sharing.

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A great big mish mosh of pictures.  Everything from Dresden to Vienna.

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Austria, In All Her Glory

 Vienna pt. 1:  Hello, Nikki

   Well, getting into Vienna was easy enough.  It's a bit of a stretch (four hours), but that gave me plenty of time to really get over that headache I had.  Arrived and left the airport into downtown, busy, business hub Vienna.  The scenery at first was absolutely not idfferent from any large American city.  So I guess the conclusion there is that they could do work on first impressions.  The train station wasn't why I was there though, so I found myself a map, and started walking to the hostel I was staying at.  Reviews were all over the board, I had no idea what to look for in location, but the price was good.  Very good.  Turns out I got extremely lucky on that front.  After about a half-hour of walking I found the place, a big wooden door in an ancient building, which led into a beautiful, quaint little hostel/bnb thing.  

 They really did very well with it, if any of you should ever end up in Vienna I would highly recommend the Hotel Pension-Museum.  Right in the middle of the Museumsquariat, for all of you that enjoy seeing old things and exploring old places.  

 So, got settled in, got in contact with a close friend of mine that happened to be visiting Vienna at the same time, and then started wandering around.  Wandering around is quickly becoming a custom of mine in new cities.  Before I do anything else, I'll just get myself nice and lost.  There's no better way to get to know your way around a place than by doing this.  By the time my friend was ready, I had to take an uber to find him, and we immediately left (with his older sister as our guide) heading into a gorgeous, vibrantly colorful central park to find a little biergarten.  She (friend's sister) said this was the best place to get all the authentic Austrian cuisine.

 Found a table under a tree, got a beer, and ordered the classic Wiener Schnitzel.  There are some of my readers that may not know, Vienna is Wien in German, so Wiener is literally " Vienna resident, or Viennese(?).  Think about that next time you call someone a wiener.  The schnitzel was stupid good, by the way, and immediately put me into a near food-coma state that I've been finding myself in altogether too frequently this trip.  But, beer always helps with that, or so I tell myself.  So we had another round and went on our merry way.

 Vienna pt. II: The Night Life    Next stop was one of the hippest spots for youth and students to go to in Vienna.  Located in another one of the old town parks with a sprawling, lounge-like patio.  Despite the fact that it was a weekday, there was a DJ and the place was jam packed.  We managed to find ourselves a nice couch on the patio and ordered cocktails, while watching the intensely serious DJ do his thing.  I suppose I didn't know what to expect of the nightlife in Vienna, but I also don't think that was what I would have imagined.  I guess I expected more lasers and fog machines, that sort of thing, but it really was a classy, maybe even borderline upper scale lounge and cocktail bar.  

 Something to be noted about craft-cocktails in Vienna; they seem to always be very, very sweet.  Would recommend letting the ice melt a while before consumption.

 After that we went to another lounge, this time on a roof, where I got to take a bunch of pictures of Vienna at night.  Oh and learned another interesting fact; in alt-stadt (old town) no buildings are allowed to be taller than the churches.  Of which there are three major ones, which are all stunningly beautiful.  An opulent testament to the wealth and power of one of the worst organizations that has happened to this planet.  Very pretty though, and very old.  That's the end of that first day and night in Vienna.

Vienna pt III: The Next Day

 The next day I met up with my friend and his girlfriend and went to breakfast at what was apparently one of the oldest cafes and also the general meeting place for Vienna's wealthy, political, and business population.  I was promptly informed that I had to get a Melange.  A Melange, as I learned is a Viennese specialty, and maybe you coffee nerds can tell me the difference, but I thought it tasted like coffee with milk in it.  I guess there's a bunch of milk foam on the surface.  But coffee is always good, so no complaints.  I'm regretting now that I didn't spend more time at Landtmann's to explore their pastries, because the selection was fabulous.  Glass racks inside the cafe showcasing dozens of slices of different kinds of cakes, tarts, pies, and other such delicious treats.

 After a hearty breakfast of fresh-baked rolls, meats, cheeses, jellies/jams, and an apfel strudel, we decided to part ways.  I wanted to see museums and churches and all the cool stuff.  They wanted to go shopping.  I didn't get to do as many museums/palace visits as I wanted because I immediately got completely lost and ended up in this insane little bazaar/market area.  Imagine, if you will, a perfectly stereotypical European folksmarket.  That, except that without fail it was authentic and not intended for tourists.  All these wonderful smells and sights and the crazy jabber of that singular Viennese dialect made for a fantastic afternoon, even if I didn't see as much of what I had planned on seeing.  After more meandering, I eventually found my way back to a familiar part, and got in touch with that pal o' mine.  The idea was that we would go the Hotel Sacher and get ourselves a Melange and a couple slices of Sacher torte, which is world-renowned for it's excellence. I have to say, cake doesn't get much better than that.  Rich dark chocolate, layered with raspberry and coated in a heavy chocolate/marzipan glaze of sorts.  That slice went very quickly, and buying another was a bit too expensive for my taste.  So we made dinner plans (spoilers, they got cancelled) and then went back to our own adventures.  I went back to the room to change and shower for this metal bar I had heard tell of.

 Vienna pt IV: Amananth's Place

   It was everything promised.  Dark, brooding atmosphere, good beers, and metalheads.  I spent the rest of my evening there, talking about metal and shows and video games.  Because not all nerds are metalheads, but all metalheads are nerds.  Yeah this is a short section, but there's not too much to tell.  I'll post the picture (ha, if I ever post any of the few hundred pictures I have) that defined that visit.

Salzburg pt I:  Underwhelmed  The next stop was Salzburg.  A place I had heard a great deal about, but didn't originally plan on visiting.  Friendo and his girlfriendo were taking the same train for part of the way, so got to spend a little more time with them before they got off.  Upon getting into Salzburg, my first thought was " this is it? " after all that beautiful countryside with the picturesque little homes and farms.  The sweeping, cold mountain ranges, and dense forests... I guess I expected a bit more of an old-world city at first.  This is also why you never go off of first impressions.

 Salzburg is named such because it straddles a river that used to be a major highway for salt barges, built because of the salt mines nearby and also because the mountains offer a commanding view of the surrounding countryside.  The city's officials and royalty became extraordinarily rich by taxing these salt barges, and naturally the city developed more and more, a castle was built... well less of a castle and more of a fortress.  So, after having learned these facts, I found the Salzburg I was looking for.  It's all right against the river (the name is escaping me at the moment) and also built right up against this fortress-mountain.  I mean sheer cliff walls overlooking a cobblestone paved neighborhood with winding, dark alleyways and all sorts of mazelike offshoots filled with the most bizarre beergardens and cafes.  I could have (and did) spent hours just wandering these streets.  At night they were even better.  Dusky old alleyways and imposing cathedrals, with old Austrians hanging outside of the entryways to their favorite pubs.

 Really a fun place.  Sadly it is rather commercialized, and during the daytime the tourists were almost unbearable.  Also I understand full well that I'm a tourist, but I don't like the crowds very much and don't like listening to Americans while I'm trying to enjoy an Augustiner-Brau and a plate loaded with roast chicken and potatoes.  It loses some of the charm, you know?  My original plan was to spend a day in Salzburg and then make my out to one of the surrounding towns, maybe see some of the countryside there... but public transportation for that sort of thing was lacking and I couldn't justify 200 euros for a day trip just to see a lake.  That's okay though, I'll get my fill of countryside, I'm not worried about that.

 Salzburg pt. II:  The Metal

   An ongoing theme for me has been finding metal bars in every city I visit.  Salzburg was no exception, and I can happily say that Heavy Rotation is thus far a favorite.  For you Colorado readers, they played Proponent for Sentience by Allegeaon.  For you non-Colorado metalheads, Allegeaon is a Denver based band that plays a ruthless brand of ear melting prog-death metal, and you should listen to them.  Also shame on you for not knowing them already.

 Anwyays, on my way to said metal bar, I got totally lost again and ended up taking this absurdly steep, ancient looking stairway up the side of a mountain (shortcuts).  That led to a phenomenal view of the entire city, and a little Fransiscan monastary.  I figured after that climb, I should have a beer, and where better to get beer than at a monastary on top of a mountain.  Turns out that not only were they not the sort of monks that brew beer, but also not the sort of monks that appreciate people taking videos of them singing hymns.  I got kicked out, and made my way back down the mountain, found my bar, and also found that beer I wanted.

 The bar itself was dark, smoky, and filled with raucous metalheads.  Met some great people, drank some great beers, and was introduced to a local liqueuer called Zirben, which was too delicious to be real.  That stuff is dangerous, watch out for it.  Decided  to walk back to my Airbnb from there, which was... different.  That's a story that isn't for this blog though, and is rather sad.

 Salzburg pt. III:  The Airbnb    I don't know much about Airbnb, I've stayed at a grand total of two so far.  This one is my favorite so far, but to be fair, the other one I stayed at was that crazy Czech place that felt like a Soviet remnant.  The host was an amicable Salzburg native named Mike, and if you should ever visit, you should stay with him.  He is extraordinarily knowledgeable about the city, the sights, and has an exquisite taste in restaurants.  His personality is something extraordinary too.  I only booked one night, but after the first night he offered me a second night at a heavily discounted rate, stating that I should really have the opportunity to see more.  So I took him up on that and stayed two nights in that pretty little city.  

 This part is a little out of context, and not following the timeline very well, as the previous events happened over the course of two days.  Anyways, this part is just a little bump and thank you to Mike for his wonderful hospitality and comfortable little home, I would recommend him to anyone visiting.

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Guys I saw a mountain.

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At Amananth, Vienna's best metal bar

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The Forgotten Post

The Multi-Part Great Big Post

    Part I: The Poorly Planned Castle Visit

 It's been a while since I've written up a post, and that's for a few very good reasons.  Let's see, two days gone by undocumented, and still no pictures that were promised.  They'll come at some point, I swear it. So for context, I'm currently on a train on my way out of Dresden heading towards Prague, about a two hour trip, and some of the most beautiful countryside i've seen in a very long while.  Looks like we just arrived at Bad Schandau, look up some pictures.    So.  My last day in Berlin consisted of one very poorly planned, very fun trip out to Potsdam.  Beautiful town, that one, sort of where the rich folk like to have their homes for the sake of some sort of theater/filmmaking business.  I guess it's sort of a mini Hollywood, or maybe that's just nearby.  I can't remember, but the point of the trip was to go see a castle.  Schloss Cecilienhof, specifically, and it turns out that the entire thing is under construction and has been for 3 years already.  Go figure, but I didn't do any research and my grandmother doesn't use the internet at all.  

 Sort of a bummer that we didn't get to really see the castle very well.  I mean we saw it, but all covered with scaffolding and tarp.  The grounds were gorgeous though, immacutely kept gardens and pathways.  The sort of place where I'm sure you'd find a hedge maze.  Also right on a river, and I can't remember which river that was to save my life.  So we walked the grounds, enjoyed that, and then went on our merry way to find a beer.

 We found that beer at the Brauerei Meierei.  The place might as well be a museum, except it still produces that delicious, frosty, malted beverage we all know and love.  In massive quantities (three story tall brewery, which I haven't seen before on that scale), and served in half-litres or litres in heavy glass steins right on the riverfront.  We tried to take a boat tour too, but we also missed out on that one.  A shame really. Anyhow, the trip back to Berlin wasn't very interesting, just trains and busses, back to the luggage disaster I had to re-organize and sort through to decide what I needed for the next leg of the journey.

Part II: The Next Leg of the Journey

  Got everything sorted out that I needed, freaked out a little bit, calmed down, had a cup of coffee, and then hopped on a train to Dresden.  The idea was to go out there to see an old friend of mine, one Fritz Stenzel.  Well, that and sightseeing because I'm still totally a tourist.  Dresden is an incredible, old city with a very long histoy in science, religion, art, war, and medicine.  The various museums and palaces are standing testaments to these things and many of them house incredible old collections of any combination of all of the aforementioned things.  The most notable building are the Frauenkirche,and the Zwinger.  

 The Frauenkirche is a stupidly large stone church of typical stupidly large European church varieties.  It's unfair how pretty it is, and the art inside is even worse. 

 Oh look at that, I'm now official in Czechia.  Anyways, church.  The line was long, but there was also a guided tour going to the top of the tower.  A little cupola or whatever those rounded domes at the top of these old buildings are called.  the ones you can walk around in that usually have bells and all that.  That was neat, but the spiral staircase leading up to it brought a whole new dimension to the word 'treacherous'.  Not that it mattered much, I only really peeked into the building.  My real interest was in the Zwinger.   

  The Zwinger.  Once a capitol building/royal palace, it has now been turned into a museum and a monument.  It is well maintained and the gardens are beautiful with some ancient old carved fountains layed tastefully throughout.  There are also three museums there.  An art museum with an extensive collection of works from the 16th-18th century.  Most of this is religious art, Christian/Catholic, and a few Greek and Roman pieces as well.  I took pictures of the ones that really stood out to me.  The next museum was more interesting to me, since it was all old scientific equipment and nautical navigation, or the beginnings thereof.  Have you ever seen a handmade astrolabe?  Beautiful, though I can't understand why you would need to make them out of 7 different metals.  It was Czech, I suppose, and they had a thing for alchemy.  Last was a porcelain museum.  Pretty, but not all that interesting.

 After that I got a call from my buddy and headed his way, right in the middle of downtown Neu-Stadt.  Good to be able to pick up a friendship again after 6 years of not seeing one another.  For those of you that know my taste in music, he's the man that got me started down this path.  First thing in order was a beer, then a shower and change, because Dresden is hot in the summertime.  Then we went and drank more beer at a fun little jazz/blues club called Evergreen.  A Czech beer even, called Gambrinus.  Very cheap, but tastes good.  Would recommend to Euro-travelers that might be reading.  Night of drinking, yay.

Part III:  First Time in Czechia

 So far all I can say is that the countryside is gorgeous.  All rolling hills, green fields, and lush, diverese forests.  Pretty.  The city of Prague is also astonishing, as it turns out.  At the train station I met a fellow American traveler and togetherwe decided that the best decision at the time was to find ourselves a good Czech beer and some goulash.  That was more or less instant success, as I guess he was something of a foodie, and knew exactly where the best places were.  Over lunch it was all scheming and plotting about what was next.  

  A really neat thing about Prague is how big and old the buildings are, but that also translates to some very dark, confined streets. Anywhere you go is paved in cobblestones and overshadowed by great old stone gargoyles or carvings of forgotten alchemists and kings.  The city is also basically a maze.  It turns out that I get absolutely no cell service in Prague at all, so that was a maze I learned how to navigate the old fashioned way.  Czech is a pretty funny language too; impossible to understand and yet it's frustratingly familiar.  Familiar really is the best word for that feeling, where it seems like I should be able to understand everything just because the intonation and pronunciations are so similar.  I don't know, there were a lot of doubletakes and little wait-a-moment moments. 

 I stayed at an Airbnb for the first time that night.  I'd booked it on the train on the way in, it seemed like that would both be the cheapest and best option, plus I got lucky with a really central location.  Took me like two hours to find the damn place though, because there was no signage and the door was a four meter tall cast iron monstrosity that honestly didn't even look like it could be moved.  Turns out it was just a regular apartment building, and by that I mean Eastern European regular.  For any of you that have seen Interview with a Hitman, think along the lines of the apartment building that movie starts in.  Room had 6 beds, a gorgeous view of the city, and a couple of exhausted looking Australians that I later saw pounding 40's and smoking in the stairwell.

Part IV:  Alchemy, Green Liquors, and Metal

 Prague at night is special too.  The entire city lights up and really comes to life.  All those little cobblestone streets and gothic monuments turn into mysterious, gloomy corridors with all the feel and air of the 16th century, alchemy fueled, scientific center that the city was.   I won't get too much into the details of the night-life, since it's more or less the same everywhere, except that I found a metal bar!  A really neat place called Hell's Bells, where I spent a fair amount of time drinking and talking with a couple of Estonian metalheads I met.

 The Czech have a tendency to buy people they think are cool shots.  Specifically shots of this flourescent, toxic looking, green liquor that I can't remember the name of.  Not that I could pronounce it even if I did have it written down somewhere.  I learned pretty quickly that there's a proper way to do that shot too.  You're supposed to gargle a little bit first,and then down the rest.  Holy shit that was a sight to see.  A bar full of Czech guys gargling liquor and then singing some sort of drinking song...  Any case, the stuff isn't something I think I'm going to be drinking more of.  Way too sweet and way too minty.  Hell it might actually be mouthwash, but with more sugar.  Bleh.

 So, woke up with a bit of a hangover, showered, dressed, forced some food, drank lots of fruit juice and here I am on a train, almost in Vienna, felling a whole lot better and looking forward to some opera and a really nice dinner...

 Pictures will be uploaded from the hotel at some point tomorrow, probably.

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Why must this country be so pretty?

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Like a first class hobo. Goodbye, Berlin, you glorious beast of a city. Off to Dresden!

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Alexanderplatz, Kreuzberg, and new friends

 The big adventure.  Really today was a very big, unexpected adventure.  Started off nice and easy just visiting with relatives, my great aunt and uncle, wonderful people, and lunch.  The idea for the day was to head to the Alexanderplatz to see the Body World corpse museum.  That's something else, mostly just the fact that people spent that much time dissecting and plastinating corpses, and then arranging them in different poses... all the displays, so on and so forth.  Somehow it felt wrong to take pictures, so I didn't really  Just the one that I'll add.  The human body is fascinating and strange, but that museum is actually pretty unnerving.  

 The corpse museum was just the beginning, too.  Next up I took a trip up to the top of the tv tower for the sake of taking pictures of the entire city from one of the tallest structures in the city.  That was very touristy and also a whole lot of fun to do, and hey, seems that there are 15 year old edgelords all over the planet; had a good laugh watching some kid getting interrogated by the police as to why exactly he was carrying a karambit around with him.  The view up there is spectacular though, and I couldn't have possible asked for a nicer day, almost cloudless and warm, but not overly hot.  

 I suppose the Alexanderplatz deserves a little more description, too.  It's a huge city square in the middle of a lot of historical places.  It's huge, with fountains and shopping malls all over, but was also very close to where the wall was built, not to mention the big courthouses and also the Spree river, oh and an old (old like... 1700's) church called St. Marien's.

 St. Marien's is one of those places that anyone can enjoy regardless of demonination or beliefs.  Just a beautifully painted, architectural wonder, serene and quiet for the most part with gorgeous engravings in the stone, paintings all along the ceilings and historical carvings, tablets, and scripts framed all over.  Neatly organized and well... there are pictures to help that description.  The real highlight of that church was that I got there just in time to hear the organ being played.  Now, organs are likely the greatest musical feat of man.  The sheer scale of an instrument that old and well cared for is humbling.  For those that don't know, organs are wind instruments that have the capacity to incorporate the sounds of an entire orchestra in a single place, playable by a single person.  Not that it used to be that way, but now there is a motorized component used to pump air through the instrument.  Back in the days before electricity and machines and so on, it was pumped by man, two men that would stand in the organ itself and step on alternating bellows to provide the air pressure necessary to play.  Exhausting work, I'm sure, and also a precision endeavor since too little pressure would mean that there would be no sound, and too much pressure would give the wrong tone.  These two, without being able to see him/her, would have to be able to work in perfect sync with one another as well as the organist. 

 I really can't put into words how impressed I am with organs that large and old, really just... wow.  The music that was being played was masterful as well, the sort that could only really come from a lifetime of practice and playing.  Baroque, though I can't remember which composer she was playing.  So after the music ended and I realized I was standing there on the first floor, staring up at the balcony where the organ was housed like an idiot, I found my way up to the balcony with the intent of congratulating the organist on her musical prowess and also to take a picture or several of that old iron monstrosity.  I didn't see her, took one picture (that I'm totally gonna' post), and then promptly got kicked out of one of the oldest intact churches in Berlin.

 Taking pictures of and being in the same space as that organ was strictly forbidden.  That put a smile on my face, and I realize that's dumb, but I took great joy in that.  It was time for the next chapter of that adventure anyways.

Part II: Nikolaiviertel

 The next step was obviously to find myself some beer and some food.  Through the advice of my relatives, I found my way out to a really neat little pedestrian neighborhood called Nikolaiviertel ( Nikolai Quarter), I don't really know the origins of that name, but I suspect it has to do with a saint, and a particularly old and famous church that resides in the center of this neighborhood, aptly named Nikolaikirche. They wanted money from me to go in there and that was silly to me, so I just took what pictures I could and moved on, exploring those delightful cobblestone streets and staring into the silly tourist shops, and eventually finding the not-so-silly beergardens.  Specifically a place called Reinhard's, and also a placecalled Otello's.  Otello's had old accordions hung up on the ceiling all over, there's a picture, and Reinhard's was that sort of place that made you feel like it was centuries old (might've been) with a grand old wooden bar, and smoke darkened walls with wax candles in holders dotted around its entirety.

 Seemed like a really nice place to eat, so I did the only obvious thing and forsaked the beautiful, old interior for the sake of sitting under a tree outside to people watch and drink a beer.  I also had a wienerschnitzel that was a little bit lackluster, but god damnit I'm gonna' make amends for that next week in Vienna.  Beer was delicious, for those of you that were worried.  Plotting out where my next step would take me was the hard part of that lunch, but I settled on Checkpoint Charlie (I guess a pretty major checkpoint and security hub along the Berlin Wall) and set out to find that... and promptly got extremely lost.  This is the age of technology, and I have a smart phone, but that's no fun and I actually kind of like being lost.

Part III:  Henne

 I never made it to Checkpoint Charlie, but I did get out to another ancient old bar called Henne.  Famous for their chicken with crispy skin and juicy meat, as well as krautsalat and kartoffelsalat.  That was my mother's recommendation, being a place that she'd spent a great deal of time at as a youth in Berlin.  Thank you, by the way, mom.  That place was amazing.  Sadly no pictures, which doesn't usually prevent me from taking pictures, but the bartender was a rather grouchy looking old lady and I didn't want to cause problems.  After all, she was the one serving me full litres of Klostershwarzbier, and if that doesn't demand respect then I don't know what does.

 So, though I was content to sit by myself and enjoy my beers and the sights, sometimes things don't stay that way and in Germany it is such that if you have open space at your table/bench/whatever, you will usually be joined by someone or other.  I was joined by an English couple named Alex and Shems, and they were an absolute riot.  They'd just gotten into Berlin two hours previously, and were a little lost as to what to do/drink/eat, so I helped them out as best I could in ordering.  One thing led to another, and now I have two more friends. Wandered around Kreuzberg with them until the wee hours of the night, stopping at interesting looking bars, and having drinks all over town.  Two in the morning and I managed to find an uber back home, made it safe, didn't get robbed, all is well.  What a night. 

 That's the adventure, the big one, and the beginning of another international friendship the likes of which can really only be forged with beer and late nights out on a town you don't know.  Really, even the most anti-social people can get out and make friends anywhere in the world, and that's a beautiful thing to me.

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Berlin Adventures

Day two of Berlin exploration was a raging success.

The first thing to be noted is that for a tourist Berlin is a silly, wonderful place.  Mostly silly. What fun though.  I started my day off with a leisurely breakfast and then made my way to the Technikmuseum.  It’s a trio of buildings that consist of an ancient train station, and two newer multi-story warehouses all filled with technological relics of Germany’s past. Absolutely glorious, gorgeous, and wonderful.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen as much history packed into one building before.  It’s any geek’s dreamland.  I’ll post some of the pictures I took of it at some point, but it might take me a little bit since internet connections aren’t exactly a common thing for me right now (staying with my grandparents and don’t really like bringing my laptop into the city, grandparents don’t have/want internet). Anyways, one of the newer buildings is devoted entirely to nautical/aerial tech.  Four stories tall and enormous, you could spend an entire day in that building alone. Floor one is devoted to all of the earliest creations in seafaring ways, complete with incredibly detailed, scale models of earlier sailboat/ships ( I don’t know what they’re called but think like pirate ships ) That and the first attempts at underwater travel.  That’s a helluva’ thing, by the way, what the first submarines were like.  I cannot believe that someone willing crammed themselves into one of those little tubes and let someone else drop them into the ocean in it.  Mostly replicas, lots of history, and a whole bunch of navigational artifacts.

 Floor two starts off with the German beginnings in flight, along the lines of the Wright brothers, but a lot more geared towards gliders and single person helicopter like contraptions.  Oh and an intro to wartime flight and weaponry, along with the very beginnings of German rocketry.  Especially towards the end when they start gearing you more towards the next floor up, which is the continuation of WWI developments and the intro to commercial air travel.  The first few Lufthansa planes are incredibly small and rickety looking, and yet the interior is posh like it’s designed for the very richest of the elite, which it likely was!  Rockets are cool, by the way.  I won’t go into detail on the next couple floors, since it’s all just progressively more modern continuations of the above.  Wartime history is a little more detailed here than what I got in school, and that’s all I’m going to say.

Another notable part of this building is that the first computer ever built is stored there, even though it’s barely a computer and more of a ridiculously big calculator.  The next few additions are stored there as well, or on loan from other museums.  It’s pretty crazy how big 1mb of ram looks like.

 Next building is the train station, which I think was actually an old Nazi depot and train station, or was maybe taken over by them. I don’t actually know that, but it would stand to reason.  Filled with engines, and I mean like… engine blocks as well as train engines, all from the oldest models to some of the newer ones.  Just barely outside of this is a supremely cool old brewery and a very pretty little park.  Pictures of these will come at some point as well. I’d like to note real quickly that at the time of writing this, I’m sitting in a 100 something year old bar in Neu-Westend drinking a beer and a whiskey, and watching some old guy winning hundred of Euros at a slot machine.   Anyways, if trains or airplanes or ships are your thing, then this is a place you should visit.  If you don’t like any of those, then visit anyways (insert expletives involving science).

 The last building is essential a four story tall science playground for children.  There are only two things that I will point out about this one.  There are live electrical experiments to play with, and there is also a cloud chamber.

Part Two of This Silly Day

 Oh did I mention that this is a two part day?  It is, it was long and fun, and my feet hurt now.  From the Technikmuseum I wandered over to Potsdamer Platz, about a half hour walk. This is the technological, modern center of Berlin. I don’t know if it’s quite the downtown, but it sure seems like it is.  I did a nice walk around the square and then settled down at a little Bavarian restaurant for food.  Radler and bratwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, an excellent decision. I didn’t exactly intend to stay for more than that, but there was a table across from me consisting of Texans that were just too funny to listen to, so I stayed.  Nothing quite like Americans complaining about the fact that water/soda isn’t automatically served with ice.  Really, I enjoy these little cultural differences; they’re what make people-watching (one of my favorite activities) so much fun. So I drank another radler and watched them, and after the whole affair I introduced myself.  Turns out that one of the guys (supposedly) was the guy that did all the lighting stuff in the Invesco field in Denver.  Who knows how accurate that is, but hey I got a free beer just because I spoke English with an American accent.

 Potsdamer Platz is an impressive place, and the Sony center is exactly what it sounds like, a huge technological wonderland as a testament to that corporation’s might.  That’s where the Blue Man Group seems to be based, I’ve seen them before so I didn’t go to a show, but I might before I leave Berlin.  Next up are the shopping malls.

 This doesn’t necessarily need a paragraph, but whatever. Imagine the biggest American shopping mall you’ve been to, and then load it up with French and Japanese clothing outlets, and add in tourists speaking languages from all over the world, and then you know what those are like.  Also our elderly gambling friend is now down a hundred Euros, and I’m considering buying him a beer to help him cope with that fact.  

 Through all of this I should really emphasize how much I like public transportation in this city. There are three basic modes; U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and busses.  U-Bahn is the subway, S-Bahn is (for you Denverites) the lightrail, and busses are busses.  The point being that you can get literally anywhere in this city and the outlying suburbia via one system or other, or a combination, and it’s all extremely simple and cheap to do.  A day pass for all three modes of transport costs 9 Euros, and one way passes are 2 Euros a piece.  Now you might be thinking “well that’s not really that cheap “but considering how far and how directly you can travel with these systems, it works out pretty well.

 Next and final downtown stop for me was the musical instruments museum.  I’m such a nerd for music and old instruments… that sort of place are perfect for me.  They had an early Stradivari violin on display, along with countless other brands of violins, violas, harpsichords, guitars, pianos, harps… the list goes on. So many instruments from all time periods.  Didn’t know that the hurdy-gurdy is an old French peasant instrument, and I bet you didn’t know that either.  They also had one of those full-sized old Catholic church organs that I very dearly wanted to play, but likely would have gotten arrested for if I had.  The real kicker to this place is that they host concerts of all sorts with musicians from all over the world.  All classical, of course, and all in an acoustically perfect concert hall.  I had the dumb luck of timing it perfectly, and got to see an Austrian piano prodigy named Mathis Bereuter play Hersant, Beethoven, and Prokofiev live.  Beautiful music and he’s no older than I am.  Fun little racist moment too from the elderly lady sitting next to me, when after the performance she leaned over and whispered “He’s not German, but at least he’s not the usual Asian type that plays here”.

Anyways!  That’s the end of the day.  Next up is the part where I’m sitting at a 100 year old bar, drinking a delicious Berliner Pilsner, and still just… watching this guy gamble away.  He’s still losing, by the way, for those of you that are cheering for the guy.  I know I am I want to see him make it big, damnit!

 Until tomorrow!

 Bis morgen!

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From Frankfurt to Kladow