Food, Fun, & Friends in Barcelona

I promised myself I would write about the last 2 cities on my trip (Barcelona & Paris), so even though I have been back in the States for almost 3 weeks, here's my recap of the first one - Barcelona. On the flight from Pisa, I happened to meet another Emily who also studies Linguistics and passed the time on the flight and the hour-and-a-half bus ride from Girona into Barcelona proper chatting.

In Barcelona, I met up with two friends from the Tombs, who both happened to be in Europe at the same time as me. One (Ian) was on a trip similar to mine - 3 weeks, lots of different cities, and the other (Sully) had spent a week in Barcelona prior to my arrival. He was originally supposed to leave the day Ian and I arrived, but changed his plans to hang out with us. It was nice to see some friendly-faces who already knew who I was and a little bit about me. It was two less times I had to explain my story and also avoided the "but why are you travelling alone?" questions.

Barcelona was my "relaxing" city in that, while it is gorgeous, there are not as many touristy sites to see. I actually only had one thing I absolutely had to see: Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. This meant I had less on my agenda and didn't spend my days running around trying to see everything. Our first afternoon, Sully, Ian, and I recruited our fourth roommate - an Aussie named Chris - to come with us to the Picasso museum. It was an interesting museum because it mostly focused on his earlier work, pre-cubism; he actually went to art school and used classic techniques before eventually altering his style. The museum did have a large set of modern works based on his exploration of Las Meninas by Velazquez, which was really interesting.

On our way back to the hostel, we ran directly into a Catalan independence march. It was cool to see that the people are actually doing things to make their opinion known, rather than their want for independence to be purely an asterisk on the Barcelona wikipedia page.

The next day, we "took the hill" (Sully's phrasing) in that we took a day trip to Tipidabo, the highest point around Barcelona. In addition to great views, there was also an amusement park and a really pretty church. It was quite an adventure getting there; we took the subway, a bus, and a funincular (i.e., cable car) to get to the top of the hill. The views were pretty amazing even though it was a little hazy, and we enjoyed a beer at a bar on the hillside before heading back into the city. That night we went out to an amazing tapas dinner that was suggested by a friend of Ian's and happened to be around the corner from our hostel. The meal was fabulous, and we shared our table with an older group of Aussies via South Africa so we had some interesting conversations as well.

Ian and I visited Sagrada Familia (Sully had already seen it), which is a trip. Ian wondered what drugs Gaudi was on when he designed it, my response to which was that he was very religious. Whatever it was, it was quite a sight. It's huge and based on the plans I've seen, it's no wonder it's not finished after 100 years of work. After the cathedral, we spent a couple hours on the Barcelona beach. From there, I headed back to the hostel to pick up my things and catch my flight to Paris. Overall, it was really nice to have a few days that weren't crammed full of sights and to get to sleep in a bit.

A recap of the city of lights will be forthcoming...

Waiting in line in Florence...

The majority of my time in Florence (or Firenze to the locals) was spent waiting in one line or another. The guide books don't lie when they say people wait for hours - I certainly did. Line one was for the Uffizi Gallery, which houses most of the de Medici's collection. The major problem with lines in Florence is that they are deceptively short; the way this line worked (which I found out 45 minutes into my wait) is that they let about 35 people in every 20-35 minutes. This means you move forward a significant amount and then come to a dead stop for upwards of half-an-hour. So frustrating! I ended up waiting right around 90 minutes to get into the gallery. It was well worth it once I was inside, however; the Uffizi has both of Boticelli's major works, "Annunciation of Spring" and "Birth of Venus." They also have several other works I recognized.

After the Uffizi, I went to the Duomo. Luckily, the line to get inside the church itself was quite short, but I waited about another 30 minutes to climb 463 steps inside the Dome. The views at the top were spectacular (and I certainly got plenty of exercise) though, so at least it was worth it. My final stop of the day was a church with the monuments to many famous people, including Machiavelli, Galileo, and Michelangelo. From there, I walked up a 35 degree hill to my camping hostel (for which I was prepared with bug repellant). The views from there were equally spectacular, though I think I was actually higher in the dome.

The one thing I saved for the next day (which was also the day I had to head to Pisa) was seeing Michelangelo's "David." There are two copies of it in the city: one marble at Plaza Vecchio and one bronze on Piazza Michelangelo, which was quite near my campsite. I had to complete the trifecta. Once again, there was a quite deceiving line; I ended up waiting for 2 hours and 45 minutes - yes, you read that right - and almost missing the train I had planned to take to Pisa. I made some line friends - 2 Americans and 2 Australians from Brisbane - so it didn't seem to take so long. When we finally got in, I basically went and stared at "David" for 10 minutes, looked at several other pieces of art, and dashed out.

My trip to Florence ended with my trip to Pisa to take pictures of the Leaning Tower, laugh at all of the interactions going on around me ("move left, no too far, right a little, good! Now turn your hands..."), and hop on a train to the airport for my flight to Barcelona. Were I ever to do Florence again, I would definitely pay the extra 4€ to get advance tickets for the museums - even those lines were sometimes quite long.

I'm in the home stretch now...

Roma and mosquito bites

My poor feet are going to be destroyed at the end of this trip. As I think I mentioned before, European cities are quite walkable, but Rome was the biggest by far. While it wasn't bad doing all the walking that I did, it was hot (and rainy on day 2). Nonetheless, I hit up all the major sites in 2 days, and have a million bug bites from the campsite to prove it.

Day one was all about ancient Rome; Colloseum, Palantine Hill, and the Forum. After that I visited the square Michelangelo designed for the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius on a horse. That real statue is now housed in the museum that surrounds the square, which of course was closed on Mondays (but I made sure to come back the next day to see it, as well as the statue of Romulus, Remus, and the she-wolf and a statue of Medusa's head). From there, I saw the memorial for all soldiers and lucked into seeing the changing of the guard over the eternal flame. Finally, I went to the Pantheon (not the Parthenon, which I keep saying and is incredibly wrong), which has the largest freestanding concrete dome in the world - and it was built by the Romans.

The next day was pouring rain, which I got stuck in while trying to find my way to the Vatican Museums. I eventually worked it out, though I was thoroughly soaked mostly thanks to a floaty skirt I wore that covered my knees (*grumble* Vatican dress code *grumble*). The Sistine Chapel is quite amazing in person, but it is difficult to really appreciate it when you're crammed into it with about 200 other people who are slowly moving toward one little door in a room divider and then out a door. I'm glad I can say I saw it though. From the museums, I picked the right exit because I was funnelled to the entrance to St. Peter's Basilica so I could skip the line for that. It is huge! I was quite surprised. After that, I did all the sites I had missed the day before.

As for the bites, I was staying at a true campsite, and should´ve bought bug spray but didn´t. Instead I have about 30 bug bites on one leg and 20 on the other. The fact that I was staying in a tent and it poured the one day probably didn´t help either. Oops! I immediately bought anti-mosquito cloths (with citronella) in Florence because I was staying in another tent. I don´t think I´ve collected any more, but the original ones were quite itchy for a few days.

An update on Florence will be upcoming, but first I need to get some sleep in Barcelona.

Prague and Vienna and Venice, oh my!

I have finally completed the craziest 4 days of my tour. To give you an idea, today is Sunday, and I just arrived in Rome (or Roma to the locals) this evening. On Wednesday I was on BusAbout (my major method of transport) from Berlin to Prague; it's a relatively short trip and we arrived early in Prague at about 2pm. Wednesday was the only day I had in Prague, so I caught the bus from Prague to Vienna on Thursday morning at 8am. I spent the day Friday touring Vienna and hopped on an overnight train to Venice (Venezia) at 9pm. I arrived in Venice at 8:30 the next morning - Saturday, for those of you keeping track - and took the bus from Venice to Rome today (Sunday). In case you weren't counting, that's 3 cities in 4 days.

Prague is a very walkable city, and not very huge, so I got to most of the major sites in about 6 hours. The hostel in which I was staying was in the equivalent of the outskirts of Prague or perhaps the "suburbs." I took the tram into the city and went to the Prague Castle. I only got there about 2 hours before it closed, so I only had time for the short tour, which nonetheless let me visit all the most sought after places. From there, I walked down the hill to the Charles Bridge (a solely pedestrian and highly touristy bridge) that crosses into Old Town Prague. One of the main attractions there is the Astronomical clock; on the hour, Apostles parade through windows and several figures become animated (including a skeleton that rings a bell). As predicted by my Lonely Planet, the guy behind me said "That's all?" when it was finished.

Vienna is also known for it's palaces. The Schonbrunn Palace was the summer residence of the Hapsburgs and is still maintained and furnished in the way that it was when they lived there. The architecture of the winter palace is still around, but it now houses several different things including the Spanish Riding School and museums. The best way to see the center of the city - and thus what I did - is to take a tram and/or walk around the Ring road to see all of the typical Viennese architecture, including the Hapsburg's winter palace. I also swung by the Sigmund Freud museum - I had to...I am studying Psychology after all - which is housed in his former apartment and offices.

Finally, I spent yesterday wandering and getting lost in Venice. Maps are not very useful in Venice; they help you identify where you are and where you have been, but aren't good at figuring out where you're going. I followed the, generally, quite good signage to Piazza San Marco (that square with all the pidgeons I'm sure you've seen in pictures). Occasionally the signs would disappear, and you'd have to head off in approximately the right direction and hope you picked right. After walking the city and taking lots of pictures that look like postcards, I headed back to my hostel and happily passed out after four days of non-stop travel.

Fun, yes...exhausting, absolutely. I'm looking forward to having a few days "settled" in Rome, but more on that in a few days.

Berlin, the city with way too much history

While I knew I could never make it to all the historical sites in Berlin in two days, I did my best. Basically, each of my days was devoted to a war: WWII on Monday and the Cold War on Tuesday. This meant a walking tour with a premier WWII historian (that my father and uncle would have drooled over) on Monday, which was both incredibly informative and very tiring. We covered all the major spots, including the location of Hitler's bunker, and some more out of the way things, like the office in which Operation Valkerie was planned and executed. One of the most interesting things about Berlin is that you can tell if the building pre-dates the bombing of the city because they all have bullet holes in them. Afterward, I wandered some of the non-entry city sites like the Reichstag (which is now similar to the White House's entrance policies, you have to request admission in advance to go inside or up in the dome) and the Victory Column in the Tiergarten.

Tuesday, I made up my own tour of the Cold War sites. I returned to the Topography of Terror, a museum on the former site of the Gestapo, SS, and SD headquarters that also happens to have one of the longest remaining stretches of the wall in the city. From there, I went to Checkpoint Charlie, which is the former entrance/exit point of the American sector in West Berlin. Finally, I hopped on the S-Bahn and went to the Memorial to the Wall in Northwest Berlin. While the whole thing was cool, the best part was an artist's reconstruction of what the "Death Strip" (i.e., the area between the wall on the East side and the wall on the West side) probably looked like. They're working on an extension of the memorial - which is also an outdoor museum in its own right - that looks like it should be done soon. The major Wall site that I missed was the East Side Gallery, which is a 1.3km strip of wall left in southeast Berlin that has had paintings added to it by artists after the Wall "came down" in 1989. Luckily, we drove by it on the way out of the city this morning, so I got to see it nonetheless.

Oh, and before I went on my Cold War spree, I went to Museuminsel (Museum Island) and visited two museums. The second one, the Neues Museum, holds the famous bust of Nefertiti...no big deal.

The bus arrived relatively early into Prague this afternoon, 2pm, which is good because I'm only here until tomorrow morning. But I'll leave that for the next entry.

Amsterdam in the rain

My second day in Amsterdam was mostly about a countryside bike tour. Unfortunately, no one told the weather I was planning to spend 4 hours on a bike; instead of raining heavily and then clearing (like it had the day before), it spit rain almost all day. But the tour runs rain or shine - and apparently it rains about 270 days a year in Holland so it goes on in the rain all the time - so I dressed up in a bright red poncho and rode through Amsterdam to a nearby suburb, Amstelveen. On the way, we saw one of only 8 remaining windmills in the Amsterdam area (out of thousands), visited a small farm that makes gouda cheese and wooden clogs, and rode back through the area below sea-level (called a poulder) that is created by a dike. Other than the fact that it wouldn't stop raining on us and my hands got quite cold, I really enjoyed it. Obviously, I'm thrilled to have purchased some authentic Amsterdam gouda (and am trying my hardest not to break it open until I get back to the States); it was also really cool to get outside the city and see the countryside. Mostly, I'm just seeing the European countryside through the window of a bus - when I'm awake that is - so it was good to see it in person.

After a short nap, I spent the evening wandering some of the areas of Amsterdam I had missed thus far. I found a small restaurant in one of the major shopping districts and had a savory pancake for dinner. I don't know if this is true everywhere in the country, but pancakes seem to be the Netherlands' answer for crepes.

I'm currently in Berlin and will try to update about my adventures here tomorrow. I do want to mention, however, one of the most interesting highway rest stops I have ever seen. About 2 hours outside of Berlin, we stopped at a plaza that used to be a checkpoint between East and West Germany. Many of the buildings were left standing, and there is a free museum dedicated to explaining what went on there. It was all in German, but I got my hands on an English copy of the guide after wandering the place. The strangest thing was a lookout bridge with an officer's eyes that said something like "See you." All in all, kind of creepy but also the kind of thing you might only find at a rest stop in Germany.

And so it begins...

My European adventure began with 4 countries in 2 days. I arrived in London Wednesday morning at 10:30am (local time). After navigating the Underground to the King's Cross/St. Pancras Station, I took a 16:02 Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris - all without going outside because it was raining and I wanted nothing to do with it. So, that was two countries on the 22nd. I was in Paris for all of 13 hours before I hopped on the BusAbout bus (my major form of transportation for this trip) and headed off to Amsterdam via Bruges, Belgium; that makes two additional countries for the 23rd. Thus, I hit 4 countries in total in my first 2 days.

Although I didn't stay in Belgium, I did get to experience real Belgian fries. Basically, this meant a heaping portion that fell out of the container they were meant to stay in and a huge blob of mayonnaise on top of that. Delicious, but not exactly good for me. Overall, the bus ride wasn't too painful; EU law requires bus drivers to stop driving every 2-3 hours, so we had fairly frequent stops to stretch our legs. My body still has absolutely no idea what time it is because I didn't sleep much on the plane to London and then passed out on the Eurostar, so my response to a moving vehicle was to fall asleep almost immediately. I finally got a somewhat normal night's sleep last night, so I'm hoping I'm back on a regular schedule now.

Today was my first chance to be a tourist, and I took full advantage of it despite the downpour 15 minutes after I left the hostel. First, I went to the Anne Frank Huis, which is the actual house in which the Frank family was hidden. It was a really fascinating place; having read her diary in 8th grade, it really brings a lot of what she taked about to life. You have to climb some really steep staircases (like most are in Amsterdam) but you get to see the secret living space of the Frank's highlighted by quotes from Anne's diary. After that, I took the tram (the major mode of transportation in Amsterdam) back toward my hostel and went to the Van Gogh museum. I waited in a much longer line to get in, but it was well worth it. The museum is well laid out, with lots of interesting text to accompany Van Gogh's works. I also enjoyed that it was not soley his work; they also have works of those predecessors that inspired him as well as the contemporaries he worked with that influenced his style (i.e., Gaugin, Seurat, Pissaro, and Toulousse-Latrec). Finally, I headed to the old Heineken brewery for the "Heineken Experience." Basically, it's a - mostly - self-guided tour of the brewing process, followed by some sampling of the wares. Overall, lots of fun, though I'm quite ready for a nap.

Most of my fears about this trip no longer exist after today. Though I was a bit confused by the Tram lines at first and don't speak a word of Dutch, I managed to get around just fine. Finding hostels is always the most difficult part because they are often on small sidestreets that are unmarked on maps. I eventually found both, however, though I did get a little lost in the process. Anyway, I'll stop rambling on now; time for a nap perhaps?