Santorini

Ah Santorini, I’ve been dreaming about visiting this tiny little island since I read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants when I was about twelve years old.  In the book, Lena, one of the four main characters, and probably my literary soul mate, travels to Santorini to visit her family, aptly describing the magic and beauty of Santorini along the way.

Pleased that I could finally cross of this ‘must visit’ island, I took the ferry from Paros to Thira, the port city of Santorini, and arrived in the early afternoon.  The hostel where I was staying was in Perissa, a beach town about forty minutes away, but luckily my hostel offered transportation to and from the port.  So, here’s the thing about traveling: sometimes you just have to throw all notions of right and wrong, normal and abnormal, safe and dangerous out the window.  Some things are simply done differently elsewhere.  For example, in the States it’s somewhat frowned upon to hop into an unmarked white van chauffeured by a hairy man who doesn’t speak your language and let him drive you up the most winding treacherous cliffside that you’ve seen in your almost twenty one years of life, simply because they are holding a piece of cardboard with the name of your hostel written on it in sharpie.  But in Greece, this is the norm, so I happily hopped aboard the previously mentioned van and trundled up the mountainside, praying for a well-functioning emergency break the entire way.

Luckily, I never had to find out whether the emergency break was working or not, and made it safely to my hostel.  I spent the rest of the very hot afternoon wandering around, eating crackers and seltzer (my stomach may have been a bit off-put by the van ride), and enjoying the sunset on the black sand beach.  I chose to stay in Perissa because it was cheap, and while it had a nice beach town feel to it, it was not the Santorini I came to see.  I was in search of Lena’s Santorini, or more specifically, Oia (pronounced ee-uh), the white washed cliff town nestled high on the northern point of the island.

I found out I had two options for transportation from Perissa to Oia.  I could take the bus or I could rent a moped.  After viewing the quality of the roads on the drive to my hostel and after my bike experience in Copenhagen, I decided on the bus.   We rolled into Santorini around midday and I was quickly blown away by the views.  Santorini is what remains after a huge volcanic explosion, and the island therefore takes a circular shape surrounding a sunken in caldera (cauldron) that has filled with water, four hundred meters deep.   This natural phenomenon has created some of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen, dark blue water contrasted with sheer rock cliffs, with views of sky and ocean on every side.  The town itself is composed of one main road on the skinny ridge of the cliff, with side streets of white washed buildings nestled amongst winding paths on either side of the ridge.  Precariously lumped together, such that it seems that they could all slide right into the ocean if someone so much as sneezed to loudly.

I had a pretty good picture of the layout and main attractions of Oia from reading the sisterhood books.  I knew that there was a bunch of steps that lead down to a very picturesque little fishing village called Ammoudi and I also knew that there was a nice little outcropping of rocks to go cliff jumping off just past the village (this latter part I actually found out from the movie and not the books).  I easily found the steps and made my way down them, the stone was rubbed so smooth from the millions of feet before mine that I kept slipping and landing on my butt, the picture of grace.  About three-fourths the way down the steps (there was about a million of them) I saw that there were about thirty donkeys tied up along the walls.  The donkeys had flowers and shells around their necks and were quite cute from a distance.  I quickly realized however, that in order to get down to Ammoudi I would have to walk right past the donkeys, like right past them.  I stopped and considered for a while.  Donkeys kick, donkeys bite (maybe?), donkeys spit (no, that’s llamas).  But, this was the only other way to the bay and anyway, I was almost done with my trip, if I was beheaded by a donkey I wouldn’t be missing out on any new places (this is seriously the kind of thing I say to reassure myself….) So, trying not to breath, I wound in and out of bejeweled donkeys for the next five minutes, praying that today wasn’t the day they decided to get even with the creature they had to lug up and down those steps for a living.

By some miracle I made it unscathed and was rewarded with a darling little town of bobbing fishing boats and colorful restaurants.  Five minutes or so was enough to get the lay of the land (it’s a small town) and having already had lunch, I decided it was time to move onto my next adventure.  As I’d been walking down the never-ending, butt-bruising, donkey-hang-out stairs, I’d been able to see a dirt path winding along the cliffside complete with the occasional swimsuit-clad tourist.  From this ingenious observation I surmised that this must be the trail to the infamous cliff jumping spot.

(Ammoudi and all the stairs I climbed down and up – note the donkeys)

As I approached the trail I saw that it was blocked off with a small fence and a sign that said “no trespassing, danger from falling rocks.”  I stood and contemplated for a long long time, like a very long time.  Here’s the thing, I’m game to jet off to Europe by myself for two months, I’ll gladly (gladly actually might be too strong of a word here) stay in a hostel room with seven other men, and sign me up to trek up a big ‘ol mountain for a few days, but when there’s an official sign from a credible source (the Greek government?), warning me that my life is in danger and I’m breaking the law, then I get a little wary, because other than the speed limit, I’m just not very good at breaking rules.  So, what to do, what to do?  Had the fact that I’d made it unharmed past the donkeys meant that I was invincible or had I used up all my luck in not getting a donkey hoof in the chest?  Only one way to find out.  Knowing that I would forever regret not taking the path less traveled I surged ahead, ready to fling myself out of the way of any falling rocks.  Clearly I’m still alive, so lesson learned, sometimes you just gotta break the rules.

There was a little island of rocks about 50 yards off of the shore where people were jumping.  I stood watching for a while, trying to decide if I should join in.  I wasn’t particularly nervous, but when you’re traveling by yourself things like this take a little more effort to decide to do.  There’s a little theory we international relations people like to call ‘group think,’ that basically says it’s easier to do crazy things when you’re in a group, egging each other on and such.  So although I had no swimsuit, nor anyone to share this exciting moment with, I took the plunge (like literally).  It was a big day of “you regret the things you don’t do far more than the things you do.”  Even more exhilarating than the actual jump was the beauty of the water.  There was a little underwater ridge connecting the mainland to this island that was probably thirty feet below the surface.  The water covering it was the clearest, most blue green color I’ve ever seen.  You could see directly to the bottom, even though it was fairly deep.  On either side of this ridge, the water became so deep that it was a dark navy blue.  I have no idea how deep it was (you obviously couldn’t see the bottom), but to be that dark I think it must have been VERY deep.  Santorini’s caldera is the same type of feature as Oregon’s Crater Lake, with cliffs that sheer, the water gets deep, fast.  I wish I could put into to words the feeling I had swimming in that little area.  As oxymoronic as this sounds, I was overcome by the most exhilaratingly peaceful feeling I’d ever experienced.  It was essentially a whole bunch of “seize the day, you only live once, all the feelings, and live with passion” rolled up into one moment.

So, now that I’m actually in the water…  I swam out to the rocks, climbed up to the little jumping area, picked my launching point, and went!  It was a swift bit of awesomeness that ended with a major slap of water and the thieving of my earring right out of my ear (probably by a mermaid).  I floated in the deep deep water for a little while (a way scarier occurrence than jumping off thirty foot rocks in my opinion) and then swam back to shore to dry off.  Unfortunately, instead of relaxing in the sunshine in a state of post-most-awesome-moment-of-my-life bliss, I was greeted by a chatty Israeli man who wanted to talk US politics.  First non-American I’ve met who didn’t like Obama, awkward…

Once I was sufficiently dry I made my way back up the donkey steps, a bit of a grueling task in the midday heat.  I’d heard that I absolutely had to stay for a Santorini sunset, so I whiled away my time taking photos, milling about the little shops, buying new earrings, and best of all, enjoying some baklava and a cappuccino freddo while enjoying the most splendid view.  Although I actually like the baklava I’ve had at home better (more nutty), it was truly amazing to watch the olive oil bubble out of the triangle of goodness as I dug my fork into it, seriously I was in awe.

About an hour before sunset, I staked out on the top of the donkey steps to catch the view.  I’m glad I arrived early, because I think every other person on the island had the same idea.  In the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Books that I mentioned earlier, I always loved how Ann Brashares (the author) was able to paint these very emotionally full moments, where the characters were truly feeling everything a moment had to offer, if that makes sense.  I honestly felt this way during the Santorini sunset.  The whole experience was almost too beautiful and overwhelming and vivid, especially when coupled with a day of intense sunshine, pure flavorful food, crisp cool water, and all the feelings that came with it.  There’s something very tragic about the fleeting beauty of a sunset, and it was very present here.

I think I put off writing about Greece for so long because there’s so much richness there (no, not financial) that’s incredibly difficult to describe.  There’s so much intensity in the constant, glaring sunshine, clear water, sharp feta cheese, ridiculously creamy yogurt, and rough red wine, but all coupled with a slow, traditional lifestyle rolling to an island pace.  There’s both calmness and passion, fleetingness mixed with eternity.  Athens may seem like it’s crumbling to the ground, the houses of Oia might appear to be sliding into the sea, but the places and the buildings and the history has been there for thousands of years.  I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I think I’ll finish by saying there’s something really outstanding about standing on the main road in Oia and being able to see blue sea and blue sky in every direction and absolutely nothing else.

21 Countries for my 21st Year

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I have majorly slacked off on my blogging duties.  I bet you all thought I was accosted in Prague and sent to Czech prison after my not so rave reviews about the city.  Luckily, that is not actually the case, I am now safely stateside and am ready to fill you all in on the last bits of my trip.  So, my apologies for not doing this sooner, but once in Greece, my schedule was so full of important tasks, such as lying on the beach and eating Greek yogurt, that there was simply no time for writing.  So after a delay roughly the length of the one I faced in the Newark airport, I return to blogging!

Greece Part One – Athens and Paros

After a quick flight from Prague, I whisked through the Athens airport and headed right into the city.  Because there was no customs of any sort I was able to get out of the airport very fast, but unfortunately this meant I didn’t get a Greek stamp on my passport (they must be saving costs on ink).

Greece is the last new country I visited on my trip and it was the twenty-first country I’ve been to.  This is a fun coincidence as I’ll be turning twenty-one in September, in fact I think I should go to a new country every year so I can keep this matchy matchy thing going.

I found my hostel and headed out to explore the city right away.  I only had a day and a half in Athens so I didn’t want to waste anytime.  After a tour of the rainier, chillier Northern European countries, Athens was hot!  It was about four in the afternoon when I left and the sun was beating down hard.  Luckily I’m a hot weather girl, so I was more than ready for the heat, but it appeared most other tourists weren’t as thrilled about the weather, so I was able to have a mostly deserted visit to the acropolis!

The acropolis was more basic than I expected, it was old (duh), it had a look of degradation about it, but I liked it a lot nonetheless.  It seemed very real, more of an actual archeological site than a tourist attraction, and the views were of course amazing!

I spent the rest of the night and my next morning in Athens just wandering around the city, in true Lindsey fashion.  Plaka, the area where I was staying, is the neighborhood surrounding the acropolis, it was bustling and touristy, but still hip and happening and I enjoyed plodding along the cobblestone roads, peeking into all the cafés and jewelry stores as I went.

The Athens surrounding that main square had a completely different feel to it.  It was the Athens that had been hit hard by economic trouble, full of closed up storefronts, bashed in windows, and a variety of sketchier characters milling about.   That’s not to say that there was nothing nice left in Athens though, the city has been there for thousands of years, there was plenty of architecture, temples, and of course, the original Olympic stadium to see.

I wasn’t even in Athens for a full twenty-four hours, but I had already fallen in love with Greece.  Hot hot weather, greek salad, creamy yogurt, and beautiful architecture and flowers were quickly drawing me in as I got ready to head to the islands.

I hopped on the ferry in the afternoon and headed off to Paros, an island in the Cyclades.  Only having five days to spend amongst the islands, I had a lot of trouble deciding where to go.  Very last minute I decided to stick to Paros and then Santorini, instead of trying to fit in too many islands or tackle islands that were to large to see without a car.

Greek ferries seem pretty hit or miss, they either shipwreck or they don’t.  Um, just kidding, but truthfully, some are way nicer than others.  Luckily, this first boat was a nice one, and I spent the seven hour ferry ride happily munching away on Greek salad and reading a book on introverts.  For any of you out there who feel that you are on the more reclusive side of the spectrum, I recommend checking out Quiet: The Power of the Introvert for some interesting insights!  At some point as the night continued, as I finished my book, and as my salad dwindled to soggy capers (does anyone actually like those?), I realized that although I had made a hostel reservation (actually more of a ‘studio’ as it was called), my ferry didn’t get in until eleven in the evening, and it was possible that this small island wouldn’t host the same twenty four hour reception policies that I found at almost all my hostels in the larger cities I had been visiting.  However, I quickly pushed this worry aside, reminding myself that there were hundreds of other people getting off the ferry with me, surely hostels stayed open to welcome the ferry guests.

We arrived in Parikia, the port town of Paros, around eleven as expected, and I walked along the waterfront for about ten minutes until I arrived at the studios where I had rented a room.  There were lights on inside, good sign!  The door was unlocked to go into the lobby area, good sign too!  Inside the lobby area the actual reception room was dark and had an “open 12:00 to 18:00” sign on it, BAD SIGN!  I plopped down on a nice padded bench and considered the pros and cons of my situation.  Pros:  Someone could still show up from the ferry dock to let me into my room, the bench I was sitting on was nice and comfy and would make a good bed if no one actually ended up showing up, I could walk down to the beach and watch the sunrise.  Cons:  There was no rest room available, and I’m sure you remember from my time in Paris that I’m a frequent visitor, I drink a lot of water.  As I was considering if there were any wildebeests lurking in the tall grasses across the street that would disturb me if I squatted there, and if I could get thrown into Greek prison for public urination, a fellow studio stayer who had passed by me earlier stopped and asked if I’d “missed an appointment,” don’t you just love how Europeans phrase things?

I explained my predicament to my new friend and he hashed through the same contingency plans I’d already nixed (no I don’t have a cell phone, no I don’t have enough money nor a desire to go book a room at some tourist joint down the street that has twenty-four hour reception, yes I am planning to sleep on this bench, thank you very much!)  I learned that he was from Denmark and after I expressed my love for Copenhagen he seemed to warm up to me and lose some of the initial astonishment that I was traveling on my own for two months without a cell phone, the nerve!  Clearly feeling sorry for my pathetic little cell phoneless self, Mr. Denmark (his name was too Danish for me to understand) said that he and his friend were staying in a room with three beds and I was welcome to stay in the extra one, and even better, to use their restroom!  I gave Mr. Denmark another once over to make sure I hadn’t missed any serial killer like traits, and after confirming an absence of handguns or creepy mustaches, I happily agreed.  I met Mr. Denmark #2, brushed my teeth, visited the water closet, had a nice little chat with Misters Denmark 1 and 2, and then plopped into bed, my bench and beach plans forgotten!

After my first eventful night in Paros, I had three more days and nights to enjoy the island.  After working hard on farms and bustling around big cities for the past month and a half I decided (and the weather encouraged) I spend some quality relaxation time.  So here’s how my days in Paros were generally spent.

8 am: Wake up and grab a cappuccino freddo (a cinnamony-sweet, cold and frothy cappuccino).

8:30 am: Go for a hike on the beach trails before it got too hot (it was about 85 degrees at this point).

9:45 am: Head back to my ‘studio’ and eat a creamy greek yogurt with honey and a fresh nectarine. Fun fact: you know how in the U.S. the 2% yogurt is the fatty kind and the 0% is the healthy kind.  In Greece, the 2% is the healthy kind, and the normal kind is 9% fat!  My morning yogurts had about 16 grams of fat and were so so so good.  I’m not recommending you eat full fat yogurt all the time, but seriously try it, you have not lived until you’ve enjoyed 16 grams of fat out of a 6oz container of tangy cream.

10:30 am:  Walk to the beach, sunbathe, read, snooze, swim swim swim, sunbathe some more.

1:00 pm:  Eat some bread, maybe a tomato.

1:15 pm: beat the heat, take a nap or read inside my cool room (yes, I finally got access to it when reception was open.  You can get a beachside studio complete with bathroom and refrigerator for 27 euro a night in Paros!).

3:00 pm: eat more yogurt, drink more coffee.

3:15 pm:  More beach time.

5:00 pm: wander around the winding white washed streets of the old town, take pictures, buy jewelry, get lost (except I’m not actually capable of getting lost, I just pretend).

7:00 pm:  Head to the store for greek salad making supplies, a bottle of wine, and more yogurt.

8:00 pm:  assemble and eat greek salad, drink wine.

9:00 pm: sit on beach and watch the sunset, consider such subjects as the meaning of life and the possibility of becoming a Greek citizen.

11:30 pm: go to bed, dream about yogurt.

Needless to say, I had a wonderful time in Paros.  As someone who usually hits cities at full speed, taking a break and slowing down enough to enjoy island life as it was meant to be enjoyed was wonderful.  I’ll wait until I give a summary of Santorini (coming up next) to give a full description of the culture and feeling of Greece, but if it wasn’t already apparent from this post, it’s an atmosphere I love!

Praha was a Nada

When I was about fourteen years old, I bought this book called “The Travel Book.”  It was a Lonely Planet publication and it had two pages on every country, with big beautiful pictures, and poetic descriptions of every place (of the type I was trying to write for Germany), the necessary experiences one must have in each country, and other facts about the food and culture of the different places.

I loved the book, I flipped through every page and read every description and longed to go to each place and have every experience the book described.  I showed the book to all my friends and family and when I received comments from well traveled people (particularly my father, and a family friend) saying things such as “they chose that picture to represent Paris” and “that isn’t what I saw in Peru,” I glowered at them, sure that I (and my trusted lonely planet educators) understood what contributes to a country far better than they did.

(the happy traveler)

All that aside (and let me just say that I still love and look at that book frequently), I remember that one of the descriptions that struck me most was about the Czech Republic, specifically about Prague.  My book said that one of the necessary experiences to have in Prague was to walk across the Charles Bridge at dawn.  Well to my fourteen year old self, that sentence, coupled with a striking picture of said bridge, sounded like just about the most magical of experiences, and from that point in my life, I knew that I had to go to Prague.  Although the idea of walking over bridges as the sun rises has become slightly less magical in my mind over the past six years, I still happily added Prague to my list of places to visit as I was creating the itinerary for this trip.

(The magical Charles Bridge)

So, before I dive into what exactly Prague was, let me just set the scene.  Successfully completing my Eurail pass, I hopped aboard the train from Munich to Prague.  This train felt much older than the trains I had taken thus far.  It definitely had an Eastern European twang to it, either from the fact that there was no air conditioning and the windows remained firmly shut as the temperature soared above ninety, or perhaps from the fact that when you ‘flushed’ the toilet (stepped on a pedal on the floor), the bowl opened up into a hole, and you were able to see the contents of the toilet fly directly down onto the tracks as you whizzed by.  But hey I’m a traveler, I’m not complaining, I dig the uncomfortable, the basic, so I sat happily and sweatily in my seat and watched the forest landscape pass me by.

About half way through the trip we stopped in unpronounceable-czech-village-who’s-name-has-too-many-z’s-and-not-enough-vowels, Czech Republic to pick up more passengers.  In a compartment that seated six there was only me and two other men (one from England, one from India).  As people moved passed us in the corridor, the English man quietly made a comment every time a family with a young child would pass, hoping that they wouldn’t come in our compartment so we could avoid excess noise and bother.

Well, we didn’t get a child.  We got the largest, roundest man that I have ever seen in my entire life.  I say this not out of disrespect, but out of true scientific fact, that I literally thought he was going to have heart attack once he sat down, judging by the rate and volume of his breathing.  He also had a certain smell about him that was less than pleasant in the heat.  After a few minutes he looks at me and said something in Czech.  I respond with my well practiced “sorry bud, inept American hear who only speaks English” (just kidding, but that was the general sentiment), to which he happily responds “oh English, okay, you are nice, you are sunshine!”  I gave him my ‘thanks, but you’re finished now’ look (also well practiced this point) and went back about my business.  I catch sight of the Indian man laughing and give him a bit of a glower as well.  But as the round man starts talking to himself in Czech and steadily munching through his hefty lunch, I catch the amused look of the Indian man again and start to laugh as well.  For fear of completely losing it, I close my eyes, turn my music up, bite the inside of my lip, and remind myself that this whole scene is actually a bit sad.  The whole event was funny and depressing and gross and I was very pleased to get some fresh air when we arrived in Prague.

(Eastern European time warp)

I high-tailed it to my hostel and then hit the city.  I very quickly figured out how I felt about Prague.  Here are my sentiments:

1. Prague is probably the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to.

2. Prague is probably my least favorite city I’ve ever been to.

Architecturally, the city was stunning.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  The buildings are tall and magical, pastel colored with incredibly ornate with fairy-tale details.  The city is split by the Vltava river, the two sides connected by majestic bridges, overlooked by a beautiful and unique castle, surrounded by hills of lush green trees.  In the looks department, Prague has got it goin’ on.  But oh my gosh was it touristy, so damn touristy!  I get that tourism is a part of any major city.  Although I like to distinguish between traveler and tourist, I’m sure for many purposes, I would be grouped in the ‘tourist’ category.  The difference between Prague and say, Paris (also touristy), is that Prague was only tourists.  Prague was like Montmartre, the only problem is that there was no Latin Quarter, no Saint-Germain, and no Bastille to be found.  Try as I might (and I did my usual fair share of wandering), I didn’t stumble upon a single place that seemed authentic, where I actually heard more Czech than another language being spoken.

So what did I do?  After attempting to see the sights, nope, someone’s camera blocked my view, attempting to walk across the Charles bridge, just kidding, I was almost pushed into the river by the bulge from your money pouch, and looking for some traditional things to buy, no I do not want a purse that says ‘I heart Prague’ in hot pink bubble letters, I took refuge in a coffee shop.  No, you probably can’t even call it a coffee shop.  Okay everyone, I admit it, I took refuge in Starbucks!  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em… Over my over-priced, over-sugared, fake Italian named, does-this-even-contain-coffee? beverage, I sulked, I grumbled, and I understood why the Czech Republic drinks more beer per capita than any other country, because walking across the Charles bridge at dawn has lost it’s magic.

(The patterned sidewalks reminded me of Lisbon – go there instead!)

So everyone, I’ve heard that Budapest is the new magical Eastern European city, dirt cheap and strikingly beautiful.  All I can say, is get there before everyone else does, I sure plan to!

This is Munich (a bit of it at least)

Hello all!  Long time, no blog, I know.  But I’ve been hopping around at breakneck speed and then plunging to a standstill in the Greek Islands where I was unable to find time to blog due to my hectic schedule of eating greek yogurt, lying on the beach, swimming, lying on the beach some more, wandering around town, and eating more greek yogurt, more on those thrilling activities in a later post though.

I’m now on a ferry from Paros to Santorini, and will use this time to give an overview of Munich, and maybe Prague as well if I have time!

I said goodbye to Copenhagen early in the morning and made the long journey (eleven hour train ride) to Munich.  A rainstorm prevented me from exploring the city that evening (this is becoming an all too common theme on this trip) and so I started early the next day to hit the town.  In classic ‘Lindsey-travels-to-a-new-city’ style, I began my time in Munich just wandering, checking out the small streets, the city center, the outdoor market, and of course, the many food options.

Munich is in Bavaria, the Alpine region of Germany, and it definitely had that mountain culture feel that I love.  In fact, I came across at least four outdoor outfitters stores that would put even the grandest of REIs (I think that may be the one in Seattle) to shame.  These stores were SEVEN HUGE floors tall and filled with every piece of climbing, hiking, biking, traveling, paddling, and running gear imaginable.  I was in heaven and spent an inordinate amount of time (considering I didn’t actually buy anything) walking through the pine-scented palaces.

A less ridiculous aspect of Munich that I also enjoyed was the Viktualienmarkt, a huge outdoor market that sells a whole score of fresh fruit, vegetables, breads, cheeses, meats, olives, and lots of other edible goods and crafts.  All the food looked amazing, and there was a lovely friendly atmosphere, with rows and rows of bustling market stalls interspersed with shady beer gardens.  One amusing thing I noted about this market, that classified it as truly German as opposed to other market counterparts frequently found in sunnier, more Southern locations, was that all the fruits and vegetables were lined up in perfectly straight rows, there were no overflowing stacks of aubergines or precariously placed apricots, everything was safely in its exact right place.

At this point Munich was doing a swell job of checking boxes on the  ‘my favorite things’ list.  Mountain culture; check, massive outdoor stores; check, markets with fresh produce; check. What is left?  Oh yes, if I needed any more reason to like Munich, it was provided in a store called “mymuesli.” That is correct, there is a whole freakin’ store dedicated to muesli, if that is not an example of capitalism gone right, than I just don’t know what is.

While traveling I’m all for trying local cuisine, if it’s something I actually want that is.  If you’ll remember, I happily dug into croissants and brown bread, muesli and smørrebrød, all with enjoyment!  Traditional German cuisine doesn’t do much for me though.  So in Munich I passed on the sausages and potatoes in favor of salads and soups and fruit from the market.  One bit of Munich-based gastronomy that I did try however was the pretzel.  Munich is famous for their pretzels, and as a pretzel appreciator (but probably not lover), I decided to give one a try.  Yep, it was pretty good, but it was just a pretzel, end of story.

My second day in Munich was Fourth of July!  For some odd reason I absolutely love Fourth of July and so I was a little sad to be spending it away from good ‘ol Amurrca.  I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m the most patriotic person out there, but at home, the fourth of July is a wonderful combination of an early morning fourth of July race, breakfast out, time in the sun, fresh blueberries, corn on the cob, dinner on the grill, a dessert that involves homemade whip cream, and hanging out on the porch watching fireworks.  Because I couldn’t have that this year, I tried for the next best things.  I put on my most patriotic outfit (a pair of navy blue shorts and a white tee-shirt), visited a concentration camp, and ate Mexican food for dinner.  Okay, so that may not actually be ‘the next best thing’ when it comes to the fourth of July, but it was an interesting day nonetheless.

The concentration camp I visited was Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp to open in Germany. I opted out of the guided tour and instead walked around the grounds, the barracks, the incinerators, and the poison gas showers on my own.  Honestly, the experience felt similar to my experience at the Anne Frank house.  Although I was sombered by the sights, it is so hard to truly understand just how real and horrible they were when the camp is full of big informational placards and swarms of other camera-toting tourists.  Even though I’ve studied the holocaust multiple times, and read countless amazing and tragic books on the subject (I highly recommend Night by Elie Weisel), I think that because I’ve been so fortunate to grow up in an easy, safe place, that I will never fully be able to comprehend just how horrific something like the holocaust was.

The rest of the afternoon was spent quietly, wandering around Munich some more, taking in the beautiful architecture and the green and shady gardens.  As I mentioned before, I headed to a Mexican place for dinner.  Although, Mexican food doesn’t exactly scream fourth of July, I felt that this ‘chipotle-style’ burrito place felt much more like something that you’d find in the states than anywhere south ‘o the border.  I concluded my Fourth of July and my time in Munich with a veggie and black bean burrito in the sunshine.  Other than some suspiciously too-light green guacamole, the burrito did the trick, and added a little bit of home to this holiday.

There were many things about Munich that I really liked.  It’s a cozy and friendly mountain town, with beautiful architecture, nice stores, and a wonderful market.  I would love to come back during the holidays for the Christmas market.  I’ve heard (and can well imagine) that it’s a magical place full of spicy cinnamon cookies, roasted chestnuts, warm mulled wine, and lots of wintery holiday cheer.

However, I had similar feelings towards Munich that I had towards Berlin, and I think I now better understand the feelings as well.  I was not overwhelmed by any part of Munich and I did not drastically fall in love with it.  Just like in Berlin, I appreciated it, but thought I could have got more out of it.  I think that to me, Germany feels normal.  I don’t experience dramatic positive or negative feelings towards it, because for the most part I understand it.  Germany seems easy, calm, and structured.  So although I left it with what I would say is neutral attachment, I really appreciated it nonetheless.  It isn’t a place like Prague that I plan on shunning for the rest of my life (stay tuned for that), but rather a place I’d actually like to return to for a longer time, to live, and experience, and finally understand what exactly makes Germany.

When you write about your travels you want to be able to convey what makes a city in a single paragraph.  You want to be able to share the sights, the smells, the sounds, and the culture in a set of beautifully crafted sentences so as to inspire everyone who reads them to want to understand the city as well.  It’s so easy to construct these paragraphs in places like Ireland where there’s brown bread, and sweetly singing street musicians, and rolling green hills or in Paris where the streetlights reflect romantically on the Seine and accordion music flows through the narrow alleyways.  The problem is that I can’t quite do this for Germany.  I can say this is Germany, the place where the buildings are well-kempt and in straight lines, where the trains run on time, where the beer flows freely, but the well behaved citizens are calm and polite as they whiz around on their bicycles and pop by the bakery to pick up a loaf of bread.  This may adequately describe Germany, but I think it’s a surface description.  I know there’s more to this country, and someday I will return and I will write that paragraph that will make all who read it jet off to this country of who knows exactly what.

Bikes, Buildings, and (you guessed it) More Bread!

To say that I’m familiar with Copenhagen and with Danish culture would be an understatement.  I’ll let you guys in on a little, not so secret, secret.  I’ve been obsessed with Denmark (and Scandinavia on a whole) for years.  This inexplicable love (until now, I’d never actually been to Scandinavia) hits especially hard in the winter when I find myself longing for snowy reindeer filled tundras, warm lingonberry jam, and cozy houses decked out in sleek, functional furniture.  When these desires hit, I usually pull on my Swedish pajamas (duh, I have Swedish pajamas), curl up with a Stieg Larson book, and pretend that my thirty-four dollar IKEA bed is a magical sleigh of Danish design, rather than a broken attempt (it honestly is very broken) to Scandinavianize the world, one funnily-named, flat-packed, piece of furniture at a time.

Anyway, why this obsession?  Honestly, there are thousands of other places I could have chosen to be obsessed with, most of those with more normal daylight to nighttime ratios, but I chose little old pickled-herring loving, bike-riding, furniture designing Denmark.  I’ll let you in on another little not so secret, secret: I’m Danish!  Okay, not super Danish, I’m not Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and with fourth of July yesterday, I was a proud blue, white, and orange (I didn’t pack any red) wearing American, but I’ve got it on my momma’s side and my poppa’s side, so if I gotta explain my fairer features, preference to dress in neutral colors, obsession with natural light, general need to rearrange my room once a month, appreciation for calmness and law abiders, and love of jam and cheese on toast, I blame the Danes!  So, I think that’s where the obsession started, I knew I was Danish, wanted to find out more, and once I did some poking around (a very in depth collection of google searches) I liked what I found!

I seriously could go into detail about the Danish and Scandinavian lifestyle for days on end (and I considered it), but in lieu of that daunting task, I think I’ll just jump right into what I actually found in Denmark and Sweden!  I arrived in Copenhagen after a seven-hour train ride from Berlin that included putting the train onto a ferryboat.  And not just any ferryboat, a ferryboat that was essentially a shopping mall.  I popped up from the lower parking lot and was in the middle of three restaurants, a grocery store, and a store dedicated to sunglasses, perfume, chocolate, and alcohol, I’m assuming there was some duty freeness going on.

When we got to København station, I made my way to the ATM to grab some Danish Kroner.  There are six kroner to the dollar, so it took a little getting used to when I was rung up for a thirty-eight kroner latte.  And for you math wizzes out there, yes you are correct, a latte in Denmark will cost you six and a half US dollars, an alternative title to this post could have been ‘Scandinavia stole my heart… and my money.”

From the train station I made my way to my hostel, and got my first views of Denmark as I walked along Strøget, the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe.  The sun was shining, the entire world was whizzing around on bicycles, Europeans were actually wearing shorts (!), and I felt myself falling into Scandinavian heaven.  What struck me immediately were the things I was not expecting though, the architecture was different than I imagined, there was more brick, more brightly painted buildings, and more rooftops shaped in those little wavy cone shapes that I saw in Amsterdam.  (Poppy, do these have an official architectural name?).  Another thing that I was not expecting was to feel as relaxed as I did right away.  I was expecting the young people of Copenhagen, with their grey colored clothing, beautiful blond hair, and hip glasses, to give off that same overwhelming coolness that I found in Paris, the “we know you are not part of the Copenhagen club” attitude.  But, I found none of that.  Even with my big backpack, I comfortably made my way down the street, no glares of judgment coming my way.  Another thing the Scandinavians like:  equality, and yep I got a taste of that right away!

I spent the evening wandering around the area, especially delighted by the colorful buildings of Nyhavn, and the docks where all the Danes were out enjoying the sunshine and swigging Carlsberg.  Which, in case you didn’t know (and personally I’m pretty sick of this slogan at this point) is “probably the best beer in the world.”

The next morning, I got up and decided it was time to be Danish!  I dressed in some neutral colors (the only colors I packed), ate a pastry (it cost six dollars), and set off to rent a bike.  Even with the storm clouds looming I decided that this was a ‘must do’ experience if I wanted to fully immerse myself in the Scandinavian lifestyle.  I eagerly picked out a nice (neutral colored) cruiser and hopped aboard.  It took maybe all of half a block to realize that I, in fact, did not like riding a bike in Copenhagen.  Let me first provide some background, I am quite a good bike rider.  I come from a very bike happy part of the world, I’ve been riding a bike since I was probably three or four years old, I usually adapt easily to new bikes (I borrowed bikes from both host families in the Pyrenees and the Loire), and have been dragged on numerous longer rides with the queen and king of cycling (my parents.)

So, why the trouble?  First problem, I decided to hop up from the bike lane to the sidewalk to adjust my seat and attempted to ride the bike over the inch high curb.  Mr. Scandinavian bike did not like this and I kid you not, threw me over the front, where I luckily (but unflatteringly) caught myself at the last moment.  A one-inch bump!  Um, in Oregon, we ride our bike up and down whole curbs!  Second problem, the fact that Copenhagen is such a bike friendly city!  Now, you’re probably thinking, “What the heck Lindsey, that’s the stupidest problem I’ve ever heard.”  But hear me out, when everyone bikes everywhere, there is a very specific set of bike standards that everyone follows.  If you don’t know them, you run the risk of running someone over, or getting run over, which may or may not have happened to me.  It’s like going to Australia and thinking you’ll immediately understand how to drive on the left side of the road, just because you know how to drive.  So, after another ten minutes biking around, I decided I was through, parked my bike for the day, and then walked it all the way back to the bike shop at the end of the day.  Although I clearly did not enjoy my biking experience, I promise Copenhagen would be a great place to bike if you were less of a wimp than me and if you familiarized yourself with biking customs before you set off.  So to commemorate my awesome bike adventure, I bought myself an “I bike KBH” tee-shirt, more out of sheer irony than anything else.

I spent the next few hours trying to find some shoes to replace a pair that had gotten waterlogged in Ireland, but after realizing I wouldn’t find a pair for less than eighty dollars (even thought the same pair cost forty dollars in the states), and after getting completely deluged by rain, I retreated to my hostel and munched on some Danish candy while trying to dry out.  Dinner of anything other than a street cart sandwich or savory pastry was pretty much out of the question due to the price.  However, my grandma had given me a little money to treat myself to a few nice meals during my trip, so I decided that this was a good time to take advantage of that.  I headed to a raw food café, called Raw 42, that my guidebook had praised and had an amazing avocado and tomato salad, spinach, apple, and kiwi juice, and a sesame vanilla cookie.  It was absolutely delicious, and if I’d had another twenty-five bucks to slap down on one meal, I would have come back the next night and tried something else!

(This is not raw food.  This is a very buttery, baked, delicious danish pastry)

I was really hoping to get to Stockholm during this trip, but by the time I made it to Copenhagen had to admit that logistically it just wasn’t going to happen.  However, I realized that Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden, was just a 40 minute train ride away, and with one travel day left over on my Eurail pass, I decided to up my country count and check out a new place.  I loved Malmö, it almost felt like I loved it more than Copenhagen, but I think that this was just that I knew so much about Copenhagen and was already expecting it to be awesome, so I couldn’t be properly wowed by it.  Malmo was lovely, the people were amazingly friendly, the buildings were colorful, but without brick (how I’d imagined Copenhagen to be), there were more coffee shops than I’d ever seen in my life (I’ve heard the Swedes drink more coffee than the people of any other country), and there was a plethora of cute shops featuring cute things with cute Scandinavian designs.  If Copenhagen is the hip, edgier (though it is so so far from edgy) side of Scandinavia, Malmö is the sight of Swedish perfection, plucked directly from the pages of an IKEA catalogue.

(Malmö, Sweden)

Though tired from walking around all day, I knew I had to take advantage of another sunny evening, and headed straight to the Tivoli gardens when I got back to Copenhagen.  The Tivoli gardens are the ‘theme park attraction’ of Copenhagen, but being Copenhagen, these gardens bear little resemblance to any notion of ‘theme park’ that one may have.  The gardens are truly magical, full of beautiful flowers, plants, peacocks, unique buildings (a taj mahal look alike), canals, eateries, and rides.  The best way I can describe the gardens is to say this:  Imagine that place you went to (theme park, store, playground, whatever) when you were little that seemed like the most magical place on earth.  That place though, that when you returned to as a grown up, had lost its magic and seemed a little faded or cheesy.  The Tivoli gardens have that same feeling of youthful magic, except it still exists for adults, and I saw children, young people, and old people all enjoying the gardens.

Though Copenhagen is not a large city, nor one brimming with attractions, I felt as though there was more that I wanted to see and decided to prolong my visit an extra night.  My extra day started with a trip over the river to see the area of Christianshavn.  I first headed to Christiana, which is an alternative community in Denmark that is an autonomous neighborhood regulated by special law.  Christiana has a hippie commune-esque feel of the pot-smoking, anarchy loving type not uncommon to my hometown, where drugs, dreadlocks, and graffiti art run rampant.  Although I know a lot of people who would think this place was nothing short of perfection, I’m going to announce my granny status now, and say that I left quickly to enjoy the quaint streets of quiet law abiders.  I then headed to the opera house and it was quite a sight.  I’m pretty sure that overhanging part is called a cantilever (again, correct me if I’m wring poppy), and let’s just say that that’s a darn impressive cantilever.

The rest of the day was spent drinking expensive coffee and wandering the trendy streets and admiring the darling flower adorned houses and quaint shops in Vesterbro a d Frederiksberg.  These areas definitely did the ‘Denmark of my imagination’ justice.  For dinner I decided to enjoy my most Danish experience to boot and got some smørrebrød (pronounced smaar-bhro) to go.  Smørrebrød literally means butter on bread and is basically an open faced sandwich.  You take a piece of Danish rye bread (a dense chewy bread, nothing like American rye bread), spread it with butter, and put on a whole host of toppings and sauces, such as smoked salmon, pickled herring, eggs, potatoes, and more.  I settled on an eggy-shrimpy piece, and a goat-cheesy, cucumbery, oniony piece, and headed down to the river to enjoy it and a Carlsberg in the sun.  This was one of those really lovely, all-is-right-in-the-world experiences and when I finished my smørrebrød, I walked down the street drinking my beer, because in Denmark you can do this, and to my granny-statues self, I felt like a true rebel.

And so ended my time in Denmark.  I put off writing this post because I had so much to say about this tiny little area of the world, and even though I’ve rambled on for quite a while now, feel like I could talk for quite a while longer on this place.  Since I don’t think I’ll manage to get all my feelings out, let me try to wrap up my thoughts on Scandinavia with these last words.

I love this place, just as I expected to.  This place of calm and quiet, of pure local ingredients, of neutral colors and natural beauty, of bicycles and bread, of hours of arctic sunlight.  It’s a beautiful and kind area of the world, and the people who live there are indeed very fortunate.

I Went to Berlin

(This building is cleverly title ‘The Old Museum’)

From what I learned during my time in Berlin, the Germans are very logical people and enjoy giving things very logical names.  I therefore titled this blog in the appropriate German fashion to clearly state exactly where I was. I suppose the extended German title would be ‘I was in Berlin, where I walked around a lot, took pictures of important historical sights, bought some peanut butter, ate paella, and got rained on.

The End.

Just Kidding.

This snarkiness must be a rebellious outburst after dealing with so much German strictness.  Just kidding, again.

So, now onto actual blogging.  I left Dublin after an amazing breakfast of brown bread toast (it’s even better warm!) and jetted off to Berlin.  I arrived in the evening and made my way to the hostel, navigating the not-incredibly clearly marked U-Bahn and S-Bahn to get there.  I stayed at the Circus Hostel in Rosenthaler Platz and it was really nice.  It was centrally located and big and clean, with a good and cheap breakfast.  It actually felt more like a hotel than a hostel.  While I wouldn’t want to stay in hostels like this all the time, this one had nothing on the atmosphere of my hostel in Belfast, it was nice to have a plush place to hang for a bit.  Although my guidebook said that food in Berlin was cheap (and it was), none of the suggestions it gave sounded very stellar (bratwurst anyone?) So I headed to a grocery store to grab some supplies for dinner.  I may have mentioned before that I absolutely love going to grocery stores in other countries, it’s so much fun to see the types of things they carry.  I popped into Bio Company, an organic grocery store, and was delighted at what I found.  Rows upon rows of organic yogurt, nut butters, produce, and cereals (muesli heaven, why has muesli not caught on in the states?!).  Already stoked on the German grocery store scene I grabbed some ingredients and enjoyed dinner back at my hostel.

The next morning I was ready to tackle Berlin.  I’d read about the main sights in my book, knew what I wanted to see, and had done my usual pre-excursion map overview to get my bearings.  After walking for all of thirty minutes I realized that I wasn’t going to understand this city on my own (or at least without whipping out my guidebook every half-block) and returned to my hostel to join the free walking tour.  I’d taken one of these in Amsterdam and it was awesome, so I had high hopes for this tour as well, and was not disappointed.  The tour was given by a young English-German woman who had been doing them for nine years.  We walked for about three and a half hours and saw and learned the history of all the main sights: Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag, Hitler’s bunker, the memorial of the murdered Jews, etc.  This tour was awesome because not only did I learn about all the history of the buildings and the events that had occurred in Berlin, I also learned some of the lesser known facts and surprises of the city as well.  For example, what now stands at checkpoint Charlie is one hundred percent not historical.  It’s simply a tourist attraction that bears zero resemblance to the actual checkpoint.  In front of the checkpoint there’s a big sign of and American soldier informing you that you’re entering the American sector.  In the photo he’s all decked out in a full military uniform, complete with a gulf war medal…  There’s also people dressed up as American soldiers who will pose with you for photographs (for five Euros) and will then stamp your passport with a ‘checkpoint Charlie’ stamp (for another five Euros), which promptly invalidates your passport.  The best part of this all?  The people who pose for the photos and stamp your passport are actually strippers.  Oh the things you learn from talking to locals.

Other interesting parts of the tour included seeing Hitler’s Bunker, it’s actually a car park now with only a tiny plaque to show his dying place, and visiting the memorial to the murdered Jews.  This iconic sight was certainly more impressive in person and the design really makes you think.

During the tour I had chatted with some of the other solo travelers and made dinner plans with an Australian girl.  We stumbled upon a little tapas bar and had an absolutely delicious dinner of cheese, olives, peppers, crusty doughy bread, paella loaded with shrimp, and two pitchers of sangria, all for thirteen Euros each.  Dear Lonely Planet, you may want to include this restaurant in your guidebook.

The next morning I headed off on a good long walk to see the East Side gallery.  This gallery is a collection of street-art-esque murals, painted by local and international artists, directly on the largest part of the Berlin wall that’s left in tact, 1.3 kilometers I believe.  It was awesome!  The art was beautiful, plentiful, thought provoking, and certainly my favorite sight in Berlin.

Now, you may have thought/hoped/begged that I left discussing bread at great length in Ireland, but alas, I did not!  Ha!  I’d actually heard great things about German bread (much more than Irish bread), so I was, of course, determined to try it out.  I stopped at a bakery during my rainy trek to the wall and grabbed two fresh rolls, both of the whole-wheat variety, one with seeds, one without.  I topped them with swiss cheese and a crunchy apple and had two nice little sandwiches.  So, what did I think of the bread?  Honestly, it was fine, it was good, but I could have found it at home, at least in Oregon where we’ve got good bakeries a plenty!

Writing this post, I realize it feels different than how I wrote about Paris or Ireland.  It felt much more methodical and without a lot of emotion (insert joke about the German temperament here).  I think that’s because while I liked Berlin, I didn’t fall in love with it.  In fact, and I heard this from other people I talked to as well, I had trouble figuring it out.  The city lacks a true city center, it’s a grid of grey buildings, harsh and hastily rebuilt, confused between modernism and brutalism.

(The most beautiful building in Berlin is the train station, with an impressive view of the Reichstag.)

However, that being said, I did like Berlin, I would happily move there in fact.  I think that there is something going on there that I just haven’t quite figured out.  There’s a definite coolness to it.  It’s clean, but with touches of edginess, surprising pops of color from impressive street art, juxtaposed against the grey walls and grey sky.  It reminds me a bit of Portland actually, with bikes galore, great recycling, and a certain hipness.

(The wall falls to Euros – interesting!)

Here’s where I can praise Berlin with absolute certainly, and perhaps this is a better complement than being seduced by the sights of Paris or the tastes of Ireland.  If I were to have children, I would not want to raise them in France and I would not want to raise them in Ireland, but it would be a privilege to raise them in Berlin.  Just from observing the city, the families, the young people, the daily goings on, I was struck by the fact that Berlin was a friendly city, an honest city, and a happy city, and with all the struggles that Berlin has faced in the past century, having these attributes is pretty darn impressive.

Belfast

As a last-minute addition to my trip I decided to head to Belfast, Northern Ireland for a quick visit.  This was more out of a desire to simply have gone to Belfast, rather than an assumption that the city would be cool (I hadn’t heard many thrilling reviews), but I’m so glad I did go, because Belfast proved to be not only historically (and presently) fascinating, but was also simply a really awesome town where I stayed in what turned out to be my absolute favorite hostel to date!

A long day of countryside train traveling brought me from Galway to Belfast and I arrived in a very intense rainstorm.  Being from the Pacific North West, I’m no stranger to heavy rain, but this downpour had me running to the nearest taxi where I hitched a quick and cheap ride to my hostel.  As far as budget travel goes, sometimes you have to weigh your options; shelling out 4 pounds for a taxi is worth it when the alternative is a twenty-minute drenching walk.  During my travels, I’ve stayed in a fair amount of hostels.  In fact, I was thinking about it on the train and figured that by the end of this trip I’ll have visited about thirty different hostels, but I found a real winner in little ‘ol Belfast.  The Vagabonds hostel is small and unassuming, but has received stellar ratings on hostelworld (my preferred hostel booking database).  Other than the standard good stuff (clean beds and bathrooms, cheap prices, free breakfast) the hostel had a great common room, good overall vibe, and an incredibly friendly staff.  There was something really refreshing about this hostel, this sentiment that the people there wanted you to have a good time simply to have a good time and experience a new city, and not necessarily to profit the hostel in anyway.

(In front of the Peace Wall, thought I’d take a spin on the wrong side of the road)

With the rain pouring down I (and most of the hostel guests) decided to spend a cozy night in around the fire.  As there was a good deal of Americans present (okay just four, but ya know, we’re proud Americans), it was deemed necessary to introduce the uninformed non-Americans to the camping favorite, s’mores (using chocolate covered digestive cookies and pink marshmallows), and other wholesome American games of the red cup and ping pong ball variety.  I think I was sold on the hostel at this point.

I only had one full day in Belfast so I knew I really had to pack the day.  Luckily the rain had mostly subsided so I was able to get lots of walking in.  I started off the day (sans guidebook or map due to the last minute nature of this stop) with a walk into the city center and around the town.  Belfast has more of an industrial feel than Dublin, but coupled with a sort of Boston charm due to lots of brick.  Union Jack flags fly frequently, and the pound sterling is the currency of choice, remember this is the United Kingdom, not Ireland!

(City Hall)

(Pounds coins are my absolute favorite)

Though I was in a different country than Ireland, I was still greeted with incredible friendliness, an even stronger accent, and more brown bread, yes!  I also felt the same loving sentiment that I’d felt in Dublin, this attachment to Ireland that seriously made me want to dance around in the streets, really I had to restrain myself.  Other highlights were finding a shop that made beautiful hand-knit scarves and blankets (Avoca) and the amount of times the word ‘lovely’ was volleyed around as I bought a pair of pants.

(St. George’s Market and Avoca Brown Bread)

After checking out the commercial parts of the city center I wandered past city hall (note that they are proud Olympic-hosting Brits), around the Titanic quarter, through Queens University, the botanical gardens, and into the free Ulster museum.  I’m a very pick museum-goer and I generally only enjoy art museums.  However, as it was raining and I’d heard good things about this one (and as it was free) I decided to check it out, and was impressed.  Although I blazed through it pretty quickly, I was fascinated by this collection of butterflies (the colors are unreal!) and was happy to see a nod to my favorite Northern Irish golfer.  Unfortunately I did not come across the real life version of Rory Mcilroy while in Belfast, as I had hoped to.

(The launching point of the Titanic)

After the museum, I embarked on what was by far the most interesting part of my time in Belfast.  I generally shy away from tours, but at the serious recommendations of others, decided to take the ‘Black Cab tour of Belfast.’  This tour, known as the nitty gritty tour of Belfast, takes you through the historically and currently divided sites of ‘the troubles,’ Northern Ireland’s bloody clashes between its Protestant and Catholic communities.  All the tours are given by men, both Catholic and Protestant, who lived through, or were active in, the troubles, and who can give you a personal account of what actually happened.  Our guide, Tom, a Catholic, took us into the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, to the murals, the giant wall separating the two sides, and to the newly created ‘peace wall.’  My exact sentiments are difficult to describe, but I was really shocked by what I saw.  The communities are very separated, the murals are incredibly harsh, and the whole issue is so much fresher than I imagined.  Although, as Tom said, the situation has improved a million times in the last fourteen years (when the troubles were deemed over), it is clear that there is still hatred between the two communities, and a lot of tradition and rituals that keep separation and hatred alive.

(This Protestant ‘protector’ follows you with his gun no matter where you view the mural from)

(A bonfire being built to celebrate Orangefest on July 12, a remembrance of Protestant Victory.  Out of tradition, there are hundreds of Protestant marches on this day, including into the Catholic communities, and this is when most of the current clashes take place)

Often when I’m at sights of tragic historical significance I feel less impacted than I expected to.  For example, when I went to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam I was expecting to feel the intense sadness and the fear that others had told me they had felt there.  However, smooshed amongst other tourists and reading historical placards about the features of the house, I really only felt the ‘historical significance’ of the sight, rather than the horrors that had taken place there.  The wall in Belfast really differs from something like Anne Frank’s House because it is not being preserved as a historical sight or a tourist spot (in fact I saw no other tourists there), it is still there very much to serve its purpose, the gates between the communities still close on schedule to protect the Catholics from the Protestants and vice verse.  Because of this I think I was impacted more than at any other sight of hardship that I’ve visited.

(Signing the wall.  My name is now beside the Clintons, the Dalai Lama, Beyonce, and U2)

Tom, the guide, did a great job.  He was funny and informative, and also had very serious stories to share with us about being fired at and searched by British soldiers, finding a bomb in the store where he worked, and about the people he had known who’d lost their lives or been imprisoned during the troubles.  As he described it, he’d been growing up in a warzone without even knowing it.  Not a day went by when there wasn’t a bomb threat, shots fired, or a military chopper circling the sky.  I’ve heard that the guides of these tours generally do a good job of presenting the history in an unbiased way, and I think Tom, for the most part, did a fair job.  That being said, I would have really enjoyed taking the tour with a Protestant guide as well.  Although it’s clear that both Protestants and Catholics committed atrocities and suffered greatly during the troubles, I found myself sympathizing with the Catholics.  I wasn’t sure if this was because of tom’s possible bias, simply because the Catholics were the minority who were being treated poorly in the first place, or because a lot of my close family are Catholic.  It was very hard not to think of them when Tom would tell us how Protestant assassins would go into the houses of Catholic families and murder the daughters simply so they couldn’t have any catholic children.

(The Crown Bar, across from the Europa Hotel, the most bombed building in the world)

So clearly there is a roughness to Belfast, however, there’s also a lot of peace and a lot of areas where the conflict is not visible, nor apparently, considered.  Had I not gone on the taxi tour I probably wouldn’t have even stumbled into the neighborhoods that show that Belfast is a split city.

Honestly, most people in the world probably don’t know the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism, they probably don’t know there are differences.  It just makes you wonder why, when our similarities outweigh our differences ten to one, we allow those few differences to push us to the point of killing each other.  These people, who live on opposing sides of the wall look the same, they sound the same, they eat the same gosh darn brown bread.  This conflict is mirrored, small and large, a thousand times around the world, is any of it really necessary?

Lovin’ Dublin

I often do this thing when I visit a new city where I instantly fall in love with it, and decide that this time I have found my favorite city, that one city that is all mine that I love more than others and that I have a special connection with.  Sometimes the enchantment fades away by the end of the day (Geneva), sometimes it’s gone when I return (New York), and sometimes it really does stick around and keeps me coming back for more (Paris).  Three days here and I love Dublin, it’s fantastic, it’s awesome, and so we will wait and see what I think when I come back in a few days…

(Christ Church Cathedral)

Another thing I do when I visit a city is compare it to other cities and countries.  What does it remind me of, what is it a mix of?  Toulouse is Paris and Rome (but nowhere near as cool as either), Lisbon is Spain and Morocco, Istanbul has its own uniqueness, not quite like anywhere I’d ever been.  Dublin, I think, is a definite mix of London and Amsterdam.  Similar to London there’s a defined accent, rainy weather, a feeling of cozyness, and lots of tea drinking.  From Amsterdam, there’s buildings squashed together, a main canal, a coffeeshop culture (except here it’s pub life), a national beer (swap Guinness for Heineken), and most importantly an abundance of friendly people, and a feeling that anyone can call Dublin their home, or that anyone can travel through the city without standing out or provoking overt curiosity about their ‘tourist-ness.’

Needless to say, after Paris, Dublin was a breath of fresh air.  Dublin is real.  Life here is slower, people are smiling, fashion is average, food is fantastic, but honest, and people from all walks of life live and exist here in comfort.  Though friendliness and generosity permeate the city, it is also clear that this country has, and still faces, hardships.  There are a lot of young men homeless on the street (but still smiling and wishing you a “pleasant day, love”), a block-long queue of people out the social welfare office, a hefty national debt, and a pension to face these troubles through alcoholism.  But the city is beautiful nonetheless.  Little cobblestone streets and brightly painted pubs makeup the city center, and there are fantastic street musicians, playing everything from traditional Irish music to Johnny Cash, on every corner.

There aren’t really any huge sights to see or big museums in Dublin, so I spent my time just wandering the streets.  I made my away around Trinity College, Grafton Street (the main pedestrian shopping area), St. Steven’s Green, Temple Bar, the Irish National Gallery, and to St. Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedral.  I really enjoyed everywhere I went, everywhere was free except for the cathedrals, and those were well worth it.  I’ve seen my fair share of cathedrals at this point, but the intricacy of these two really impressed me.  The floors (rather than being plain stone) were made of beautifully printed tile and there was a lot of ornate wood carving near the alters.

(What a nice chunk o’ floor)

I certainly wasn’t expecting Ireland to be a culinary highlight of my trip.  I was expecting lots of heavy hearty dishes featuring lots of potatoes and meat, but as I was perusing my guidebook before arriving, I came across loads of vegetarian and organic restaurants and cafés, and a little side note about how Ireland has turned very vegetarian friendly in the last decade or so.  So I spent my eating time checking out all the cafés recommended by my book and was rewarded with warm soups, veggie sandwiches, organic salads, and fresh baked bread.  I can’t even explain how much I love this bread.  Irish brown soda bread is honestly the best bread I’ve ever had in my life and I could seriously see moving to Ireland just to have this bread readily available every day.  Why is the bread so great?  Imagine delicious seedy wheat bread mixed with a biscuit.  Okay, maybe that doesn’t actually sound great, but I promise it is.  The bread has that delicious sweetness from the baking soda in a biscuit, but without the heaviness of the butter, mixed with with the healthy heartyness of good wheat bread.  Sometimes covered in pumpkin seeds, sometimes just plain, I’m seriously in love with this bread and will be perfecting the recipe when I arrive home.  If I was leaving directly from Ireland I would fill my backpack with this stuff and give it to all of you when I got home just to demonstrate how amazing it is!

(My new reason for existence)

Other things to note in Dublin:  I replaced my Birkenstocks!  This pair wasn’t quite as cheap as the pair I bought in Amsterdam, but it was still less expensive than if I’d bought them in the States.  My shoes had gotten to the point where I could feel every pebble under the nonexistent heel, so I decided it was time to say goodbye.

Also, if it weren’t for these helpful messages on the street I would have been smooshed within my first five minutes in the city.  As hard as I’m trying, I’m utterly confused by this whole ‘driving on the other (wrong) side of the road’ thing.

By law, all signs in Ireland must be printed in both English and Irish. There is worry regarding the idea that if you lose your language you lose your culture, so the Irish are trying (and succeeding) to promote Irish speaking and to make students, who are required to study it in school, more excited about learning the traditional language.

After Dublin I headed to Galway on the West Coast of Ireland.  I’d heard rave reviews about “the most Irish of all towns” and was expecting great things.  However while I liked the town, I wasn’t quite as enthralled by it as I was with Dublin or Belfast (where I am now).  However I enjoyed walking around the little town, along the coast, catching some traditional Irish music on the streets, and especially, enjoying scone and tea time.  I’ve always been a scone person.  I’ll take a good scone over a donut, muffin, croissant, or any other type of pastry (or most other breakfast foods) any day!  So the brown scones (like the brown bread, except this time with the butter) and the plain buttermilk scones were a very satisfying treat!  Call me crazy, but I’d say the deliciousness level of Irish scones compared to American scones is higher than the deliciousness level of French pastries versus American pastries!  Did that make sense? Just another reason to come to Ireland!

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface as to why I love Ireland so much.  I guess the truth is that I can’t really figure it out.  It rains a lot, it’s got monetary hardships, the fashion and the attractiveness of the people doesn’t come close to what can be found in Paris or Amsterdam, but it’s just so lovely.  The countryside is green and rolling, the people are so darn friendly, the bread is (just kidding I won’t mention the bread anymore), and the tea and Guinness flow freely.  Whatever it is, and hopefully I can more adeptly describe it once I write about Belfast and Dublin part two, Ireland is beautiful and amazing and I will be very sad to leave!

Lots about the Loire

Bonjour tout le monde, it has been a while!  I didn’t have wifi at my previous host so I was unable to post, but as I embark on these five weeks of solo traveling (I am in fact in the train station right now) I should have more frequent internet access and hope to return to a more normal posting schedule.

(Loire Valley seen from Saumur)

So, let me recap these past two weeks.  I left sunny Toulouse and headed north to the Loire Valley to a farm just outside a very small town called Baugé.  The family I stayed with consisted of a mom, dad, four kids, and an abundance of animals including horses, chickens, cows, goats, rabbits, bees, cats, turtles, and salamanders, so there was a lot goin’ on!  My daily duties were feeding the animals, gardening, yard work, babysitting the two year old, and helping with everyday chores such as washing (laundry and dishes) and cooking.  I baked some awesome oatmeal raisin cookies and a honey walnut cake, with most of the ingredients sourced from the farm!

(the petite maison where I stayed)

The family was a great example of sustainable living.  They composted and fed the chickens all food waste, reused anything possible, heated with solar, and grew their own veggies and herbs (including lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkin, fennel, onions, and parsley to name a few), fruits (strawberries, raspberries, apples, cherries, pears, and kiwi), as well as honey, walnuts, grapes.  They got their milk and cheese from the neighbors, and made their own yogurt and jam as well!  Even though they weren’t selling any of the goods they produced, there was a lot to grow and take care of and I felt like I really got a taste of farm life.  It was amazing that almost everything on my plate was just outside the house.

For the most part, I really enjoyed my time with my second hosts.  These past two weeks were spent speaking, reading, and thinking entirely in French.  I was so happy to be able to immerse myself in the language and think that my French benefited from it.  I think I could say that it’s now at the ‘conversational-proficient’ level.  I can understand most everything, say anything I need to, and have extended conversations on most subjects.  That being said, no one is going to mistake me for a native French speaker, I still think I have a lot of work to do on my accent, grammar, and ease of speaking.

(le bébé)

Along with the great experiences such as delicious food and language practice, I was also served what my dad referred to as “a little slice of life.”  Staying with a family of four kids and two very busy parents, I was immersed in a very hectic lifestyle.  I, as an only child, took for granted the ease of living in a small household, and now fully appreciate the time that my parents had, and especially chose, to spend with me.

The Loire Valley was an interesting contrast to the Pyrenees and to Southern France.  It was much cooler, wetter, flatter, and vineyardie-er.  The buildings were all white stone instead of pink or tan, and the area reminded me somewhat of England.  I was able to go to a small vineyard for a wine tasting one day and also went on two day-trips, one to a small town called Saumur and the other to a larger city called Angers.  I really liked Angers, it was just the right size, lots of shops, restaurants, and people to give it a good city buzz, but not so much that it felt crowded or dirty.  While there, I wandered the streets, enjoyed a tarte à la tomate, and visited a nice cathedral and a big castle.  Truthfully, at this point in my life, I’m a bit castled out (I visited England and Scotland when I was younger and got my fair share), but I was really impressed by the gardens at this castle.  The roses smelled amazing and everything was perfectly groomed!

While in Angers I also made quite the gastronomic discovery while perusing the grocery store.  I was surveying the meager peanut butter selection (as I’ve become in the habit of doing) when I came across a curious spread called Speculoos.  After further investigation I realized that it was speculoos cookie spread.  For those of you not familiar with them, speculoos are Dutch windmill shaped cookies that are spice flavored and usually eaten around Christmas time, I personally love them so I knew I had to try the spread.  It was good.  Like really really really good.  It tasted like cookie dough and butter and everything unhealthy and had the consistency of peanut butter.  I snacked on it throughout the day (straight spoonfuls from the jar), and then bid it farewell when I left Angers.  Although I still had most of the jar left, I could tell that speculoos spread is one of those really ‘unhealthy but delicious’ things that’s best enjoyed infrequently!

Along with speculoos spread, I also tried raw oysters for the first time.  I’m also up to try something new and generally like interesting food, so I always imagined I’d love raw oysters.  I’ve heard Anthony Bourdain wax poetic about them, I’ve read they pair beautifully with white wine, and I always had an image of myself at the French seaside, wearing a nice striped french shirt, and slurping down raw oysters with delight.   However, It turns out that I do not love raw oysters, not at all, in fact I would go as far as to say that they are degoulasse.  A few adjectives I would use to describe them would be slimy and chewy and gooey and salty and gritty and briny and sandy and gross.

And have now arrived in Paris and it is raining (think Midnight in Paris) and I’ve already got loads to say about this beautiful city, but I think I will conclude here for now and wait to sing the praises of winding alleyways, french doors, and macaron cookies until tomorrow.  À Bientôt!

Toulousin’ My Mind

Don’t worry, the title of this post actually has nothing to do with the content of my day other than the fact that it was spent in Toulouse!

(Au Revoir Pyrenees!)

My time in St. Girons ended as quickly as it started.  The highlights of my last few days included a trip to Foix (a small town with a cool castle), the unfortunate peeling of my sunburn, more dirt shoveling (the bed is now leveled!), and more delicious food (why did I wait until my last morning to try the local honey!).  I really enjoyed my first helpex experience.  I think I was introduced to more English and New Zealand culture than French culture, and the work was harder than I expected, but I came to really appreciate both those things.  I honestly (and I know this will sound weird) really enjoyed shoveling and raking dirt for hours on end, there’s a rhythm to it that allows for prime thinking time, like being on a train, and I definitely got stronger which makes carrying my giant pack easier.  As far as the English culture part goes, I’m now fully on board with the whole tea time thing and I’m hooked on a few English comedy shows that I’m going to have to figure out how to watch when I get back to the states.

(Rooftops of Foix)

I’m now in Toulouse for a brief stopover (two nights, one full day) on my way to my next help exchange hosts in the Loire Valley.  This is a big deal because I consider it my first day of real solo traveling.  Yes, I realize I managed to get myself to Paris and to St. Girons and have been traveling ‘solo’ for two weeks now, however, this is my first night alone in a hostel, so it feels more ‘solo’ than anything I’ve done thus far.

I rolled into Toulouse by bus at around noon yesterday.  I managed to find my hostel fairly easily though I was quite the show as I lugged my giant backpack along the twenty-minute walk from the train station.  By the time I checked in it was pretty late so I decided to head out and grab lunch quickly.  I’ve decided that in cities where grocery stores are readily available I should take advantage of them and try to just buy ingredients to make simple meals, which should be cheaper than always buying food out.  As I walked to the grocery store, stomach a grumblin’, I passed restaurant upon restaurant of what looked like delicious food; salads, fish, bread, white table cloths, and sparkling wine glasses, and I had to remind myself that just because I’m on a trip, doesn’t mean I can act like I’m on vacation.

I managed to find the grocery store and put together a nice lunch of baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, a peach, trail mix, and goat’s milk yogurt (a first for me – I really enjoyed it!).  After buying my food I wandered around looking for a place to eat and fortuitously stumbled upon the ‘jardin des plantes,’ a lovely park and the perfect place for my picnic.

I spent the rest of the day just wandering the city and enjoyed another picnic in the park for dinner.  Toulouse is known as ‘la ville en rose’ or ‘the pink city’ because all the buildings are brick or pink stucco.  It has a big city feel, but is very compact, a mix of Parisian elegance and Mediterranean aspects of Rome.  It’s a nice city, I can’t say I’ve fallen in love with it (and I do fall in love with most cities), but I’m enjoying my visit.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night as there was a lot of noise from people partying in the street until the wee hours of the night.  A few of my roommates (five boys) were also quite the snorers.  I probably could have drowned out the noise from the street, but it’s amazing how incredibly annoying snoring is.  My first mission this morning was therefore to find some caffeine and I enjoyed a café crème and a very expensive jus d’orange (fresh squeezed) with my leftovers from last night’s dinner (baguette and goat cheese).

(Place du Capitole)

(Église Saint-Sernin)

I wandered all over the city today taking pictures as I went, along the shopping streets (it seems most that these make up most of Toulouse) and into two old cathedrals, Église Saint-Sernin and Église Saint-Augustine, both of which were quite beautiful.  After another lunch picnic in the park (this one with a lot of nutella and apple), I finally decided to beat the heat (it’s 85 degrees F) and headed back to the hostel to cool off and write this post.

Traveling solo has so far been an interesting, and mostly enjoyable experience.  I’ve already got lots to say on the subject, so I’ll wait and give it its own proper post soon.

À Bientôt!