I'm home, I'm broke and I'm back to reality. Sigh.
Best way to cure end of trip blues? Start planning the next one!!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Canada - En Route to Ottawa - It Ain't Over Til It's Over!
As I embarked on my ridiculous transit route home, I was filled with the excitement of going home, the disappointment that the trip was over and the terror that I would miss my connecting flights and my bags would be horribly lost (see Flight to LA, January 2009). I had heard very bad things about British Airways losing luggage, about Heathrow and O'Hare being the world's worst airports, and had had bad experiences with American Airlines rebooking connecting flights.
My travels home began pleasantly enough, with my bags (there are now TWO, the backpack and the duffel bag) weighing in at 34 kg combined, up 21 kg from my departure last January. I was delighted to learn that I could check my bags straight through from Vienna to Ottawa without having to move them to security or between terminals along the way. I did triple confirm that I wouldn't have to reclaim them in Heathrow, since I was handed an intimidating manual on how to change terminals there along with my boarding passes.
Heathrow itself was certainly massive and busy, but it was well organized and signs were posted intelligently to redirect passengers. Better yet, I managed to score the shortest security line by far to get into my next terminal (about thirty people shorter than the next shortest queue). And wandering around for my two hour layover was actually fairly entertaining. All the Christmas decor was up (there was nothing in Ethiopia; I had actually forgotten Christmas is coming) and it felt just like being on the set of Love Actually, minus Billy Mac's hilarious tune Christmas is All Around. Things were looking up.
And then the other shoe dropped. Having boarded our plane to Chicago completely on time, we then sat at our loading gate for 45 minutes while a minor traffic jam was addressed on the runway. Not a problem, thought I, since I have a four hour layover to kill in Chicago anyways. One less hour to wait at O'Hare, right?
Which would have been dandy, except about forty minutes into the air, the flight attendant goes on the intercom to ask if there are any medical staff on board. Turns out a passenger with a heart condition was having a tiny medical emergency in the back of the plane. We had to make an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland to evacuate him to a hospital (don't worry; the paramedics got him under control and safely to the hospital). Thank goodness it hadn't happened midway over the Atlantic where there is nowhere to land!
Now, Shannon is only a domestic airport and it was off course for us, so it took no less than three hours to reroute our flight and landing time with Chicago, not to mention we were NOT ALLOWED OFF THE PLANE because they didn't have adequate security to process us. So we had our light lunch grounded on the runway and took off three hours later with the promise that the pilots would make every effort to make up the lost time. Unfortunately, since planes already go so fast, there's not a lot you can do to make up time. There isn't a network of shortcuts they save up for such occasions or anything. And there goes my connecting flight to Ottawa.
As I hurriedly enter O'Hare airport twelve hours later, I learn I now have a connecting flight at 9pm (a three hour layover still) with my dear friend United Airlines. The only downside of United is that it requires me to reclaim my bags, go through US immigration and customs and re-check them since they have to change airlines now and need new tags. Boooooo. At this point, I have been awake for 25 hours due to my 4am departure from Vienna and the seven time zones I had crossed. It tok every ounce of determination not to pass out at my gate before my flight, as I knew I would be OUT and therefore would likely sleep through the boarding call.
I did however pass right out as soon as I hit my seat on the plane and pleasantly awoke to find out the flight attendant was passing out Canada landing cards since we wer on our descent already. My immigration officer was incredibly nice and welcomed me home very genuinely and I cannot tell you how happy I was to see my parents waiting for me with my winter coat, my bags safely rounding the luggage carousel and the ground still clear of snow!
Home sweet home, indeed!!
My travels home began pleasantly enough, with my bags (there are now TWO, the backpack and the duffel bag) weighing in at 34 kg combined, up 21 kg from my departure last January. I was delighted to learn that I could check my bags straight through from Vienna to Ottawa without having to move them to security or between terminals along the way. I did triple confirm that I wouldn't have to reclaim them in Heathrow, since I was handed an intimidating manual on how to change terminals there along with my boarding passes.
Heathrow itself was certainly massive and busy, but it was well organized and signs were posted intelligently to redirect passengers. Better yet, I managed to score the shortest security line by far to get into my next terminal (about thirty people shorter than the next shortest queue). And wandering around for my two hour layover was actually fairly entertaining. All the Christmas decor was up (there was nothing in Ethiopia; I had actually forgotten Christmas is coming) and it felt just like being on the set of Love Actually, minus Billy Mac's hilarious tune Christmas is All Around. Things were looking up.
And then the other shoe dropped. Having boarded our plane to Chicago completely on time, we then sat at our loading gate for 45 minutes while a minor traffic jam was addressed on the runway. Not a problem, thought I, since I have a four hour layover to kill in Chicago anyways. One less hour to wait at O'Hare, right?
Which would have been dandy, except about forty minutes into the air, the flight attendant goes on the intercom to ask if there are any medical staff on board. Turns out a passenger with a heart condition was having a tiny medical emergency in the back of the plane. We had to make an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland to evacuate him to a hospital (don't worry; the paramedics got him under control and safely to the hospital). Thank goodness it hadn't happened midway over the Atlantic where there is nowhere to land!
Now, Shannon is only a domestic airport and it was off course for us, so it took no less than three hours to reroute our flight and landing time with Chicago, not to mention we were NOT ALLOWED OFF THE PLANE because they didn't have adequate security to process us. So we had our light lunch grounded on the runway and took off three hours later with the promise that the pilots would make every effort to make up the lost time. Unfortunately, since planes already go so fast, there's not a lot you can do to make up time. There isn't a network of shortcuts they save up for such occasions or anything. And there goes my connecting flight to Ottawa.
As I hurriedly enter O'Hare airport twelve hours later, I learn I now have a connecting flight at 9pm (a three hour layover still) with my dear friend United Airlines. The only downside of United is that it requires me to reclaim my bags, go through US immigration and customs and re-check them since they have to change airlines now and need new tags. Boooooo. At this point, I have been awake for 25 hours due to my 4am departure from Vienna and the seven time zones I had crossed. It tok every ounce of determination not to pass out at my gate before my flight, as I knew I would be OUT and therefore would likely sleep through the boarding call.
I did however pass right out as soon as I hit my seat on the plane and pleasantly awoke to find out the flight attendant was passing out Canada landing cards since we wer on our descent already. My immigration officer was incredibly nice and welcomed me home very genuinely and I cannot tell you how happy I was to see my parents waiting for me with my winter coat, my bags safely rounding the luggage carousel and the ground still clear of snow!
Home sweet home, indeed!!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Ethiopia - Lalibela - Another Contender for Eighth Wonder of the World
The number one tourist destination outside of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is a city of 25,000 people called Lalibela. The reason for its popularity is that it is the site of the should-be-more-famous rock-hewn churches. Yet one of Lalibela’s greatest assets is that it does not seem to have been affected by tourism. The twelve churches are a living relic of history, with hundreds of Ethiopian Orthodox followers making a pilgrimage to them every year at Christmas and Timkat (Easter).
I wasn’t sure what to expect and as we approached the church site, all I could see was the tent coverings installed by the UN to protect the churches from the weather. You see, the churches were not carved into the mountainside, but rather hewn out of the rock below your feet.
Yes, they are underground! There are three different kinds: the cave church (which is a cave carved in the ground), the semi-monolithic (which is partially stand-alone and partially cave-like) and the monolithic church (which stands completely separately from the ground around it, i.e. you can walk around the entire perimeter of the building). And these are not little chapels my friends… St. George, the most famous of the churches, is three floors high!
It is still not known how the churches were constructed but as we admired the tiny chisel marks found on every wall inside, outside and around the churches, we couldn’t help but think some teeny tiny hand tools and tons of people that would have been required to operate them. The churches took 25 years to build, to give you a point of reference. On the whole, pretty amazing to see!
In addition to being free from tourism fever, Lalibela makes Axum seem positively cosmopolitan in comparison. The road is only partially paved, compared with Axum’s pervasive construction of infrastructure projects. There are about five minibuses in town; these constitute the only forms of transportation for hire for the entire city. Most people travel by donkey or on their own two feet, and some of them are carrying some pretty serious loads of wood or goods for the market.
One reason for Lalibela’s integrity is its isolation. The nearest town is 160km away. Lalibela itself has one road and before the airport was built it was a 5 day donkey ride to get there. Did I mention it’s also perched on top of a mountain? We stayed at Mountain View Hotel, a brand new hotel that takes full advantage of the views.
From anywhere in the mostly glass hotel, you get sweeping vistas over the mountains behind and the massive valley below. An ideal place to stay for my last trip within the big trip.
After this, I head back to Addis to pack my life back into my backpack, say goodbye to friends and jetset home on my unfortunate two day transit route of Addis-Cairo-Vienna-London-Chicago-Ottawa. Here’s hoping Ottawa isn’t too cold when I arrive home!!
I wasn’t sure what to expect and as we approached the church site, all I could see was the tent coverings installed by the UN to protect the churches from the weather. You see, the churches were not carved into the mountainside, but rather hewn out of the rock below your feet.
Yes, they are underground! There are three different kinds: the cave church (which is a cave carved in the ground), the semi-monolithic (which is partially stand-alone and partially cave-like) and the monolithic church (which stands completely separately from the ground around it, i.e. you can walk around the entire perimeter of the building). And these are not little chapels my friends… St. George, the most famous of the churches, is three floors high!
It is still not known how the churches were constructed but as we admired the tiny chisel marks found on every wall inside, outside and around the churches, we couldn’t help but think some teeny tiny hand tools and tons of people that would have been required to operate them. The churches took 25 years to build, to give you a point of reference. On the whole, pretty amazing to see!
In addition to being free from tourism fever, Lalibela makes Axum seem positively cosmopolitan in comparison. The road is only partially paved, compared with Axum’s pervasive construction of infrastructure projects. There are about five minibuses in town; these constitute the only forms of transportation for hire for the entire city. Most people travel by donkey or on their own two feet, and some of them are carrying some pretty serious loads of wood or goods for the market.
One reason for Lalibela’s integrity is its isolation. The nearest town is 160km away. Lalibela itself has one road and before the airport was built it was a 5 day donkey ride to get there. Did I mention it’s also perched on top of a mountain? We stayed at Mountain View Hotel, a brand new hotel that takes full advantage of the views.
From anywhere in the mostly glass hotel, you get sweeping vistas over the mountains behind and the massive valley below. An ideal place to stay for my last trip within the big trip.
After this, I head back to Addis to pack my life back into my backpack, say goodbye to friends and jetset home on my unfortunate two day transit route of Addis-Cairo-Vienna-London-Chicago-Ottawa. Here’s hoping Ottawa isn’t too cold when I arrive home!!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Egypt - Cairo - Awesome! And Absolutely Bonkers!
Cairo is definitely a love-hate relationship. It is both one of the most interesting and most difficult cities I’ve been to on this trip. It actually reminds me a bit of Havana because it has so much personality. It’s not just another big city; when you’re in Cairo, you know you’re in Cairo. And it is a BIG city. Home to 24 million people and 8 million commuters (imagine the province of Ontario commuted to work every day to Montreal...), the traffic is insane and the city never sleeps. Looking out over the skyline, you see new high rises next to European apartments in between minarets from the many mosques with the odd Coptic Christian church steeple in the mix.
We parked ourselves at a great hostel on the doorstep of the famous Egyptian Museum, which took us the better part of a day to gawk at and probably could have taken two weeks to fully explore. They have so many artefacts that they leave a bunch on the lawn outside.
Despite the massive size of the museum, there isn’t enough display room for everything. They have an exhibit specifically devoted to Royal Mummies, as well as the bonanza finds of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, where you can see Tut’s iconic death mask up close and personal. The astonishing wealth of the Pharaohs is apparent here; King Tut’s copious goodies are all gold and precious stones and he was a paltry king compared to the big fish like Ramsis II!
Tourism is the second biggest industry here after the Suez Canal, and it shows. It sometimes feels like every Egyptian we meet is a professional Egyptologist, by far the most common university degree here and probably one of the greatest job titles I’ve come across. It’s amazing how much of their very ancient civilization is still around and being found. Egypt even has its own antiquities police, who are armed with not one but two AK-47s to protect cultural heritage sites.
We were unclear on whether the police are professional or conscripted; every Egyptian man must serve in the army here. They can reduce their time of service with education. A high school diploma drops you from three years to two; a university degree gets you down to one. And apparently a Western wife is a get out of jail free card... though no one could explain why.
This last clause may explain somewhat the excess of marriage proposals Mehron and I were bombarded with our entire time in Egypt. Most men we met, from the bus drivers to the waiters to random men in the street, were relentlessly pursuing our hands in marriage. We pulled our usual trick of inventing husbands at home in Canada, however in Egypt, this is insufficient. We were told we must also have Egyptian husbands! We were unable to avoid this unwanted attention no matter how hard we tried. Being foreigners was a big part of it as well, as we saw several local women in very tight clothing (and hijabs) escaping the comments and propositions, while no matter how much we covered ourselves, the level of attention did not vary.
This constant harassment made walking around more of a hassle than a pastime in Egypt, so we didn’t wander the city as much as we would have otherwise. We met up with Mehr’s friend Camilla who studies in Cairo several times to see a bit more of the town, including the big Souk market Khan el Khalili and landmark restaurants like Seqoia and Felfela.
Our favourite food by far was koshary, the national fast food, and the best place to get some is Abou Tarek, which only makes koshary and rice pudding. Now, when I describe it, the ingredients may seem unlikely but when mixed together, I assure you they are scrumptious. Take a bowl and pack it with spaghetti noodles, rice, rice noodles and macaroni. Add lentils and chick peas. Top with fried onions and pureed tomato. Pour on hot sauce and da’a sauce (garlic oil with cumin, coriander and other spices) and stir it up. Not only is it tasty, it is also very filling. One bowl of this got us through most of the day. To give an idea of how much we liked it, we ate it 8 out of the 10 days we spent in Egypt.
Would I go again? Final verdict: Yes, if only for Abou Tarek’s koshary and rice pudding!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Egypt - Aswan to Luxor - Upper Kingdom Extravaganza
So Mehron and I have turned out to be Egypt-philes and spent the past five days whipping through all the major sights of ancient Egypt which has been fast but amazing.
We took the overnight train in first class seats to Aswan from Cairo, which wasn't half bad... vaguely reminiscent of the buses in South America without the sweet service. We arrived fourteen hours later in pretty rough shape but bounced back after a little nap and a much needed shower. We got to check out both the High Dam and the Philae Temple our first afternoon. The High Dam was built with the Russians' help, creating the massive 500km Lake Nasser south of Aswan.
The Philae Temple was moved to higher ground on what became an island to prevent it from being lost in the dam building process. The evening was spent wandering around the lively weekend marketplace and being disappointed to discover that shawarma here is served on a hot dog bun instead of inside a pita. What?!
The next morning we were up in the middle of the night at 2am to catch our bus to Abu Simbel. I hate being awake at that hour of the day, but the temples of Ramses II and Nefertari there were on my bucket list... so up I got. We drove three hours through the desert in a massive convoy of a hundred buses and minibuses and were blown away by the temples. Ramses II built them to deify himself and his favourite wife (he had dozens of them and 111 sons or something) and to scare the Nubians away from invading Egypt from the south. They were actually lost in the sands for a thousand years or so before an Italian tripped on one and dug it out.
These temples also had to be moved before Lake Nasser was created by the dam... yes, the Lake is that big. But they messed up in reorienting the temples... the holy chamber is supposed to be illuminated twice a year on the solstices on the 21sts, but once they moved them, they were bummed to discover that the illumination now happens on the 22nds. Whoops. Goes to show we still have no idea how Egyptian engineering or architecture works!
The rest of our day we lazed on a felucca boat sailing down the Nile towards Luxor and overnighted on the boat on the banks of the Nile. Did I mention we sailed down the Nile? Perfect way to spend the rest of a day that started WAY too early.
Next morning we were delivered to a minibus that was taking us the rest of the way to Luxor (Aswan to Luxor is 4 days sail by felucca), with two stops at the Kom Ombo crocodile god temple and the Horus Edfu temple, the best preserved temple in Egypt. Edfu rates top four; it was excellent and I'd never heard of it before. In Luxor, we visited West Bank, the necropolis of the Valley of the Kings and Queens' tombs of the New Kingdom, and East Bank, where the ancient temples of old Egyptian Thebes still stand in the middle of the current city. No photos allowed in the Valleys, but the colours were still intact from when they were painted thousands of years ago because they're protected underground.
We also visited Hatshepsut's Temple, the only female Pharaoh and first known female ruler of ancient times. She was quite a lady... she refused to give up the throne after her husband died to her nephew the heir, and ruled for 22 years alone greatly increasing Egypt's trade and commerce with the south. Her nephew after she died tried to erase her from history, so her image is scratched out just about everywhere she inscribed herself. Bitter much...
I skipped the Luxor temple because I was getting a little overdosed on hieroglyphics and carvings of Horus and Pharaohs, but I did manage to rally to get to Karnak, a 3500 year old temple complex dedicated to the sun god Amun Ra which was mindblowing. It was comparable in size and detail to Angkor Wat... I'm so glad I made it there!
We're now back in Cairo at our favourite hostel chilling out after another long overnight train ride and thinking we may do a seaside break from all the ruins before checking out the library in Alexandria... who knows!
We took the overnight train in first class seats to Aswan from Cairo, which wasn't half bad... vaguely reminiscent of the buses in South America without the sweet service. We arrived fourteen hours later in pretty rough shape but bounced back after a little nap and a much needed shower. We got to check out both the High Dam and the Philae Temple our first afternoon. The High Dam was built with the Russians' help, creating the massive 500km Lake Nasser south of Aswan.
The Philae Temple was moved to higher ground on what became an island to prevent it from being lost in the dam building process. The evening was spent wandering around the lively weekend marketplace and being disappointed to discover that shawarma here is served on a hot dog bun instead of inside a pita. What?!
The next morning we were up in the middle of the night at 2am to catch our bus to Abu Simbel. I hate being awake at that hour of the day, but the temples of Ramses II and Nefertari there were on my bucket list... so up I got. We drove three hours through the desert in a massive convoy of a hundred buses and minibuses and were blown away by the temples. Ramses II built them to deify himself and his favourite wife (he had dozens of them and 111 sons or something) and to scare the Nubians away from invading Egypt from the south. They were actually lost in the sands for a thousand years or so before an Italian tripped on one and dug it out.
These temples also had to be moved before Lake Nasser was created by the dam... yes, the Lake is that big. But they messed up in reorienting the temples... the holy chamber is supposed to be illuminated twice a year on the solstices on the 21sts, but once they moved them, they were bummed to discover that the illumination now happens on the 22nds. Whoops. Goes to show we still have no idea how Egyptian engineering or architecture works!
The rest of our day we lazed on a felucca boat sailing down the Nile towards Luxor and overnighted on the boat on the banks of the Nile. Did I mention we sailed down the Nile? Perfect way to spend the rest of a day that started WAY too early.
Next morning we were delivered to a minibus that was taking us the rest of the way to Luxor (Aswan to Luxor is 4 days sail by felucca), with two stops at the Kom Ombo crocodile god temple and the Horus Edfu temple, the best preserved temple in Egypt. Edfu rates top four; it was excellent and I'd never heard of it before. In Luxor, we visited West Bank, the necropolis of the Valley of the Kings and Queens' tombs of the New Kingdom, and East Bank, where the ancient temples of old Egyptian Thebes still stand in the middle of the current city. No photos allowed in the Valleys, but the colours were still intact from when they were painted thousands of years ago because they're protected underground.
We also visited Hatshepsut's Temple, the only female Pharaoh and first known female ruler of ancient times. She was quite a lady... she refused to give up the throne after her husband died to her nephew the heir, and ruled for 22 years alone greatly increasing Egypt's trade and commerce with the south. Her nephew after she died tried to erase her from history, so her image is scratched out just about everywhere she inscribed herself. Bitter much...
I skipped the Luxor temple because I was getting a little overdosed on hieroglyphics and carvings of Horus and Pharaohs, but I did manage to rally to get to Karnak, a 3500 year old temple complex dedicated to the sun god Amun Ra which was mindblowing. It was comparable in size and detail to Angkor Wat... I'm so glad I made it there!
We're now back in Cairo at our favourite hostel chilling out after another long overnight train ride and thinking we may do a seaside break from all the ruins before checking out the library in Alexandria... who knows!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Egypt - Giza, Saqqara and Dashour - The Pyramid Triathlon
Whoa! I'm in Egypt! How did that happen?!
Answer: One night in Addis, Mehr couldn't sleep, so she rolled over and poked my shoulder and asked "Hey, do you want to go to Egypt?". A sleepy me almost instantly replied "Yeah, I really do." And two days later our flight was booked to Cairo!
And now we're here! We arrived at the absurd hour of 2:30am (why do African flights only fly in the worst hours of the night?!) to Cairo after a one hour layover in Khartoum, during which no one is allowed off the plane because Sudan lets almost no nationalities into the country, including Canadians. Boring...
We had planned to take it easy our first day, knowing we wouldn't be in bed before 4am, but the allure of exploring was too tempting and by lunch time we found ourselves on the way to Giza to see the Pyramids. Our afternoon on the pyramid tour was a bit of a triathlon. The three components being camel riding, Sahara trekking and climbing in and out of the pyramid tombs. No joke. And our tour guides were strict on time. Twelve minutes for pyramids, seven minutes for Sphinx, ten minutes for mountain lookout, twenty minutes to climb into Dashour, etc. It was positively race-like.
Our first stop on our pyramid bonanza was Giza and the Great Pyramids. Some people said they are overhyped. I disagree. They are massive, they are amazing and they are wonders of the world.
We did a two hour tour of the three main Pyramids and the Sphinx taking in the sights from our camel rides. Yes, I was on a camel. It sort of unfolded before I could really think things through and by the time I realized maybe I'm not cut out for camel travel I was already awkwardly astride Michael Jackson, Egypt's most foul-tempered camel who fought with the guide and driver at every turn and gave me savage glares leaving no doubt in my mind that he was out to bite me at the first opportunity.
That being said, camel is still one of the best ways to get around Giza, since the Pyramids are quite far apart and the sand makes for hard going. The small windows spent on our feet were struggling against the sand dunes of the Sahara to get up closer to the pyramids. Note: I am not a graceful person, and I am even less graceful getting on and off of camels.
We also checked out Saqqara, the site of the first pyramid in Egypt, and Dashour (which I think is in old Memphis), where we were allowed to descend into the actual pyramid into the former tomb rooms of the Pharaohs! Awesome. I am also now aware that I get claustrophobic when I go underground, so one descent was enough for me. Mehr went into two pyramids and was none the worse for wear. The hieroglyphics and paintings were still impressively intact and so detailed.
The last stops of the day involved massive meat and shish kebab platters with oodles of tahini and baba ghanouj on the side, traditional papyrus art galleries and essential oil perfumeries. Interesting in their own way, but not exactly wonders of the ancient world!
Answer: One night in Addis, Mehr couldn't sleep, so she rolled over and poked my shoulder and asked "Hey, do you want to go to Egypt?". A sleepy me almost instantly replied "Yeah, I really do." And two days later our flight was booked to Cairo!
And now we're here! We arrived at the absurd hour of 2:30am (why do African flights only fly in the worst hours of the night?!) to Cairo after a one hour layover in Khartoum, during which no one is allowed off the plane because Sudan lets almost no nationalities into the country, including Canadians. Boring...
We had planned to take it easy our first day, knowing we wouldn't be in bed before 4am, but the allure of exploring was too tempting and by lunch time we found ourselves on the way to Giza to see the Pyramids. Our afternoon on the pyramid tour was a bit of a triathlon. The three components being camel riding, Sahara trekking and climbing in and out of the pyramid tombs. No joke. And our tour guides were strict on time. Twelve minutes for pyramids, seven minutes for Sphinx, ten minutes for mountain lookout, twenty minutes to climb into Dashour, etc. It was positively race-like.
Our first stop on our pyramid bonanza was Giza and the Great Pyramids. Some people said they are overhyped. I disagree. They are massive, they are amazing and they are wonders of the world.
We did a two hour tour of the three main Pyramids and the Sphinx taking in the sights from our camel rides. Yes, I was on a camel. It sort of unfolded before I could really think things through and by the time I realized maybe I'm not cut out for camel travel I was already awkwardly astride Michael Jackson, Egypt's most foul-tempered camel who fought with the guide and driver at every turn and gave me savage glares leaving no doubt in my mind that he was out to bite me at the first opportunity.
That being said, camel is still one of the best ways to get around Giza, since the Pyramids are quite far apart and the sand makes for hard going. The small windows spent on our feet were struggling against the sand dunes of the Sahara to get up closer to the pyramids. Note: I am not a graceful person, and I am even less graceful getting on and off of camels.
We also checked out Saqqara, the site of the first pyramid in Egypt, and Dashour (which I think is in old Memphis), where we were allowed to descend into the actual pyramid into the former tomb rooms of the Pharaohs! Awesome. I am also now aware that I get claustrophobic when I go underground, so one descent was enough for me. Mehr went into two pyramids and was none the worse for wear. The hieroglyphics and paintings were still impressively intact and so detailed.
The last stops of the day involved massive meat and shish kebab platters with oodles of tahini and baba ghanouj on the side, traditional papyrus art galleries and essential oil perfumeries. Interesting in their own way, but not exactly wonders of the ancient world!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Ethiopia - Bahir Dar, Gondar and Axum - Northern Historical Circuit
Alright, so due to poor planning all flights in and out of Lalibela were booked up for this week, so we’ll be taking a separate trip there at the end of November. However, in the past four days, we certainly covered a lot of northern Ethiopia!
Our whirlwind adventure first took us into Bahir Dar, the city on the southern banks of Lake Tana. Lake Tana is one of the biggest lakes in Africa and takes 8-9 hours to cross by ferry boat. It is also home to over 37 monasteries. Of those 37, only 3 are open to women (because we can’t keep secrets, we were told!), so we visited two of them, Debra Mariam and the women’s island nunnery. And against all our instilled instincts not to touch ancient artefacts, before we knew what was happening, a 900 year old sheepskin bible was plunked into our laps for our exploration. It was written in Geez, the oldest language in Ethiopia which is almost Aramaic and which neither of us can read, but thankfully it was illustrated so we could guess whether we were looking at Luke or Mark’s gospel. I held a 900 year old book! And was mostly terrified I would damage it the whole time.
We later played the musical stone slabs at Debra Mariam and learned about Ethiopian Orthodox religious practices and saints, such as the man totally covered in hair who communed with animals or Pantaleon who stood for 48 years leaning on his prayer stick. Lake Tana is also the source of the Blue Nile river and home to pelicans, lammergeyer eagles, hippos, crocodiles and local men trying to find a fereng (foreign) wife for their sons.
We also road-tripped to Tis Abay, the Blue Nile Falls. It had been a bit of a dilemma deciding whether or not to go since there are two hydro plants that divert much of the water turning the falls into a wee trickle down a hill, but our guides Haile and Nebu assured us that one of the plants was broken, so the falls would be in reasonable awesomeness that day.
After a very quiet stroll through the savannah countryside for about twenty minutes, we very suddenly heard the gushing of the water and the field fell away from us on the right side, revealing a steep cliff escarpment and very impressive waterflow pouring over the side along the Blue Nile River. The excessive spray off the falls earned it the name of Tis Abay (Water that Smokes).
And it was awesome! Not as big as Niagara, but certainly the surrounding scenery beats out the tacky casinos and arcades that adorn Niagara Falls.
Our next stop was Gondar, one of the important military strongholds of the country over the centuries. The highlight of Gondar is the Royal Enclosure, a compound of the castles of four generations of Ethiopia’s kings and queens on 1 square km of land. Mehron and I greatly enjoyed re-enacting sword and staff fights around the grounds as our tour guide looked on, completely unimpressed with our immaturity. Whatever. We had a good time. One cool fact about these kings and queens was that they kept personal prides of Abyssinian lions as companions. Kind of shows up the First Dog in the White House a bit. LIONS.
While in town, we also breezed by the Debra Birhane Selassie Church, the Sistine Chapel of Ethiopia, where the ceiling is completely painted with angels by one artist monk way back in the day. When we wrapped that up, we stopped by Sofa Juice for refreshment and thereby consumed the greatest juice on the planet, mango-guava-lime. YUM.
And then it was 12:30pm and we were kind of done with Gondar, so we hooked ourselves up with a half day trip to the Simien Mountains to Kosoye, a lookout once visited by Queen Elizabeth II in her horseback riding days. Well worth the hour long drive on very bumpy dusty road with a soundtrack of Shania and Snoop Dogg to see the fabulous views and spot baboons rustling in the valley below!
On the way back, we stopped in at the former Falasha village (diaspora of Ethiopian Jews who were repatriated to Israel during Mengistu’s regime) where we checked out a very cool local coop project of handicrafts and attended a proper coffee ceremony with fresh roasted coffee and popcorn. Whenever I ask why popcorn is served with the coffee ceremony, I get the same answer: Tradition.
On our way out of Gondar at 5am (all the domestic flights go early and have tight security requiring us to arrive at least 2 hours before the flights), we saw a number of odd things. In the pitch blackness, there was some excellent stargazing. But better was the people watching... we saw three men practicing kick boxing on the highway. And then we saw mobs of ghosts emerging from the misty woods as dawn began to break... all the locals were on their way to church, completely wrapped in the traditional white blankets called gabis, creating a very eerie effect as they moved through the trees with no lights.
Axum was our last port of call and we were there for two reasons: 1) to see the re-Erection (Ethiopia’s wording, not mine) of the Stele returned from Rome at the millennium and 2) to see the Ark of the Covenant. When we arrived to the Yeha Hotel, and saw the entire town from the restaurant’s hilltop view, we realized we might have a lot of spare time on our hands. So after a power nap, we walked down the hill to the main stelae field. We were told it was a field of over 75 stelae commemorating the deaths of the great kings and nobles of Axum. What we saw was 7 stelae in a yard. So we opted to look at them from outside the gate instead of paying the entry fee to stand on the other side of the fence.
Sadly the same thing happened when we investigated the compound housing the Ark of the Covenant. You pay an entrance fee to stand outside the same buildings you can stand outside next to the gate, since of course, women aren’t allowed inside. In the case of Axum, they haven’t let women into the churches since the 10th century, when one lady ruined it for all the rest of us. The Falasha Queen Yodit burned most of ancient Axum to the ground, and they’ve held it against the female sex ever since.
To be fair though, men aren’t allowed to the see the Ark, the Holy of Holies, either... only the high priests are allowed inside and the guardian outside descends from the same family who has guarded the Ark for generations. So we admired the building housing the Ark from outside the gate as well.
The real highlight of Axum was the high level of interaction with the locals. Mehron really got into the swing of bargaining, talking a shopkeeper down in price for twenty minutes for some amber necklaces. And on our walk through town, a gaggle of schoolgirls swarmed us eager to practice their English and show us their school and tell us about Axum and they were completely adorable and charming.
Also, I’m going to Egypt on Tuesday for two weeks. Surprise!
Our whirlwind adventure first took us into Bahir Dar, the city on the southern banks of Lake Tana. Lake Tana is one of the biggest lakes in Africa and takes 8-9 hours to cross by ferry boat. It is also home to over 37 monasteries. Of those 37, only 3 are open to women (because we can’t keep secrets, we were told!), so we visited two of them, Debra Mariam and the women’s island nunnery. And against all our instilled instincts not to touch ancient artefacts, before we knew what was happening, a 900 year old sheepskin bible was plunked into our laps for our exploration. It was written in Geez, the oldest language in Ethiopia which is almost Aramaic and which neither of us can read, but thankfully it was illustrated so we could guess whether we were looking at Luke or Mark’s gospel. I held a 900 year old book! And was mostly terrified I would damage it the whole time.
We later played the musical stone slabs at Debra Mariam and learned about Ethiopian Orthodox religious practices and saints, such as the man totally covered in hair who communed with animals or Pantaleon who stood for 48 years leaning on his prayer stick. Lake Tana is also the source of the Blue Nile river and home to pelicans, lammergeyer eagles, hippos, crocodiles and local men trying to find a fereng (foreign) wife for their sons.
We also road-tripped to Tis Abay, the Blue Nile Falls. It had been a bit of a dilemma deciding whether or not to go since there are two hydro plants that divert much of the water turning the falls into a wee trickle down a hill, but our guides Haile and Nebu assured us that one of the plants was broken, so the falls would be in reasonable awesomeness that day.
After a very quiet stroll through the savannah countryside for about twenty minutes, we very suddenly heard the gushing of the water and the field fell away from us on the right side, revealing a steep cliff escarpment and very impressive waterflow pouring over the side along the Blue Nile River. The excessive spray off the falls earned it the name of Tis Abay (Water that Smokes).
And it was awesome! Not as big as Niagara, but certainly the surrounding scenery beats out the tacky casinos and arcades that adorn Niagara Falls.
Our next stop was Gondar, one of the important military strongholds of the country over the centuries. The highlight of Gondar is the Royal Enclosure, a compound of the castles of four generations of Ethiopia’s kings and queens on 1 square km of land. Mehron and I greatly enjoyed re-enacting sword and staff fights around the grounds as our tour guide looked on, completely unimpressed with our immaturity. Whatever. We had a good time. One cool fact about these kings and queens was that they kept personal prides of Abyssinian lions as companions. Kind of shows up the First Dog in the White House a bit. LIONS.
While in town, we also breezed by the Debra Birhane Selassie Church, the Sistine Chapel of Ethiopia, where the ceiling is completely painted with angels by one artist monk way back in the day. When we wrapped that up, we stopped by Sofa Juice for refreshment and thereby consumed the greatest juice on the planet, mango-guava-lime. YUM.
And then it was 12:30pm and we were kind of done with Gondar, so we hooked ourselves up with a half day trip to the Simien Mountains to Kosoye, a lookout once visited by Queen Elizabeth II in her horseback riding days. Well worth the hour long drive on very bumpy dusty road with a soundtrack of Shania and Snoop Dogg to see the fabulous views and spot baboons rustling in the valley below!
On the way back, we stopped in at the former Falasha village (diaspora of Ethiopian Jews who were repatriated to Israel during Mengistu’s regime) where we checked out a very cool local coop project of handicrafts and attended a proper coffee ceremony with fresh roasted coffee and popcorn. Whenever I ask why popcorn is served with the coffee ceremony, I get the same answer: Tradition.
On our way out of Gondar at 5am (all the domestic flights go early and have tight security requiring us to arrive at least 2 hours before the flights), we saw a number of odd things. In the pitch blackness, there was some excellent stargazing. But better was the people watching... we saw three men practicing kick boxing on the highway. And then we saw mobs of ghosts emerging from the misty woods as dawn began to break... all the locals were on their way to church, completely wrapped in the traditional white blankets called gabis, creating a very eerie effect as they moved through the trees with no lights.
Axum was our last port of call and we were there for two reasons: 1) to see the re-Erection (Ethiopia’s wording, not mine) of the Stele returned from Rome at the millennium and 2) to see the Ark of the Covenant. When we arrived to the Yeha Hotel, and saw the entire town from the restaurant’s hilltop view, we realized we might have a lot of spare time on our hands. So after a power nap, we walked down the hill to the main stelae field. We were told it was a field of over 75 stelae commemorating the deaths of the great kings and nobles of Axum. What we saw was 7 stelae in a yard. So we opted to look at them from outside the gate instead of paying the entry fee to stand on the other side of the fence.
Sadly the same thing happened when we investigated the compound housing the Ark of the Covenant. You pay an entrance fee to stand outside the same buildings you can stand outside next to the gate, since of course, women aren’t allowed inside. In the case of Axum, they haven’t let women into the churches since the 10th century, when one lady ruined it for all the rest of us. The Falasha Queen Yodit burned most of ancient Axum to the ground, and they’ve held it against the female sex ever since.
To be fair though, men aren’t allowed to the see the Ark, the Holy of Holies, either... only the high priests are allowed inside and the guardian outside descends from the same family who has guarded the Ark for generations. So we admired the building housing the Ark from outside the gate as well.
The real highlight of Axum was the high level of interaction with the locals. Mehron really got into the swing of bargaining, talking a shopkeeper down in price for twenty minutes for some amber necklaces. And on our walk through town, a gaggle of schoolgirls swarmed us eager to practice their English and show us their school and tell us about Axum and they were completely adorable and charming.
Also, I’m going to Egypt on Tuesday for two weeks. Surprise!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Ethiopia – Addis Ababa – New Flower, Old Everything Else
Addis Ababa means “new flower” in English, and this New Flower is the capital of one very old country. Addis got its name through King Menelik II’s wife, who found a new flower growing where the Sheraton now stands in the city, and coined the name of the city after the discovery. Although that discovery was new, most famous discoveries made in Ethiopia are of very old things. Perhaps most famously and most old is Lucy (so named because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing at the dig campsite just after the discovery), the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found by Dr. Leakey, who was found in Ethiopia’s swath of the Great Rift Valley. Also found here was Selam (“Peace”), the oldest child hominid ever found. The Great Rift Valley has yielded bones of human ancestors that are anywhere from 200,000 to 10 million years old. Like I said, Ethiopia is OLD.
Also, did you know that Ethiopia is home to the Ark of the Covenant? It is kept under lock and key by the Orthodox high priests in Axum in the north. Axum used to be a major center of the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, ruled over by the Queen of Sheba. We have been told that King Menelik I, who was the son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Sheba, brought it here from Jerusalem for safekeeping way back in the day. Mehron and I will go to high five the guards of its resting place when we take our trip up north to see Lalibela later this month, since I highly doubt they’re going to let just anyone waltz in there to see it, especially the annoying crazy Canadian girls who are humming the Indiana Jones theme song as loud as they can while they pretend to be awesome archaeologist-adventurers! You think I’m joking. But I really really love Indiana Jones.
Ethiopia is also the birthplace of two very cool things that have equally been around forever. 1) Coffee, which originates from Kaffa in the south. I had my first coffee here in Addis at Peacock, a coffeeshop that is an institution in this city. The waiters are lifers; they are all about a hundred years old and they know their business. I don’t like coffee, but this isn’t coffee, it’s Mekyato (Amharic rendition of macchiato) and it’s worth a try. 2) The Nile. World mystery solved: the source of the Nile is here. Lake Tana is the spring of the Blue Nile, which we will also be seeing on our roadtrip north. Wicked!
Here’s a little more on day to day happenings in Addis… we seem to get invitations and have errands to run every day, so we really don’t lack for things to do. Last week Mehr and I and some of her family attended the screening of three short films being presented at Alliance Francaise. The first film was in Dutch and left us confused as to what had happened. The second movie was a dreadful melodramatic South African piece that would have put a telenovela to shame. And the third (the one we really went to see) was a very well done story about an Ethiopian man trying to survive the days of the Derg (the communist dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from the 1970s to 1991), but it had a very unsatisfying ending.
And somehow at the end of the evening, we wound up meeting an Ethiopian movie star who invited us to the premiere of his new movie, A Guy’s Thing 2 (sequel to the bestselling A Guy’s Thing). We ended up going and despite the movie being entirely in Amharic, I found it really funny because it was mostly physical comedy and you could piece the plot together by all the angry pregnant ladies running around.
We also attended (though did not participate) in the Great Ethiopian Run, a 10km marathon around Addis with 30,000 participants at 10,000 ft of elevation. It was something to see...
Another evening we met up with one of Mehr’s mom’s friends who was in town from Nairobi with two interns. We wandered around exploring the shops in Piassa, the main window shopping district (so many jewelry stores!) before we went for dinner at Castelli’s which is famous for having hosted Brangelina for dinner when they adopted Zahara and for having the world’s rudest owners. We did not see Brad or Angie at dinner and the hosts were astonishingly rude, but the food was delish and the waitstaff were really great. Eg: when introducing ourselves, they responded with “Holly? Like Holi-day? Ohhh, like Holly-wood!”. Or better yet to Mehr, “I knew you were Ethiopian… you’re too beautiful not to be!” So funny.
Our other major restaurant outing was to Fasika with Mehr’s relatives to see some Ethiopian dancing. After going back and forth on whether we would need reservations and whether it would be better to go to another place called Habesha, we found ourselves front and center in the restaurant with the dancers and the band. I have no idea what half the things I ate were, as we all shared a communal injera plate of twenty different kinds of meat and vegetable sauces, but they were tasty. The dancing was the real highlight though… Ethiopian dance focuses on the shoulders and at times, I had to wonder if they have extra joints up there to accomplish some of their moves. And at one point, one woman mindblowingly spun her head such that I was sure it would go flying off.
Ouch. Amazing. Also, Mehr’s dad definitely got into a dance-off with one of the male dancers, so after that, we knew it was time to call it a night!
The other major event of the last week was Fidel’s birthday party, which he throws on Mount Entoto with tents and food and horse races and the whole nine yards. Every year, 50 or 60 people show up and party on the mountain with him for the afternoon and we were invited. They race all the horses, they eat, they drink, they laugh, then they go home all merry.
Unfortunately, I did not get to do any of those things because I had to go and get food poisoning on the morning of the party. Clever.
Also, did you know that Ethiopia is home to the Ark of the Covenant? It is kept under lock and key by the Orthodox high priests in Axum in the north. Axum used to be a major center of the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, ruled over by the Queen of Sheba. We have been told that King Menelik I, who was the son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Sheba, brought it here from Jerusalem for safekeeping way back in the day. Mehron and I will go to high five the guards of its resting place when we take our trip up north to see Lalibela later this month, since I highly doubt they’re going to let just anyone waltz in there to see it, especially the annoying crazy Canadian girls who are humming the Indiana Jones theme song as loud as they can while they pretend to be awesome archaeologist-adventurers! You think I’m joking. But I really really love Indiana Jones.
Ethiopia is also the birthplace of two very cool things that have equally been around forever. 1) Coffee, which originates from Kaffa in the south. I had my first coffee here in Addis at Peacock, a coffeeshop that is an institution in this city. The waiters are lifers; they are all about a hundred years old and they know their business. I don’t like coffee, but this isn’t coffee, it’s Mekyato (Amharic rendition of macchiato) and it’s worth a try. 2) The Nile. World mystery solved: the source of the Nile is here. Lake Tana is the spring of the Blue Nile, which we will also be seeing on our roadtrip north. Wicked!
Here’s a little more on day to day happenings in Addis… we seem to get invitations and have errands to run every day, so we really don’t lack for things to do. Last week Mehr and I and some of her family attended the screening of three short films being presented at Alliance Francaise. The first film was in Dutch and left us confused as to what had happened. The second movie was a dreadful melodramatic South African piece that would have put a telenovela to shame. And the third (the one we really went to see) was a very well done story about an Ethiopian man trying to survive the days of the Derg (the communist dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from the 1970s to 1991), but it had a very unsatisfying ending.
And somehow at the end of the evening, we wound up meeting an Ethiopian movie star who invited us to the premiere of his new movie, A Guy’s Thing 2 (sequel to the bestselling A Guy’s Thing). We ended up going and despite the movie being entirely in Amharic, I found it really funny because it was mostly physical comedy and you could piece the plot together by all the angry pregnant ladies running around.
We also attended (though did not participate) in the Great Ethiopian Run, a 10km marathon around Addis with 30,000 participants at 10,000 ft of elevation. It was something to see...
Another evening we met up with one of Mehr’s mom’s friends who was in town from Nairobi with two interns. We wandered around exploring the shops in Piassa, the main window shopping district (so many jewelry stores!) before we went for dinner at Castelli’s which is famous for having hosted Brangelina for dinner when they adopted Zahara and for having the world’s rudest owners. We did not see Brad or Angie at dinner and the hosts were astonishingly rude, but the food was delish and the waitstaff were really great. Eg: when introducing ourselves, they responded with “Holly? Like Holi-day? Ohhh, like Holly-wood!”. Or better yet to Mehr, “I knew you were Ethiopian… you’re too beautiful not to be!” So funny.
Our other major restaurant outing was to Fasika with Mehr’s relatives to see some Ethiopian dancing. After going back and forth on whether we would need reservations and whether it would be better to go to another place called Habesha, we found ourselves front and center in the restaurant with the dancers and the band. I have no idea what half the things I ate were, as we all shared a communal injera plate of twenty different kinds of meat and vegetable sauces, but they were tasty. The dancing was the real highlight though… Ethiopian dance focuses on the shoulders and at times, I had to wonder if they have extra joints up there to accomplish some of their moves. And at one point, one woman mindblowingly spun her head such that I was sure it would go flying off.
Ouch. Amazing. Also, Mehr’s dad definitely got into a dance-off with one of the male dancers, so after that, we knew it was time to call it a night!
The other major event of the last week was Fidel’s birthday party, which he throws on Mount Entoto with tents and food and horse races and the whole nine yards. Every year, 50 or 60 people show up and party on the mountain with him for the afternoon and we were invited. They race all the horses, they eat, they drink, they laugh, then they go home all merry.
Unfortunately, I did not get to do any of those things because I had to go and get food poisoning on the morning of the party. Clever.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Ethiopia - Addis Ababa - Welcome to Africa. It's Just Like The Movies.
When my puddlejumper plane landed on the tarmac at the Addis Ababa Africa derives from The Lion King.
Mehr had promised to pick me up at that unfortunate hour of the morning, and I was greatly relieved to spot her sleepy but cheerful face awaiting me in the arrival area. We followed the dirt path out to the parking lot, a gravelly square filled with dozing pack animals, wandering goats and antelopes and motorcycles. Mehr whistled at one gossiping driver who disdainfully looked our way before rallying our three camels. Oh my goodness. Holly on a camel at 4am sounds like all kinds of trouble!
Mehr had promised to pick me up at that unfortunate hour of the morning, and I was greatly relieved to spot her sleepy but cheerful face awaiting me in the arrival area. We followed the dirt path out to the parking lot, a gravelly square filled with dozing pack animals, wandering goats and antelopes and motorcycles. Mehr whistled at one gossiping driver who disdainfully looked our way before rallying our three camels. Oh my goodness. Holly on a camel at 4am sounds like all kinds of trouble!
Just kidding. Our driver actually brought a rickshaw around to take us home. And I can already tell you that
There is a wood stove in the big room to do all the cooking, which turns the house into a bit of a giant oven when combined with the hot African sun beating down on the roof. We eat almost only Ethiopian food because Western food imports are crazy expensive here and can only be obtained via the black market. Ethiopian food is great, but they are very proud of being the origin of coffee.
This pride results in the use of coffee grounds as seasoning in the dishes, such as coffee-marinated chicken, coffee rice and coffee-sprinkled pizza. I cannot say I enjoy the coffee pizza, and I got more than a few strange looks when I asked for my pizza “buna alfelegim” (I don’t want coffee). I better not tell them I don’t drink coffee...
Many people thought I would get bored here, but it turns out we have tons to do. I first had to be presented to the local neighbourhood community at a formal ceremony presided over by the village elders. It was like a scene out of a movie. They gathered in front of our house at sunset and I was introduced by the chief in a very elabourate speech in Amharic, the main language of
Mehr took me out to the current hotspot, a club called Tropicana, to relax after the evening’s formalities. Turns out that Tropicana is also the favourite hang-out of the slightly sinister men of power in
I awoke hot and sweaty the next morning to the scarlet fireball sun burning holes through my eyelids through the open window of our room. Mehr and I trekked across the hot and dusty school compound to the school building, a giant sweltering gymnasium with a grass and sand floor. There are some computers and other everyday technology available in
So there’s a little slice of living in
Okay, not really. April Fool’s! Nobody expects an April Fool's prank in October...
Actual
After a long day on and off of planes between
Mehron’s sleepy and cheerful face was indeed there to greet me at that absurd hour with her father’s favourite taxi driver in tow. Both of whom were exhausted having mixed up the dates and gone to pick me up at that same time the night before as well! 
All the taxis here are blue and white, with no working seatbelts, a maximum speed of 40km/hr and their drivers face the incredibly difficult task of not hitting the pedestrians who waltz around the roads like they own the place. The penalty for killing someone in a car accident is a minimum of 15 years in prison even if it is not the driver’s fault, so there is plenty of motivation to drive safely and slowly.
Our house is like a really comfortable cottage, decorated with Persian rugs, Native Canadian art and Syrian furniture from their family’s many travels. Mehr and I share a bedroom with an ensuite Anne of Green Gables decorated bathroom, with a shower with plenty of hot water down the hall by the kitchen. Mehr’s dad is an excellent cook and makes a wide range of incredible meals with everything from prosciutto to litchi thanks to the slightly pricey but well stocked local grocery store, and the assistance of the refrigerator, stove and oven in the kitchen.
The only thing he has not made is Ethiopian food, which was made for us by Mehron’s grandmother, whose mother used to cook for Emperor Haile Selassie, the idolized deceased king of 
I have been informally introduced with more conventional hand-shaking to most of the city already since Mehron’s dad knows EVERYONE. I must have met fifty people this first week alone. The local hang out is Three Bees, a front porch bar opposite the school campus. Further afield are the Hilton and Sheraton Hotels and Bole street, where the drinking and eating happens away from home. We went to a great Motown show at the Sheraton where my surprise birthday party unfolded on Friday night.
And while the stereotypes about 
I like it!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Austria - Vienna - The Two Faces of the City
"You have troubles of one sort or another -
TO THE KAFFEEHAUS!
She can't come to you for some reason no matter how plausible -
TO THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You have holes in your shoes -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You have a salary of 400 crowns and spend 500 -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You are frugal and permit yourself nothing -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You find no woman who suits you -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You are SPIRITUALLY on the threshold of suicide -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
You hate and disdain people and yet cannot do without them -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!
Nobody extends you any more credit anywhere -
THE KAFFEEHAUS!"
-Peter Altenberg, 1859-1919
Alright, so the city of Vienna has two distinct sides to it. Two very different pairs of trousers in fact: the Fancy Pants and the Stinky Pants.
Fancy Pants:
This is a place of palaces and princes, of waltzes and women in Chanel, of Mozart and men in Armani suits on bicycles on a Sunday afternoon, of cakes, coffeehouses and classical music. You feel like you should be sauntering around town in expensive designer wares or at least a poofy ballgown to match your surroundings. Margaux and I spent our time enjoying the fantastic cakes of the coffeehouses and admiring the stunning-ness of the city, while hosted by my friend Kristin who lives here for the time being. Highlights include the Belvedere, home to Klimt's The Kiss and Judity I (such a great exhibit!), Schonbrunn, the Hapsburgs' summer palace with gardens and mazes included, a Haydn concert, Haus der Musik (excellent museum!), and of course, my birthday festivities with my friends in Europe!
HOWEVER, Vienna is also a place of peculiar perfumes. The Metro is the ultimate example of the city's unique aromas, where the denizens of the area who believe in the every-other-day-shower and in the optional-application-of-deodorant frequent the public transit and stink up the trains. Where babies poop their diapers and their moms glance at you across the aisle unapologetically and make no move to address their smelly child. Where a man lets a silent but incredibly deadly fart rip on the seat next to you and smirks as you gag and bolt for the nearest doors and claw at the doors to open as soon as the station appears in the distance. But it is not restricted to the Metro. This is also the place where horse drawn carriages mark their trails with the distinct odor of horse urine and manure. And where it is apparently okay to toss your still-lit cigarettes into the open purses of passers-by (Kristin's bag still reeks of smoke and has four holes thanks to that douchebag).
Overall, I definitely would recommend Vienna. But I would also suggest that you take a noseplug and zip your purse shut... just in case.
Sidenote: One bizarre discovery in Vienna...
Monday, October 5, 2009
Hungary - Budapest - Home of Paprika and Horses
So Budapest was GREAT. Margaux and I arrived having no idea what to expect, but having heard good things from a few other people. We scored a super hostel in central Pest near the opera house within walking distance of nearly everything.
We spent lots of time sightseeing and eating yummy paprika-laden goulash soup (not a stew, by the way), and almost no time drinking any alcohol to dry ourselves out from Oktoberfest. Hungary was slightly more of a challenging travel destination as well, since the language is incredibly difficult to pronounce due to an abundance of consonants in a row and seven kinds of accents on each vowel (we only mastered please and thank you - kerem and kosonom - by the end of our stay). Also, despite being in the EU, Hungary is still transitioning to the Euro, so we found ourselves with the awkward exchange rate of 170 forints to 1 Canadian dollar, meaning we had no idea what anything was costing us!
Our first priority was to spend a few hours pampering ourselves in the Rudas Baths, the oldest Turkish baths in the city in the sketchiest most broken down appearing building ever. Inside was stellar though. There were six pools and two saunas, with the pools varying in temperatures from 15 to 42 degrees centigrade. So relaxing... I kept hearing my mom's voice warning me not to fall asleep in the tub as I dozed off.
Further afield was Memento Park, home of Statue Park, where the former Soviet statues have been relocated outside the city. Definitely worth a look. We also got to watch old reels of secret police training tapes about surveillance and secret house searches, which were dated but creepy.
The bulk of the tourist attractions were on (or near, in the case of the gorgeous Parliament building) Castle Hill, in Buda, where the National Palace houses the Hungarian National Gallery (the interesting part of which was closed for renos, bummer) and the Budapest Museum. Castle Hill is also home to the fabulously mosaiced roof of St Matyas Church and another castle, as well as Fisherman's Bastion and generally fantastic views over the city.
My personal favourite was the Labirintus, a massive underground cave network/labyrinth under Buda Hill, which includes an ever flowing wine fountain (too many fruit flies to drink it though!). Poor Margaux was dragged along in the dark bowels of the mountain behind me, and she was kind enough to lie and say she enjoyed the dank underbelly of the castle ruins. She's a good friend like that.
We spent lots of time sightseeing and eating yummy paprika-laden goulash soup (not a stew, by the way), and almost no time drinking any alcohol to dry ourselves out from Oktoberfest. Hungary was slightly more of a challenging travel destination as well, since the language is incredibly difficult to pronounce due to an abundance of consonants in a row and seven kinds of accents on each vowel (we only mastered please and thank you - kerem and kosonom - by the end of our stay). Also, despite being in the EU, Hungary is still transitioning to the Euro, so we found ourselves with the awkward exchange rate of 170 forints to 1 Canadian dollar, meaning we had no idea what anything was costing us!
Our first priority was to spend a few hours pampering ourselves in the Rudas Baths, the oldest Turkish baths in the city in the sketchiest most broken down appearing building ever. Inside was stellar though. There were six pools and two saunas, with the pools varying in temperatures from 15 to 42 degrees centigrade. So relaxing... I kept hearing my mom's voice warning me not to fall asleep in the tub as I dozed off.
Further afield was Memento Park, home of Statue Park, where the former Soviet statues have been relocated outside the city. Definitely worth a look. We also got to watch old reels of secret police training tapes about surveillance and secret house searches, which were dated but creepy.
The bulk of the tourist attractions were on (or near, in the case of the gorgeous Parliament building) Castle Hill, in Buda, where the National Palace houses the Hungarian National Gallery (the interesting part of which was closed for renos, bummer) and the Budapest Museum. Castle Hill is also home to the fabulously mosaiced roof of St Matyas Church and another castle, as well as Fisherman's Bastion and generally fantastic views over the city.
My personal favourite was the Labirintus, a massive underground cave network/labyrinth under Buda Hill, which includes an ever flowing wine fountain (too many fruit flies to drink it though!). Poor Margaux was dragged along in the dark bowels of the mountain behind me, and she was kind enough to lie and say she enjoyed the dank underbelly of the castle ruins. She's a good friend like that.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Germany - Munich - Dirndls and Ledenhosen and Bier, Achtung!
Short version:
We drank a lot of beer.
Long version:
We passed a quiet time on our train to Munich, in silent contemplation of the challenge that lay ahead: Oktoberfest. Little did we know at that time just how grand the challenge would be... upon joining the rest of our party (Trevor, Bronwyn, Chad, Ryan, Taylor and Greg), we were informed of the goal: 8 people, 4 days, 100L of beer. We scoffed but committed to try our best.
Our first beer excursion was to Hofbrauhaus, the famous biergarten located in downtown Munich, where we had our first introduction to the Bavarian norms of beerdrinking. A full litre of 6.5 per cent alcohol specially brewed Oktoberfest beer (1 of 6 official beers) is plunked down before your eyes by a dirndl-sporting bar wench, who then slides a fat crackled pork knuckle (don't look for the vegetables, they have fled the city) almost onto your lap to accompany your drink, while in the background, the lederhosen-clad oompah bandmen warm up the crowd with a rousing rendition of the beer drinking anthem of Munich, Ein Prosit, which has the entire hall standing on the benches hollering along and clanking litres together, beer sloshing everywhere.
(Also, please note the complete normalcy of running around town in the traditional costumes of lederhosen and dirndls. No one even bats an eyelash, since more than half of any crowd you encounter is thusly attired. Note: it is not cheap fashion, with dirndls running about 100 Euros, and lederhosen at 200 Euros.)
We scored ourselves a table at the prestigious Augustiner beer tent on the Oktoberfest grounds at Theresienwiese and spent 9am-4pm on a nice Friday afternoon blowing second hand smoke out of our faces, consuming 3+ litres of Augustiner and multiple hendls (chicken roasted on a spit), pretending to know the words to Ein Prosit, which went from being played once every few hours to every twenty minutes in the afternoon, making friends with Germans who didn't speak English, participating in dance-a-long songs involves a swimming motion kind of like a German YMCA song, and generally enjoying ourselves. We had one casualty in our ranks, who bowed out for the rest of the afternoon after getting sick but rallied and rejoined us for late dinner and drinks that night (yes, beer was consistently consumed over the four days, and not just at the beer tents of the Oktoberfest fair grounds).
We did sneak a little culture into our visit. We did the free walking tour of Munich (nowhere near as good as the one in Berlin!), learning about a range of history of the city, from Hitler's failed effort to take Munich and the Nazi resistance movement to the stealing of the airport's May Pole by the local police to embarrass airport security. We also went to a soccer game between Paderborn and Munich, where we were suitably impressed with the range of cheering chants and routines of all the fans.
At one point, they were shouting something in German that sounded a lot like "She needs a washcloth!", which is probably not an accurate translation. My favourite is when the two sides of the stadium alternated shouting the same thing in German at each other. I think it was the equivalent of "You suck!", "No, YOU suck!".
Final tally was between 75-80L of beer for the whole group. Beer champions Chad and Trevor had at least 15L each. Margaux pulled off more than 5L and I managed 6.5L. All in all, we had a blast, but we were definitely were ready to give our livers a little breathing space in Budapest!
Our organizer and beer champ Chad also made a commemorative video of our adventures (3 parts).
We drank a lot of beer.
Long version:
We passed a quiet time on our train to Munich, in silent contemplation of the challenge that lay ahead: Oktoberfest. Little did we know at that time just how grand the challenge would be... upon joining the rest of our party (Trevor, Bronwyn, Chad, Ryan, Taylor and Greg), we were informed of the goal: 8 people, 4 days, 100L of beer. We scoffed but committed to try our best.
Our first beer excursion was to Hofbrauhaus, the famous biergarten located in downtown Munich, where we had our first introduction to the Bavarian norms of beerdrinking. A full litre of 6.5 per cent alcohol specially brewed Oktoberfest beer (1 of 6 official beers) is plunked down before your eyes by a dirndl-sporting bar wench, who then slides a fat crackled pork knuckle (don't look for the vegetables, they have fled the city) almost onto your lap to accompany your drink, while in the background, the lederhosen-clad oompah bandmen warm up the crowd with a rousing rendition of the beer drinking anthem of Munich, Ein Prosit, which has the entire hall standing on the benches hollering along and clanking litres together, beer sloshing everywhere.
(Also, please note the complete normalcy of running around town in the traditional costumes of lederhosen and dirndls. No one even bats an eyelash, since more than half of any crowd you encounter is thusly attired. Note: it is not cheap fashion, with dirndls running about 100 Euros, and lederhosen at 200 Euros.)
We scored ourselves a table at the prestigious Augustiner beer tent on the Oktoberfest grounds at Theresienwiese and spent 9am-4pm on a nice Friday afternoon blowing second hand smoke out of our faces, consuming 3+ litres of Augustiner and multiple hendls (chicken roasted on a spit), pretending to know the words to Ein Prosit, which went from being played once every few hours to every twenty minutes in the afternoon, making friends with Germans who didn't speak English, participating in dance-a-long songs involves a swimming motion kind of like a German YMCA song, and generally enjoying ourselves. We had one casualty in our ranks, who bowed out for the rest of the afternoon after getting sick but rallied and rejoined us for late dinner and drinks that night (yes, beer was consistently consumed over the four days, and not just at the beer tents of the Oktoberfest fair grounds).
We did sneak a little culture into our visit. We did the free walking tour of Munich (nowhere near as good as the one in Berlin!), learning about a range of history of the city, from Hitler's failed effort to take Munich and the Nazi resistance movement to the stealing of the airport's May Pole by the local police to embarrass airport security. We also went to a soccer game between Paderborn and Munich, where we were suitably impressed with the range of cheering chants and routines of all the fans.
At one point, they were shouting something in German that sounded a lot like "She needs a washcloth!", which is probably not an accurate translation. My favourite is when the two sides of the stadium alternated shouting the same thing in German at each other. I think it was the equivalent of "You suck!", "No, YOU suck!".
Final tally was between 75-80L of beer for the whole group. Beer champions Chad and Trevor had at least 15L each. Margaux pulled off more than 5L and I managed 6.5L. All in all, we had a blast, but we were definitely were ready to give our livers a little breathing space in Budapest!
Our organizer and beer champ Chad also made a commemorative video of our adventures (3 parts).
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Germany - Berlin - A Smorgasbord of Interesting Everything
Margaux and I hopped on our plane to Berlin on Sunday morning, eager to flee from the thieving streets of Barcelona to the land of ze Germans. Margaux had been to Berlin already, but it so enthralled her that she was more than willing to return. Having now been there myslef, I can certainly see why. Berlin has over 150 museums, a thriving arts and cultural scene and great nightlife and food. Why doesnt everyone live here? It has everything.
We scored big time through Mehron, who hooked us up with her friend Mael in Berlin. Mael offered to put us up at his apartment in Kreuzberg, just south of the main tourist sites. Which was incredibly generous and hospitable, especially in light of the fact that he was out of town the entire time we were there. In fact, another of his roommates was also out of town, and the remaining dweller of the apartment we saw all of twice in four days, so in fact, we scored essentially a private apartment in Berlin!
That being said, it was a sequence of incredibly random events that ended with our successful arrival to the apartment. First off, we had to get from Schoenefeld airport to Kreuzberg, which appeared fairly simple on the metro maps. However, when we got to the metro station, we could not figure out for the life of us how to find our train. We knew our train number and we knew we were at the right station, however, there was no board posting which train would go from which platform. Margaux somehow deciphered a secondary train code from a yellow piece of paper of fine print on platform four, which somehow informed her we should go to platform seven, where indeed our train appeared.
Arriving to Kottbusser Tor station in Kreuzberg a good while later, and having not been fed on our easyjet flight, we could help but notice our energy was dwindling and we had yet to search for the actual apartment. It was nearly instantly agreed upon that we would stop for kebabs at the recommended Hasir restaurant on Adalbertstrasse, and true to reviews, it was ridiculously delicious! Feeling refueled and ready to set out, we prowled Adalbertstrasse for the retrieval location of the apartment key: the corner store. Yes, really. Apparently when our hosts are out of town, they sometimes leave their keys with the convenience store for others to pick up. Passing by three drunk Germans on the picnic table outside the store (picnic tables and benches line the streets outside of shops here for the public drinkers looking for a place to people watch) who either tried to hit on us or panhandle for money, I entered the shop and announced I was Holly and was there a key for me. The cashier started looking around with little success, and we were getting nervous, but then her mother appeared from the back of the store and they exchanged some hurried German and a key was produced. Check.
We had no trouble then finding the apartment building, however, we belatedly realized that Mael had not mentioned the apartment number or floor. The directory listing was under his roommate, who last name I didnt know, so that was no help. Guess who got to go door to door trying the key in each lock until they found one that opened? One man heard us trying to get in and hurried out to eye us suspiciously. Thankfully, he didnt call the police on us.
In case you are curious, it turns out Mael lives on the sixth floor.
Our first priority for sightseeing was to do the free New Berlin walking tour, which was as excellent as people said it would be. Sights seen included Brandenburg Gate (whose Victory statue sits over Pariserplatz/Paris Place and stares ominously in the direction of the French embassy in the courtyard), the Adlon Hotel (better known as the baby dangling hotel of MJ infamy where the presidential suite costs 12,000€ per night), Tiergarten and the Reichstag (the government buildings in Germany now all include a lot of glass sections of architecture to emphasize their renewed focus on government transparency), the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe also known as the Holocaust memorial, the site of Hitlers suicide bunker, the tax office (a former Nazi building, then used by the Soviets, now by the revenue service), the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz (site of the Nazi burning of 20,000 books), the Kathe Kollwitz victims of war memorial, and Museums Island (home of the Pergamon museum, Berliner Dom, and many others).
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and struck a great balance between communicating the history of Berlin and Germany and the struggle to come to terms with its past, while still providing humour and pop trivia about this place and people as well.
We also went inside the Pergamon museum to see the Pergamon Altar and massive frieze depicting the war between the ancient Greek gods and the Giants, a famous market gate whose name escapes my memory at the moment, and the reconstruction of Babylons Ishtar Gate. We saw other things in the museum as well, such as Assyrian and Islamic artefacts, like the towers from Mshatta, but the big three were the standout items for sure. We then picnicked in Tiergarten (we self-catered a lot in Berlin knowing Munich and Oktoberfest was going to kill our bank accounts shortly), wandered through the Holocaust memorial at our leisure once more, and then walked over to the Kulturforum to check out an art gallery, only to realize we were WAY behind schedule.
The tricky thing about Berlin is that it is very spacious. The blocks go for half a kilometer or longer sometimes, so what looks like a 10 minute, 4 block walk on the map in fact is a 2km 30 minute journey. We kept forgetting this, so our schedule had to be amended constantly. Plus our priority on this particular day was to go on a pub crawl.
We made it to the first bar just ten minutes before the free beer was done, so just in the nick of time! The crawl took us to four bars and a nightclub, and I was suitably impressed with the variety and quality of atmosphere in the bar scene here. The first bar was a backyard beach junkyard, if you can imagine that. The second was the worlds tiniest hole in the wall with great music, the third was arrayed with a cheesy disco ball and winding black leather couches, while the fourth was all white and red. The club was pretty average and took almost half an hour to get to, so I was less impressed there. Didnt help that two guys looking to rumble knocked my beer out of my hand and it smashed on the floor. Margaux and I also spent a good deal of time avoiding an undaunted very short Irish man who continued to chase us around despite being repeatedly told we would under no circumstances be going home with him. Sigh. This is why Im getting too old for clubs. But the dancing was spot on, so we overcame and stayed out late dancing our brains out.
The other thing that greatly impressed both of us was the Jewish Museum, which I had as a mandatory outing since studying it in my Masters program, when we were looking at the different ways the world has tried to commemorate and educate people about genocide. We spent almost four hours in this museum, which had two massive floors portraying the history of Jewish people in Europe from medieval times until after WWII. But for me the most engaging and affecting part of the museum was the underground level which was an intersection of hallways named the Axis of Exile and the Axis of the Holocaust. The architecture was the most outstanding feature of the museum and I was truly overwhelmed at how successfully the architect had made voids and empty spaces refer to the absence of the missing victims of the Holocaust. Standing inside the base of the Holocaust Tower, the voided void, was unforgettable. And the Garden of Exile, a series of 25 blocks with the ground tilting at an angle causing dislocation and a real loss of equilibrium, was equally thought provoking. I had to wonder when it was built in relation to the Holocaust Memorial (which allows you to see what you see and works on a lot of levels of understanding), since there were similarities between the two.
Were also greatly enjoying the German language, which inevitably sounds incredibly serious or incredibly silly. Our favourite game lately is to random read sentences we find aloud to each other with an exclamation point. Weve mastered the following essential phrases:
Wilkommen - welcome
Gutentag - good day
Bitte - please or youre welcome
Danke - thanks
Bier - beer
Nein Deutsch - No German
Ausgang - exit
Ampelmann - traffic light man (who is revered by Berliners and is totally adorable with his hat and strut. They have whole stores of Ampelmann gear here)
Will try to expand vocabulary more for Munich and Oktoberfest, where we are meeting up with Margaux's friends Chad, Bronwyn, Trevor, Taylor, Greg and Ryan to revel in the beer halls. Wish us luck!
We scored big time through Mehron, who hooked us up with her friend Mael in Berlin. Mael offered to put us up at his apartment in Kreuzberg, just south of the main tourist sites. Which was incredibly generous and hospitable, especially in light of the fact that he was out of town the entire time we were there. In fact, another of his roommates was also out of town, and the remaining dweller of the apartment we saw all of twice in four days, so in fact, we scored essentially a private apartment in Berlin!
That being said, it was a sequence of incredibly random events that ended with our successful arrival to the apartment. First off, we had to get from Schoenefeld airport to Kreuzberg, which appeared fairly simple on the metro maps. However, when we got to the metro station, we could not figure out for the life of us how to find our train. We knew our train number and we knew we were at the right station, however, there was no board posting which train would go from which platform. Margaux somehow deciphered a secondary train code from a yellow piece of paper of fine print on platform four, which somehow informed her we should go to platform seven, where indeed our train appeared.
Arriving to Kottbusser Tor station in Kreuzberg a good while later, and having not been fed on our easyjet flight, we could help but notice our energy was dwindling and we had yet to search for the actual apartment. It was nearly instantly agreed upon that we would stop for kebabs at the recommended Hasir restaurant on Adalbertstrasse, and true to reviews, it was ridiculously delicious! Feeling refueled and ready to set out, we prowled Adalbertstrasse for the retrieval location of the apartment key: the corner store. Yes, really. Apparently when our hosts are out of town, they sometimes leave their keys with the convenience store for others to pick up. Passing by three drunk Germans on the picnic table outside the store (picnic tables and benches line the streets outside of shops here for the public drinkers looking for a place to people watch) who either tried to hit on us or panhandle for money, I entered the shop and announced I was Holly and was there a key for me. The cashier started looking around with little success, and we were getting nervous, but then her mother appeared from the back of the store and they exchanged some hurried German and a key was produced. Check.
We had no trouble then finding the apartment building, however, we belatedly realized that Mael had not mentioned the apartment number or floor. The directory listing was under his roommate, who last name I didnt know, so that was no help. Guess who got to go door to door trying the key in each lock until they found one that opened? One man heard us trying to get in and hurried out to eye us suspiciously. Thankfully, he didnt call the police on us.
In case you are curious, it turns out Mael lives on the sixth floor.
Our first priority for sightseeing was to do the free New Berlin walking tour, which was as excellent as people said it would be. Sights seen included Brandenburg Gate (whose Victory statue sits over Pariserplatz/Paris Place and stares ominously in the direction of the French embassy in the courtyard), the Adlon Hotel (better known as the baby dangling hotel of MJ infamy where the presidential suite costs 12,000€ per night), Tiergarten and the Reichstag (the government buildings in Germany now all include a lot of glass sections of architecture to emphasize their renewed focus on government transparency), the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe also known as the Holocaust memorial, the site of Hitlers suicide bunker, the tax office (a former Nazi building, then used by the Soviets, now by the revenue service), the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz (site of the Nazi burning of 20,000 books), the Kathe Kollwitz victims of war memorial, and Museums Island (home of the Pergamon museum, Berliner Dom, and many others).
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and struck a great balance between communicating the history of Berlin and Germany and the struggle to come to terms with its past, while still providing humour and pop trivia about this place and people as well.
We also went inside the Pergamon museum to see the Pergamon Altar and massive frieze depicting the war between the ancient Greek gods and the Giants, a famous market gate whose name escapes my memory at the moment, and the reconstruction of Babylons Ishtar Gate. We saw other things in the museum as well, such as Assyrian and Islamic artefacts, like the towers from Mshatta, but the big three were the standout items for sure. We then picnicked in Tiergarten (we self-catered a lot in Berlin knowing Munich and Oktoberfest was going to kill our bank accounts shortly), wandered through the Holocaust memorial at our leisure once more, and then walked over to the Kulturforum to check out an art gallery, only to realize we were WAY behind schedule.
The tricky thing about Berlin is that it is very spacious. The blocks go for half a kilometer or longer sometimes, so what looks like a 10 minute, 4 block walk on the map in fact is a 2km 30 minute journey. We kept forgetting this, so our schedule had to be amended constantly. Plus our priority on this particular day was to go on a pub crawl.
We made it to the first bar just ten minutes before the free beer was done, so just in the nick of time! The crawl took us to four bars and a nightclub, and I was suitably impressed with the variety and quality of atmosphere in the bar scene here. The first bar was a backyard beach junkyard, if you can imagine that. The second was the worlds tiniest hole in the wall with great music, the third was arrayed with a cheesy disco ball and winding black leather couches, while the fourth was all white and red. The club was pretty average and took almost half an hour to get to, so I was less impressed there. Didnt help that two guys looking to rumble knocked my beer out of my hand and it smashed on the floor. Margaux and I also spent a good deal of time avoiding an undaunted very short Irish man who continued to chase us around despite being repeatedly told we would under no circumstances be going home with him. Sigh. This is why Im getting too old for clubs. But the dancing was spot on, so we overcame and stayed out late dancing our brains out.
The other thing that greatly impressed both of us was the Jewish Museum, which I had as a mandatory outing since studying it in my Masters program, when we were looking at the different ways the world has tried to commemorate and educate people about genocide. We spent almost four hours in this museum, which had two massive floors portraying the history of Jewish people in Europe from medieval times until after WWII. But for me the most engaging and affecting part of the museum was the underground level which was an intersection of hallways named the Axis of Exile and the Axis of the Holocaust. The architecture was the most outstanding feature of the museum and I was truly overwhelmed at how successfully the architect had made voids and empty spaces refer to the absence of the missing victims of the Holocaust. Standing inside the base of the Holocaust Tower, the voided void, was unforgettable. And the Garden of Exile, a series of 25 blocks with the ground tilting at an angle causing dislocation and a real loss of equilibrium, was equally thought provoking. I had to wonder when it was built in relation to the Holocaust Memorial (which allows you to see what you see and works on a lot of levels of understanding), since there were similarities between the two.
Were also greatly enjoying the German language, which inevitably sounds incredibly serious or incredibly silly. Our favourite game lately is to random read sentences we find aloud to each other with an exclamation point. Weve mastered the following essential phrases:
Wilkommen - welcome
Gutentag - good day
Bitte - please or youre welcome
Danke - thanks
Bier - beer
Nein Deutsch - No German
Ausgang - exit
Ampelmann - traffic light man (who is revered by Berliners and is totally adorable with his hat and strut. They have whole stores of Ampelmann gear here)
Will try to expand vocabulary more for Munich and Oktoberfest, where we are meeting up with Margaux's friends Chad, Bronwyn, Trevor, Taylor, Greg and Ryan to revel in the beer halls. Wish us luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
