Don't Cry For Me: Argentina

Well, I’m back. Sort of. I’m back on the road, but I’m somewhere else – this time, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since I’m taking classes here, there is a lot less time for touristy stuff, though I’m planning on getting a lot of that in as well. Therefore, there likely will be fewer entries and fewer photos.

Now that I’ve set you up so as to not expect any photos, I’ll go ahead and give you some. Just as long as you’re not expecting any. On my first day in Argentina, the biggest soccer match of the year in South America was taking place in Buenos Aires – Boca Juniors at River Plate. I got here too late, so I missed it, though I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of soccer in my future.

If you think that missing the superclasico would depress me, it did a little bit and I went to a cemetery, but it wasn’t the depression that sent me to the depressing plot of land. It was Evita. Eva Peron is buried in el Cementerio de la Recoleta in Buenos Aires, one of the world’s great necropolises. It is a mostly above-ground cemetery with hundreds of mausoleums dating from the mid-19^th century to the present. I don’t know much about Argentine history, but many of the elite are buried in the Recoleta Cemetery, or so I am told. The only name I recognized was Eva Peron, and her family mausoleum had a crowd around it throughout the entirety of my visit.

After class on Monday, I started roaming around town and found myself in la Plaza de Mayo. The Plaza is the heart, though not the center, of the city. Its most well-known landmark is La Casa Rosada, which translates into the Pink House. La Casa Rosada is the executive office of the government and la Presidente (yes, LA Presidente – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner), roughly equivalent to a slightly-less colorful building in Washington, D.C. Just in case you were wondering, the house was pink long before Argentina elected a female president.

The other famous landmark in a city that’s not really known all that much for landmarks is the obelisk that sits in the middle of Avenida 9 de Julio. The obelisk, coincidentally known as "the Obelisk," appears to be similar in size to the Washington Monument and is impressive in its own right. What I find more impressive is what is reputedly (I’ve seen conflicting data) the widest street in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, which is (again conflicting data) 127 m (416 ft) and 18 lanes wide. Just crossing the street is a little bit of a hike. Despite all of the traffic, however, drivers appear to obey traffic laws and the trip across, though it takes a few traffic light cycles, doesn’t appear to be unsafe at all.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with probably less touristy stuff from time-to-time.

Ciao.

Stanley House: A Review

The Stanley House Hotel in London was the sketchiest looking hotel that I stayed in the entire time that I was in Europe. (Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures at this hotel.) Despite the looks, however, it turned out to be very comfortable and quiet, two things I look for in a hotel. It also had the amenities I like (wifi and breakfast) and only cost around $90/night. After getting a sinking feeling following my first glance, I was pleasantly surprised.

The location of the hotel could be better. It is about a seven-minute south from Victoria Station, close to the Thames. It’s not a horrible location, just not particularly active, though there were some restaurants and pubs that allowed me to get food and drink from a relatively close distance, so I can’t complain too much.

The room was among the largest I stayed in, smaller than only Berlin and Vienna. It also had a full-sized bed that was actually very comfortable. The bathroom was fairly small, but after what I experienced in Amsterdam and Bratislava, it’s nothing that I would complain about.

The wifi was free and was pretty good quality, allowing me to watch streaming video. The breakfast, a traditional English breakfast with “bacon,” sausage, eggs, tomato and baked beans, was very good and very quick. They only served it until 9:00 am, which seemed to me to be uncommonly early, but given my schedule on this particular trip to London, that worked out fine.

I had read some bad reviews of the staff prior to coming here, but I found that the staff was very friendly and very helpful. They helped with some initial problems when I arrived and I noticed them advising others of other places to stay in the area even before they had filled all of their vacancies.

I don’t really have a lot to add to what I wrote above. Like I said, it’s not much to look at from the outside, or even the inside before you get to your room, but I was completely happy with my room and would stay here again.

London Revisited

It turns out that ending the trip with two days, one full day, in London was a little anti-climactic. While I had far from seen and done everything in London that I wanted to see and do, I didn’t quite have the energy or enthusiasm to try to cram a lot into my final visit.

One reason that I didn’t do more than I did in these last two days is that the one thing that I did do took a lot longer than expected. When I left the United States a month or so ago, it was the middle of the U.S. Open. With tennis still on my mind, I decided to go to Wimbledon to see it’s museum and take a guided tour of the grounds.

The guided tour was really interesting. The grounds were a lot smaller than I expected from what I’ve seen on television. Also, I never realized how close together all of the outside courts were to each other. Parts of it looked like you might find at a public court, except with perfectly manicured grass and an overwhelming sense of history.

We also went to see Court One and Centre Court. Obviously, being the most famous tennis court in the entire world, Centre Court was quite an experience, though it seemed a little strange because there were no lines, nets or, except for about forty of us on the tour, people. One unexpected highlight was they tested the retractable roof while we were there, so we got to see that close. Not exciting, just interesting.

Most of the other things that I did in these final two days in London is just walk around, take my last set of pictures, eat, and buy a last group of souvenirs. I took some pictures of Buckingham Palace from the front, since I was in the neighborhood and since I noticed that on my last trip to London, all of my photos were from the back. That’s it, really. Nothing too exciting at the end.

As I write this, I’m on a plane back to the United States. I’ll be there around ten days before heading off to Argentina for eight weeks. I’m thinking of posting some “Top Five” lists from my European trip, just for fun, and then I’ll probably start posting again once I get to Buenos Aires.

Cheers.

Die Port Van Cleve: A Review

In Amsterdam, I stayed at Die Port Van Cleve. I’ll go ahead and start with a summary. Something about this place just always seemed to feel wrong, although the location was near perfect.

Finding the place is relatively easy, provided you don’t get there at one of the non-main stations after dark. Unfortunately, as I’ve written about in a prior post, I got there in a non-main station after dark. The hotel is at the first stop on several traps from Amsterdam Centraal. Unfortunately, from Amsterdam Zuid, where my train stopped, it’s the next-to-last stop on line five. Unfortunately, after six, there’s no way to get tickets at Amsterdam Zuid. The people there told me I could get a ticket on the train, but that didn’t happen either. I ended up risking a fine and just hopping a train without a ticket. That’s not the hotel’s fault, though.

Check-in at the hotel was easy enough, but after taking nearly 30 minutes to get to the hotel, the receptionist gave me a key that didn’t open my door. My this time, the backpack felt like it weighed about five times its already 80 pounds and I wasn’t happy. The receptionist was very apologetic and got somebody to take my backpack to my room on the second trip, but it didn’t put me in a good mood.

The hotel room was small, as was the bed, but these are things I had gotten used to in the discount hotels that I’ve stayed in while in Europe. It seemed fairly clean, but a little sketchy as well. I had made the mistake of reading some reviews of the hotel right before I got there and there were a couple of mouse complaints. While I never saw a mouse or any hints that mice were present, I wasn’t able to get the thought out of my head.

I’m not even sure what to say about the “shower.” It had a tub, but not a regular tub. It was a tub that allows somebody to sit in it. In fact, it nearly forces you to sit in it because there was very little room to stand if you wanted to take a shower. I wanted to take a shower. It wasn’t easy, but I managed. This really didn’t help its score, though, when I reviewed it on Orbitz.

There was free wireless internet that worked very well. I learned in Vienna not to take that for granted anymore. Breakfast, however, was not included in the price of the hotel, but there were numerous coffee shops (no, not those coffeeshops), so I was able to get my morning fix (no, not that type of fix).

The hotel itself is just across the street from Koninkijk Palace and Nieuwe Kirk, probably the most famous buildings in Dam Square. And you should never underappreciate the little chuckle that goes on in the back of your head when you’re walking around and passing places called Dam Hotel, Dam Souvenirs and Dam Coffeeshop. My infantile sense of humor just liked that.

The hotel wasn’t cheap, at least not by the standards that I’d gotten used to in Europe, about $140/night. I’ve received much more around Europe for much less. I understand that there are other hotels in the neighborhood that are in the same price range and if I had to go back, I probably would try one of them out. This one wasn’t bad, but like I said, there was just something not feel right about it.

Amsterdam - The Blue Entry

I’ve already gone into all of the landmarks in Amsterdam that I visited, but what does everybody know about Amsterdam? The Red Light District and soft drugs. Yes, they are there.

The Red Light District was just strange. Lots of sex clubs and women in windows attempting to entice you to come in. I hate to speak of women only in terms of appearance, but when you are talking about women selling themselves from windows, it’s kind of hard not to do so, so I apologize in advance.

I’m not a complete stranger to the world of strip clubs. There was a wide range of women in the windows in the Red Light District, but I’d have to say that the collection of women was not dissimilar to what you might find in a second-class strip club. Some were attractive, but most looked a little worse for wear, so to speak. The streets were primarily full of tourists, like myself, doing a little bit of gawking, like myself, and just trying to take in what they’ve heard about all of these years. It actually gets pretty old pretty quick, but if that’s you’re thing, and it is certainly some people’s thing, then enjoy.

For all of the coffeehouses in Amsterdam, I didn’t see a single Starbuck’s. That’s okay, though. I made do. I visited a place in the Red Light District called Hill Street Blues, because I heard that the food was pretty good. I had some cupcakes that were pretty good. Unfortunately, being overly cautious, I think I underdosed on the cupcakes, which inhibited my relaxation. I was relaxed for a few hours, but certainly not as relaxed as I would have liked to have been.

I remedied that the next day. Since there are over two-hundred licensed coffeehouses in Amsterdam, I though that I’d try something different, so I went to Abraxas, near Dam Square. I went there around noon on Sunday and had a brownie and, of all things, coffee – which was pretty good. Having learned from my mistake of the previous day, I had plenty to eat on this visit. I think I’ve found the opening line to my novel – “I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant on Dam Street when the brownie kicked in.” (Okay, so most people have had a similar experience. I just love the different ways that you can go following that line.) This was the beginning of several hours of relaxation and, for the most part, the end of my trip. Trip as in visit.

This is my last post from Amsterdam (except for the random hotel review) and I just realized that I never talked about Dam Square, which is the old town square and, like all of the other old town squares I’ve visited, is bordered with shops and very old buildings. It wasn’t all that exciting, but it was across the street from my hotel, so I was there for at least a little while every day. There, of course, will be additional pictures of old buildings from Amsterdam on my Facebook page within the next few days. (If there aren’t already. Not sure exactly when this will get posted.)

That’s it from Amsterdam. Now, on to a few final days in London and the United States!!!

Hotel City B - A Review

Time for another hotel review, don’t you think? We’re up to Berlin, where I stayed in Hotel City B.

The location for Hotel City B gets mixed reviews. On one hand, it was great because it was right across the street from a U-Bahn station and, thus, transportation anywhere else in the city, and Berlin is huge. On the other hand, there really wasn’t much going on in the section of Potsdamerstrasse and the area was a little sketchy. About a ten-minute walk north, however, brought you into the heart of Berlin, not to mention a Dunkin Donuts, so it wasn’t horrible.

Check-in and check-out were painless. My room was on the third floor, so an elevator was very necessary. Fortunately, it also existed at this hotel. The hotel’s motif is sort of hard to explain. Very strange colors in the hallways, on my floor the walls were purple, and the room numbers looked like they were handwritten, but I believe that was purposeful.

My room was huge. It had a double bed and the entire south wall was a window that looked directly into the U-Bahn station across the street. The room had an internet connection. It wasn’t wireless, but that was fine as I used the good connection to spend one night catching up on American television shows that I’ve missed while I’ve been in Europe. The only English-language stations on the television were CNN and MTV.

The breakfast wasn’t free, or cheap, so I didn’t indulge. In any event, with Dunkin Donuts all over the place in Berlin, that was going to be my breakfast in Berlin anyway. Oh, how I do love me some Dunkin Donuts coffee.

The rate was dirt cheap, around $70/night. Another thing I liked about the hotel is that I wasn’t required to leave my key at the front desk, so entry/exit was less work here than at some other places I’ve stayed at in Europe.

All-in-all, though I would have liked some better eating options close to my hotel for late-night runs, I was happy with the room, the staff and especially the price.

Amsterdam - The Surprises

If there’s a rock show at the Concertgebouw,

They’ve got long hair at the Madison Square,

You’ve got rock and roll at the Hollywood Bowl

We’ll be there

When last we stepped in on me in Amsterdam, I was talking about places that were on my list of “must see”s in Amsterdam. Anticipating a lot of relaxation in Amsterdam, I hit al of those places early in my trip. I also hit a few others, though.

If you remember from earlier posts, I have a thing about Olympic Stadiums. I visited the one in Berlin built for the 1936 Olympics and in Munich for the 1972 Olympics. Until I went to the Dutch History Museum, though, I didn’t even realize that Amsterdam had hosted the Summer Olympics (in 1928) and had an Olympic Stadium all it’s own, called the Olympisch Stadion. It took a 30-minute tram ride to get there, but I decided to go.

Olympisch Stadion was about as humdrum a stadium as I’ve ever encountered. Just a big oval of concrete that holds about 60,000 people – expanded from the 23,000 or so it held during the 1928 Olympics. I couldn’t get a good picture from outside because of sponsor crap hanging from everywhere in preparation for next week’s Amsterdam marathon. I went inside to see if they were open for the 5 euro tour. The guy behind the counter said that it was open, but it was all in Dutch and all indoors, so it probably wouldn’t be worth it to me. I told him that all I was interested in was taking a few pictures from inside the stadium. He said that since it was only me, I should feel free to just walk out on the field and take some quick pictures. So I did. That was pretty cool. In Munich and Berlin, I got to walk down the stands to the front row of the stadium, but in Amsterdam, I got to walk around the track and onto the grass of the stadium. I loved that, but like I said, the stadium was just so-so.

I hopped back on the tram to return to my hotel near Dam Square and about halfway back, something caught my eye. It was the Concertgebouw. Now, I don’t know anything about the Concertgebouw except that it was mentioned in “Rock Show” by Paul McCartney and Wings back in the 1970s. But I’ve been to the Hollywood Bowl and I’ve been to Madison Square Garden, so I felt the need to hop off the train and at least take some pictures of the Concertgebouw. One is included here for your viewing pleasure.

Another place I ended up visiting was the Homomonument. I had never heard of it before my trip, but I saw signs pointing to it while I was walking back to my hotel from the Anne Frank house, so I decided that with a name like that, I had to check it out. I’ll tell you what I know, which is practically nothing. It honors gays and lesbians, but I’m not sure which ones. That is to say, I don’t know if it’s honoring anyone in particular or commemorating any specific event. There was a plaque, but it was all in Dutch and I couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, I took some pictures and moved on.

Okay, if you’re waiting for the stuff from Amsterdam that interests everybody in Amsterdam, that’ll be in another post to come shortly.

Amsterdam - The Highlights

I’m sitting in a railway station

Got a ticket for my destination

On a tour of three night stands

My backpack and MacBook Pro in hand

And every stop is neatly planned

For a lawyer and a one-man band

I’m sitting in Amsterdam Centraal waiting for a train to Paris. I’m not taking it all of the way to Paris. I’m only going as far as Brussels. There, I’ll hop on another train to London. It will be my first trip to an English-speaking country in four weeks. Woohoo!!!

Hmmm . . . Amsterdam . . . where to start. I didn’t do nearly as much sightseeing in Amsterdam as I did in other cities where I stayed at least four nights. I spent much more time in Amsterdam . . . relaxing . . . and walking around town in a relaxed state of mind. Knowing that likely would be the case, I did go to all of the places in Amsterdam that I wanted to hit, and went to a few more that I didn’t even know existed before I got there.

I guess that I’ll dedicate this post to the places that were on my original agenda that I visited while in Amsterdam. The top place on my to do list was the Anne Frank Huis. Like everybody else, I read the book a few times as a child and have always been intrigued. Of all the places I’ve visited, the Anne Frank house had the longest line that I’ve been in since I went to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Once inside (it’s a little pricey), we got the tour of the digs. All of the information was in English as well as Dutch, so it was easy to follow. There wasn’t much to it since there’s no furniture, just the rooms of the secret annex, but the one thing that I took away was how small all of the rooms in the secret annex were. I think claustrophobia would have got to me before the Nazis did.

The next place on my list was the Heineken Brewery. Now, I don’t think it’s an actual brewery anymore, so it’s more of a brewery museum. It was quite interesting as it allowed me to learn more about beer, although to be honest, Heineken is far from my favorite beer. At the end, though, we got free beer at the Heineken bar, so I guess you can’t argue with that. Like all of the other sights in Amsterdam, though, it was kind of expensive. Fifteen euro (about twenty-two dollars).

I also wanted to make sure that I went to the Van Gogh museum. Unlike other museums I had been to in Europe, e.g., British Museum, the Louvre, the people here took the “no photographs” rule pretty seriously, so I don’t have anything from inside. If you’re a Van Gogh fan, the place is very interesting. In addition to paintings, the museum also focuses on correspondence Van Gogh had with his brother and others, e.g., Guagin. These letters are in Dutch, but several are translated into English and many also contain sketches of paintings Van Gogh had finished or just begun or never actually painted. Extremely interesting look at an extremely interested man.

The final “must see” on my list was the Dutch History Museum because, well I’ve looked at the local history museum in almost every city I visited, so it just felt right. Although I did learn a lot about the history of Amsterdam (and got ideas about additional places to visit), beyond that, there was little to get excited about. Much of the museum attempted to demonstrate Amsterdam history through art, fittingly enough. The most famous museum in Amsterdam likely is the Rijksmuseum, but having seen enough Dutch Master paintings everywhere else in Europe, and not being the biggest fan in the world, I decided to bypass that particular one.

That’s enough for this post. I’ll probably talk about the places I visited that weren’t on my “must see” list in the next post.

Dag.

German Efficiency, My Ass

I really wish that I had started writing about Berlin before I tried to get out of it. I absolutely adored Berlin, much more so than I expected and even more than Munich, but I’m afraid that my description might be clouded by the hellatious time I’ve had trying to get from Berlin to Amsterdam. Maybe if I write about it first (not sure if I’m going to post it first), I’ll get the venom out of my system before I start writing about the rest of my trip to Berlin.

First off, let me say this. “German efficiency” can kiss my ass because I haven’t been able to get in or out of this country on time, yet. So far, my second trip out – the one I’m on now – has been the worst of all. People had less trouble getting out of East Berlin during the cold war than I’m having today.

I’m neurotic when it comes to travel. I get to where I need to be on time. No, not on time. Early. Very early. I was at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof an hour before my train was supposed to take off, waiting patiently. I got a sandwich to pack away for lunch, got a muffin, got some coffee, and went to the track forty minutes early.

Now, let me tell you about the tracks. There are eight tracks, numbered 9-16, all in this little complex. The weather outside is bad, so there are numerous delays and announcements, mostly in German. Now, occasionally there would be an English announcement, but that didn’t matter. Announcements were coming over the speakers at five tracks at once, all different announcements, and even if I was fluent in German, I wouldn’t have been able to understand five people speaking it at once.

I kept checking the overhead board at my track that said my train was coming at 10;37. At around 10:40, they took my train off the board. Then there was an announcement, finally in English, that the train would not run today. Then, they apologized for any inconvenience. That made everything better. GODDAMMIT!!!!

So, I go to a ticket counter to see if I can get a different ticket, perhaps to a train that was going to run. At least this part was relatively easy. They put me on a train that had to make a connection in Duisburg that was leaving in five minutes from the track on which my original train was supposed to leave. I can handle that. Just walk back to where I was and wait three or four more minutes. Right?

About ten minutes later, some woman comes to yell at me in German. I tell her that I don’t understand what she’s saying. She obliges me by yelling at me in broken English. The train’s not running upstairs. I have to go downstairs. She tells me that I should have looked at the big board downstairs. Oops, sorry. I go downstairs to the big board and it says Track 13. There’s only one Track 13. It’s upstairs. And the train is running 50-minutes late (meaning I’ll miss my connection, but I’ll get to that).

I go to the people who exchanged my ticket and they tell me everything is fine, but the train is actually going to run out of Track 3 or 4, downstairs. I still have a few minutes, so I knock people down and jump over suitcases like O.J. Simpson in the 1970s. (I was tempted to go all O.J. Simpsons in the 1990s, but fortunately, it didn’t come to that. At least, it hasn’t yet.) I get down to Track 3/4 and wait about five minutes and notice, without any announcement in either German or English, that the board has changed to say that the train is now heading out of Track 7. Grab my 100 pounds of crap, run upstairs, run downstairs get on Track 7.

About an hour late, the second train arrives. I get on it. It goes from Berlin to Amsterdam, but there is a connection in Duisburg. Originally, I had a 41-minute wait time for the connection. Now, it appears I’m going to arrive 20 minutes or so late, depending on how much more time we lose. My hopes are that (a) the train running out of Duisburg is a half-hour or so late and/or (b) there are plenty of trains running from Duisburg to Amsterdam since I’m arriving in Duisburg around 4:00 pm.

Anyway, the best laid plans and all that. F@#king German trains. I thought these things were supposed to run on time. I hope I get to Amsterdam sometime tonight and I’ll probably update this post eventually to let you know if/when/how-in-the-hell I make it.

Toodles.

(Ed: Obviously, I made it to Amsterdam. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so high, umm, I mean I wouldn’t be able to post this. Since the train stopped in a station other than Amsterdam’s main station and after 8 pm, trying to figure out the public transportation here was futile and I had to hop a train without a ticket and randomly guess where to hop off. I guessed wrong. Cost me about 30 more minutes. Oh well. It’s all better now . . .)

K+K Fenix Hotel: A Review

In Prague, I stayed in the K+K Fenix Hotel, just off of Wenceslas Square. In many ways, it was the best hotel I stayed in while I have been in Europe, thus far.

Getting to the hotel was pretty easy. The Praha Holesovice station is on the Metro, so I just hopped on and four stops later, I was in Wenceslas Square, at the base of the statue of the good king. From there, it was a seven- or eight- minute walk to the hotel. Check-in was quick and easy and I was given a room on the fourth floor because I asked for something relatively quiet.

The hotel did have a lift, which as I’ve pointed out in earlier posts, is a big plus given the masses of crap in my backpack. It also had free internet service, though not wifi. I had to plug my computer into a modem to get the juice, which isn’t as convenient as some places I stayed, but after having nothing in Vienna, I wasn’t about to complain.

My room, which was in the neighborhood of $100/night, was huge, relatively speaking. It had a full-sized bed (my first true full-sized bed in Europe) and a flat-screen 19” television, which also was an upgrade over all of the places that I have stayed, thus far. In addition, the bathroom had a bathtub, which I took advantage of since I have no idea when the next time I’ll see one of those.

The free breakfast was the most extensive of any that I have experienced, as well. There were cereals, breads, meats, cheeses, eggs, fruits, vegetables, fungi, juices, places to sit. Not necessarily all you could ever want, but all you need and plenty of it, too. Did I mention it was free? Free breakfast is always good.

If I have a complaint, its that I returned to my room around 2:30 on Sunday and housekeeping still hadn’t arrived. When housekeeping did arrive, they had a tendency to not bother knocking, which could always lead to some awkward moments. They did a good job, though, because it was one of the cleanest rooms that I have stayed in.

Since it’s starting to get cooler here, the lack of air conditioning generally isn’t a problem. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know if I had air conditioning. I’ve grown so accustomed to just opening the window that it’s what I did here. Also, noise was generally not a problem, though I could hear a television coming from somewhere in the wee hours of the morning once.

Overall, I guess I’d rate it a very good budget hotel, at least in relation to everything else I’ve experience with respect to budget hotels in Europe.

Berlin: What I Liked (Most)

As the train cruises from Germany into the Netherlands, I thought I’d do a quick post on the two things in Berlin that intrigued me the most – The German History Museum and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The Germany History Museum covers nearly two thousand years of various groups of people who have lived in these lands over the centuries. As far as German history that I am actually interested in, particularly with respect to Berlin, most of that took place in the 20^th century, or the second half of the 19^th century at the latest. Apparently I’m not alone and the museum’s curators realize that because I would estimate that out of the two-thousand years of history, about half of the museum covered the period from around 1820 to the present.

What I most wanted to see before I went into the museum was how things like World War II, Nazis and the Holocaust would be portrayed in the country in which those atrocities either took place or had their genesis. The answer is pretty frankly. There was a significant wing dedicated to Hitler’s rise to power, the war and the murder of millions. There were various documents demonstrating early discrimination of jews and homosexuals in Nazi Germany, leading to a sculpture of the death camp at Auschwitz (if I remember correctly). I was glad to see that the issues were not swept under the rug, not that they really could have been, but it also left me with a deep sense of confusion of how this could have been the same place that I was visiting less than 70-years ago. As time passes, it becomes easier to think back to the time as something far back in history, doomed to black-and-white film and Time/Life books, but it in the big scheme of things, it really wasn’t that long ago at all.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the museum.

The other thing that intrigued me in Berlin was the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the church is about 60% of the size it was prior to a 1943 Allied bombing raid of Berlin. Rather than save what they could, tear down the building and rebuild, however, the “hollow tooth,” as people from Berlin refer to it, stands as a memorial, with a completely new church built right next to it.

I never got a straight answer though as to what exactly is being memorialized. Is it to memorialize the German dead of World War II? There were millions of them after all. Or is it a memorial to the severe destruction that war causes and a reminder as to why it should be avoided at all costs? Or is it just a sign of defiance to a world that kicked its ass? There’s probably an answer somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.

Anyway, I was really enjoyed the church.

Berlin: What I Did

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting to find in Berlin. Aside from the Brandenburg Gate, currywurst and remnants of the Berlin Wall , there wasn’t anything in particular that I was hoping to see, though I had hoped that the more I examined the city, the more I would find that interested me.

Berlin surprised me with the degree to which I found myself mesmerized by various things that I found. In particular, off the top of my head, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis Kirche and the Deutsches Historisches Museum. I’ll go into more detail on each of those in a future post. For this post, I’ll just highlight a little of what I did.

Because of the strategic positioning of my hotel, I decided to hit Berlin in two waves over the course of my two full days there. On the first day, I went towards the center of the city. My hotel was just a short walking distance to Potsdamer Platz, which is surrounded with skyscrapers (by European standards) by companies such as Sony and Mercedes. Turning left on Ebertstrasse takes you straight to the Brandenburg Gate.

If you’re familiar with Berlin at all, you’re familiar with the Brandenburg Gate, which was built in the late 18^th century. It’s long been the scene of celebrations of military conquests, and not just those of Germany. Napoleon marched through its gates. So did the Soviets. So did I, though I imagine it was much more dramatic when the others did it.

In the same neighborhood as the Brandenburg Gate is the Reichstag, which is the official seat of the German Parliament. It probably is best remembered for the 1933 Reichstag Fire, which helped bring the National Socialists into power, even though they likely were the ones who started the fire. One of the things that I found most intriguing about the building is that although it has had extensive renovations, parts of the façade are still riddled with bullet holes, courtesy of World War II.

Walking east from the Brandenburg Gate takes you down Unter den Linden, one of the most famous streets in Europe, not to mention the most famous in Berlin. Before I walked down the street, I had read that it was full of beautiful old buildings and beautiful scenery. The first kilometer or so, though, primarily all I saw were fast food joints and souvenir stores, and the only beautiful building I saw was the Russian Embassy. As I got further down the road, however, I saw what they people were talking about, as I approached the Dutch History Museum and the Berliner Dom. I spent a few hours in the Dutch History Museum, but like I said, that’s for another post. I didn’t enter the Berliner Dom, but I took pictures of the outside, which will have to do for now.

On the second day, I headed west. The first of the two places I wanted to visit Kurfurstendamm, which is a two-and-a-half mile street filled with shops, shops and more shops. A lot of shops. I walked the entire length, each way. In the middle, I stopped for my first currywurst.

(Detour: Currywurst probably deserves its own post, but I’ll talk about it now. I had heard for years that currywurst was a Berlin specialty and that only people from Berlin could appreciate it. What I’ve learned is that you can find it at least all over the German-speaking world – I saw it in Switzerland, Austria and other parts of Germany. Currywurst is a sausage, usually something in the neighborhood of a fried hot dog, drenched in this ketchupy-curry sauce and sprinkled with curry powder. I avoided eating it until I got to Berlin because I wanted the original currywurst. I wasn’t disappointed.)

Much more interesting to me than the shops of Kurfurstendamm, however, was what I found at one end of the street, my starting point. What is there is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis-Kirch (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church). Nicknamed “the hollow tooth,” the church once stood 370 feet tall and was one of the largest structures in Berlin. Following a 1943 bombing raid, the church became a severely damaged 206 ft ruin, but the Germans left it standing as a memorial to . . . something. A new church was erected next to the ruins and services are held in the new structure.

The last part of Berlin that I wanted to visit was Olympic Stadium. I’ve seen matches on television played at the Olympic Stadium, home of Hertha BSC. I’ve also seen old film of the Hindenburg flying overhead and Jesse Owens winning his four gold medals there. The stadium has changed significantly since the 1936 Olympics, including being partially covered in the last decade or so. Nevertheless, one could get the sense of how it would have looked when it was the Nazi’s pride-and-joy as they showed off their culture to the world. It was a very interesting trip.

Those are the highlights of my trip to Berlin. I’ll go a little deeper into a few of the items that I mentioned above, though I’m probably through talking about currywurst. Let’s hope so.

Botel Marina: A Review

And now my first botel review.

In Bratislava, I stayed in a botel, the Botel Marina, which was situated on the left dock of the Danube river in the shadow of the Bratislava Castle. On the surface, this sounds like a wonderful location. Actually, it would have been a wonderful location had I not had to haul my 100 pounds of crap from the end of the public transportation line (I have not been in a cab the entire time I’ve been in Europe) to the botel, which was a little bit of a hike. Also, location wise, while there were plenty of things within a fifteen-minute walk, there was NOTHING within a five-minute walk, so every time I left the botel, I had to make it count.

I got there about an hour-and-a-half before check-in, but the hotel let me check-in early, so I went straight to my room. Despite the fact that it had two twin beds, one of either side of the room, it may have been the smallest room I’ve stayed in during my trip, so far. Don’t even get me started on the bathroom. Let me just say that I could have taken a shower in the stall, urinated in the toilet and shaved in the mirror all at the same time. I’m not saying I did. I’m not saying I didn’t. I’m just saying.

Noise was also a problem because of the Rockin’ Slovakian Accountants. The botel does have an Indian restaurant and a bar. Those were in use by a party being held by PriceWaterhouseCoopers people who were drunk and kind of loud outside my porthole. Nevertheless, being accountants, they were done by 11 pm, so noise ceased to be a problem afterwards.

The hotel did have free wifi, which is always a big, big plus in my book. The television only had about eight channels and it was the first hotel I’ve been in here that didn’t have MTV. How the hell can I enjoy my trip if I don’t know who’s been eliminated from Rock of Love?!?!?!?

Two big problems. First, there was no free breakfast, which I’ve grown used to. I had to leave pretty early to catch my train, but a little food first would have been nice. Second, there were serious drainage issues with the shower. About halfway through, I noticed that the bathroom was flooding. I had to stop, let everything drain, and then go back to showering. It flooded again, but at least I was done. Now, you may be thinking – “but Sheldon, you were on a boat. You could have just opened the window and let it drain into the Danube.” Yes, the windows were too high.

The room was about $90/night. Not a bad price, I suppose, but it is Slovakia. I did love watching the Danube roll by from my bedroom window. I have to say, though, that though I did like the experience of staying on a boat, there were probably better options closer to civilization that I could have chosen. So it goes.

Prague: Passing Thoughts

And now, back to Praha. My last post hit most of the highlights of the trip, at least with respect to the famous landmarks. Now, I just want to throw out random comments, that may or may not have pictures to go along with them. (Who am I kidding? Some of them will have pretty pictures.)

I wanted to go to a football match while I was in Prague, but it was not to be. The two biggest clubs in the Czech-speaking world both play in Prague, Slavia Praha and Sparta Praha, and they were playing each other. As it turned out, however, the match was moved to Monday and I will be in Berlin by the time it is completed. There are two other football clubs in Prague, however, Bohemians and Bohemians 1905. They also played together on Sunday. I went to the stadium in hopes of seeing the match, but there is a lot of bad blood between the two clubs, resulting in a sold-out stadium and no way for me to get a ticket without paying more than I was willing to pay for two sub-par Czech clubs. So, no football for Sheldon.

At least, no live football for Sheldon. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there were numerous sports bars around my hotel and on Sunday there were a lot of great matches. In the early afternoon, I went to a place next to my hotel in which you could watch matches as well as bet on them to watch the match between Rangers and Celtic (Rangers won 2-1). The beer was 46 Koruna a piece (around $2.70), so that was my nourishment while I sat around with a bunch of Irish/Scottish/English folks watching the match. That had to be my Praha football experience.

I also got to see the end of the Chelsea/Liverpool match, but that’s a food story, not a football story. It was my last night in Prague and I realized that I had more Koruna than I knew what to do with. I decided to spend it at a place advertising “authentic” Czech food. (I chose the place, in part, because it was broadcasting the aforementioned match.) My appetizer was Czech Goulash Soup, which was really damned good. The broth was thick and it was similar to beef stew except the beef was ground instead of chunky. I also had something that called itself a Czech Three-Meat Special. Having been in central Europe for a few weeks now, I expected sausages. What I got was more similar to a pork/chicken/beef stir-fry. It was good, but not what I was expecting. That took me through most of my Koruna, so it also solved a problem in addition to satisfying my hunger.

Let’s see . . . what else. Okay, I told you previously that Prague was the most picturesque city I had been to since Paris. To highlight this, even the subway was picturesque. So much so that I took pictures. I loved the convex and concave alternating rows of multi-colored circles that were in the subways. I also road on the trams. Not nearly as picturesque, but I did love the way that they listed the next half dozen stops ahead of time.

I was walking of metro-ing all over the city for the three days that I was here and I didn’t have a chance to actually go into any of the museums or to spend a lot of time exploring the area, with the exception of the Jewish Quarter and Old Town. Both had wonderful mixes of old and new, with modern cafes taking up the bottom section of buildings that were hundreds of years old. It definitely is a city to which I would like to return.

Okay, that’s it for Prague for now. Currently on a train in Dresden, on my way to Berlin. Cheers.

Hotel Kolping - A Review

While I’m on the long train ride from Bratislava to Prague, I’m getting more hotel reviews in. Next up, Kolping in Vienna, Austria.

Kolping was a hotel of contrasts. It had some very good qualities and some rather poor qualities. Let’s start with the good.

The room I was in was much, much larger than any other room that I had stayed in up to this point in Europe. It had sort of a full-size bed, two twins pushed together, and also had a balcony. Let’s face it, the bathroom was almost the size of some of the rooms that I have stayed in here. The room also had a stove, a microwave and a refrigerator. That’s not even counting the balcony, which again was a first for me in Europe.

The hotel was also in a very good location. It was walking distance to the downtown shopping area as well as close to public transportation on a few lines of the metro. I eventually learned that unlike Paris, this was not always the case in Vienna, so having the easy transport close to the hotel was very beneficial. Also, there was a small grocery store just next door, which came in handy with a microwave and a refrigerator in my room.

Another plus was the free breakfast. There were tons of options – eggs, bread, cheese, ham, salami, cereals, yogurt, etc. And of course, Nutella because it wouldn’t be Europe without Nutella. Also, the dining room was ginormous, so there was always a place to sit and eat.

Now, the bad. The staff was only semi-friendly and not particularly helpful. Most importantly, there was no wifi or other internet connection. Free or otherwise. I like to keep in touch, so this was a major pain in the butt. Fortunately, there were a handful of places close by with free internet access – thank you McDonald’s.

Also, I could have foregone having the cleaning staff knocking on my door every five minutes beginning at 10:00 when I was trying to get over a hangover from going out the night before to watch (European) football with some German folks I met the night before. Eventually, I just had to leave, get some grease in my system (I had slept through the free breakfast) and return to get some more sleep.

Overall, it was not a bad hotel for the price – around $90/night, but it really needs to get some web access. I mean seriously folks. In Bratislava, I had free wifi on a boat, ON A BOAT FOR PETE’S SAKE. They really need to hook the place up. Otherwise, it was a pretty good experience – but like Vienna, generally, not all for which I had hoped.

Prague: Paris of Eastern Europe?

I think I’ll break Prague into two posts for obvious reasons. Those reasons may not be obvious to you, but that’s beside the point. I am currently sitting in a train that has been stuck in Bad Schandau for over an hour, meaning that I’m going to get to Berlin a little late. (Bad Schandau is not an opinion, it’s the name of the station.) Maybe I’ll get both posts in while I’m on the way to Berlin.

First off, let me say that the street sausages are not nearly as good in Prague as they were in Zurich or in Munich. They were gristly and not particularly tasty. It’s takes something for me to complain about a sausage, but so it goes.

Other than that, I really loved Prague. I’m sure I’ll rank the cities that I’m visiting when I finish, because I do things like that, but other than Paris and London, it’s pretty much been my favorite. Certainly, it’s the most picturesque city I’ve been to since I left Paris a few weeks ago. (Has it really been that long?)

I’ll get into the hotel in another post, but I stayed on a side-street just off of (Good King) Wenceslas Square. Along with some museums, hotels and other older buildings, its is also an area with tons of restaurants and shops and about four dozen McDonald’s. (I exaggerate, but they are freakin’ everywhere.) Also, within a 2 km radius of my hotel were four sports bars and three strip clubs. Needless to say, there were mostly men in my neighborhood.

Since I didn’t know too much about Prague, I trusted my guidebook to tell what I NEEDED to see. My first morning was spent hopping on the subway and heading in the direction of the Prague Castle and St. Vitus’s Cathedral. Like the Bratislava Castle, these sat atop a hill and gave great views of the city. The Prague Castle was much more impressive that the Bratislava Castle, but Prague was just impressive, generally. From there, I walked down to the Loreto, but not knowing much about it’s history, it was just a cool-looking building to me.

I also went to the Strahov Monastery, even though my guidebook didn’t tout it too highly as a place to go. My guidebook was misguided. The monastery was interesting, but more importantly – at least to me, if not the monks – was that the area provided some of the best views of a great city that I’ve ever seen. As I was walking down, I tried to soak in as much as I could because I knew that the pictures that I was taking would never do justice to the beauty. The fact that it was a picture-perfect day just added to the effect.

I also walked down to the Charles Bridge while I was in that part of town. I knew I needed to rub the brass relief on the statue of St. John of Nepomuk for good luck, so I did. The problem is that I don’t know if I used the correct hand. I remember Samantha Brown saying that it only worked if you used the correct hand, but I don’t remember which hand that was. It rained for the first time since I’ve been in Europe on my final night in Prague, so that might have been bad luck. Or good luck for the people there. Hell, I don’t know. I used the right hand, if not the correct hand, and that’s all I’m sure about.

I went to the Jewish Quarter because I wanted to visit the Old-New Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery. Unfortunately, because of the timing of the trip, the only time I could have visited would have been during holidays that would have precluded me from making such a visit. It didn’t stop me from going, but it did stop me from touring. I did take a picture or two, however, for your viewing pleasure.

The Jewish Quarter is close to the Old Town Square, so I went there as well. Like other Old Town Squares that I’ve been to in Europe, it’s a square surrounded by old and/or impressive buildings, shops selling souvenirs and restaurants selling “authentic” “fill-in-the-ethnicity” food. There also was some entertainment, in the form of a ragtime band, and beer stands. It was the beer stands, selling relatively cheap Gambrinus beer, that made it special for me. Also, some of the food stands. I tried a food stand selling “potato pancakes,” but they were hash browns to me.

Okay. That’s it for this trip down the Prague road for now. More later.

Minotel Hauser (Munich): A Review

It’s time to work my way back and talk about some hotels, so I’ll do that now. The next on the list is the Minotel Hauser in Munich.

After the easy time I had getting to my hotel in Zurich, the Minotel Hauser was a little harder to locate, but that primarily was because the Munich train station was much more difficult to maneuver through. It’s separated into separate buildings. Once I found my way onto the U-Bahn (subway), however, the hotel was not that difficult, though I did have to switch trains to get there.

The hotel was in a little bit of a strange location. There were plenty of restaurants and bars and stuff around the hotel, but most of them seemed strangely empty much of the time. Granted, this was during Oktoberfest and most of the tourists were there, but I expected to see tourists everywhere else in Munich and that really wasn't the case, especially in the neighborhood I was in.

Check-in was easy and I was able to get straight to my room. Returning to the world of free wi-fi made me a happy puppy. The room, once again, was small but it wasn’t too bad and the bathroom was a little larger than I had gotten used to in Europe. I believe that the hotel had a lift, but I was on the second floor, so I didn’t have to use it.

As mentioned above, the hotel was close to public transportation, but also was close enough to Oktoberfest – about a 20-25 minute walk – that I walked there and back a few of the days that I was there. It also was very close to several restaurants as well as to a few grocery stores, so provisions could be picked up. Also, because of the mini-bar refrigerator, picked-up provisions could be stored for future use, in case you’re a squirrel or something.

The breakfast was free. More importantly, it was nice to be back in a culture that gave you meat for breakfast. (I hadn’t had this since London.) One problem with breakfast was that there was a limited dining area, so it wasn’t always easy to find a seat, but the selection of German breakfast items was impressive. I even go to try some blood sausage.

Money-wise, this is the most expensive hotel I’m staying in during my trip to Europe – around $210/night – but it being Oktoberfest, that was unavoidable. All-in-all, I was very happy with the hotel, just not particularly happy with the price. Also, it would have been nice is the neighborhood was a little livelier, but liveliness (is that a word?) was close enough, so that didn’t matter too much in the end.

Finally, check-out was as painless as check-in. The staff was very friendly and, overall, I had a very good experience at the hotel.