Friday, December 31, 2010
Vienna day 2
We waited in a nearby cafe on the grounds of the Hofburg for Shane, who was coming from a seminar that ended up being cancelled. Can’t a guy learn some stuff? We had really expensive coffee and headed over to the Kaiser-apartments located just across the courtyard from the school. Our ticket included audio tours of the Royal Silver Collection and the Sisi Museum (Empress Elizabeth), parts of which we intended to skip. The tours were structured in a way that you were forced to walk through all of them, so Silver and Sisi it was. Much along the lines of the Treasury we toured yesterday, we again saw that the Habsburgs and other ruling families of the Austria-Hungary empire had no qualms with proving their superiority through whatever means necessary. It was more than just silver; gold, precious stones and work from the hands of the best artists in the area adorned the most magnificent collection of dinnerware I’ve ever seen. It might be the most impressive viewable display in the world. Entire sets of ware created for individuals or families, designed to reflect their story and their current level of status. Some empresses had an entire set simply for traveling. Everything was either or out bronze silver, or gold. None of this glass or metal crap. A different plate for each part of a course. A different glass for each beverage. These are the apparent luxuries available when pillaging, plundering and ruling over most of Europe for 500 or so years. Must keep this in mind. One humorous display involved a ceremony which the people of Vienna performed to remind themselves of humility. It involved washing the feet of 10 paupers, but of course had its own set of highly stylized basins & other ware and was basically a huge celebration. Nice try Vienna. You couldn’t be humble if you tried. And that’s why I love you.
The Sisi museum was actually kind of interesting. Sisi (Empress Elizabeth) was a normal girl who just happened to get involved with the heir to the Austrian Empire, Franz Joseph. We followed her life from just before their involvement to her death. In between, we were shown how conflicted she was about entering in to the public limelight, her obsession with her looks and weight and her general state of constant depression. She and FJ became estranged as she would essentially leave the palace to go on road trips with her homies all the time. She took a lot of shit for this form the public, but FJ was such a good man that he claimed it only made him love her more. She grew to become known internationally, which many claim only contributed to her emotional struggles. She was murdered by an anarchist who stabbed her in the chest with basically ended up being a prison shank. Hardly the way a empress should be killed. Show some class, anarchists.
We finally got to the Kaiser-apartments, where we saw the living quarters of Sisi and Franz Joseph. Scott may have mentioned earlier that we saw their living quarters yesterday. Let’s not get confused here between the summer residence (Schonbrunn, yesterday) and the winter residence (Hofburg, today). The apartments here were much like the ones seen at Schonbrunn. We saw further evidence of Sisi’s eclectic and conflicted personality by the way in which her rooms were decorated. For someone who avoided the pressures of being one of the most powerful and important women in the world, she sure knew how to utilize the perks. In contrast to the plain and simple decor of the hard working FJ, Sisi’s rooms were decorated in the most luxurious examples of Rococo style that I saw anywhere in Vienna. Hard carved wooden moldings painted with bright gold adorned the walls and ceilings. Also present were paintings of her family and children by the most well known artists of her time.
Unfortunately, the tour didn’t include the Great Halls where grand feasts were held for some of Vienna’s most esteemed royalty. I want my money back.
We were all super hungry, so we went to had pizza and beer a ways down the street. After recharging, we walked around the state/govt buildings (Prathaus, City Hall, etc...) No shortage of magnificence in the construction of these buildings either. I believe these buildings are currently being used for modern Viennese government. It must be soul crushing for city and state workers in the US to come to places like Vienna and see that state employees literally work castles adorned with sculptures from antiquity.
We had a little time before dinner, so we made our way over to the museum area. We decided on the MoMuk (modern art). Probably the most impressive exhibit was the Photorealists, a modernist movement based on photographs. I walked around the half of the first exhibit admiring photographs, until I realized that they weren’t actually photographs. Even after reading the blurb about the movement and the artists, there were a couple pieces where I argued with myself over the whether or not it was a painting. At some point, the Photorealists and Warhols turned in to some pretty inventive “pieces” about porn and sexuality. Museum time started to end for us when the blood became a main fixture in the exhibit. Shit got out of control when we hit the piece with the replica of human bodies tied down with rope and and plastic wrap onto a bed. We left immediately after, mostly because the museum was closing, but I’m pretty sure we would’ve left anyways.
We got back to the house and needed more food ASAP. We left around 9 and couldn’t find anything open. Berlin is nice because a lot of restaurants and bars are open late. Vienna should take notes. We ended up eating at the same place we ate the first night, but it was a bit more crowded this time. We all tried something different; Scott got boiled beef with applesauce/horseradish sauce (yes, you read that right), while I tried the Wienerschnitzel (veal scallope schnitzel). Mine pretty good, I don’t think Scott was as happy with his. But it’s all part of the experience. Morgan and Shane both had egg battered Schnitzel. We headed home after a bit and setup camp. Shane, Scott and I watched the second half of Home Alone. Went to bed exhausted.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
day one in Wien (vienna)
Being the big cheese of Austria has some percs for sure. Franz Joseph had his right hand man who had a room adjacent to his and this guy was there to bring him food, snacks and anything he might need or want at the drop of a dime. Now Franz Joseph met and decided to marry Elizabeth (Sisi) when she was 15 and they wed shortly after. He was adored her but royal live was not what she wanted and ultimately became very depressed and kept to herself (more on Sisi to come in the post for day two in Wien because we went through the Sisi Museum). Sisi’s rooms, yes rooms, were just through the smoking room and were a bit more lavish. Connected to Sisi’s room was the first full functioning toilet in the palace. It was in a 3ft by 3ft room and was not much more than a toilet and walls but im sure this toilet made her life a tad bit easier and nicer.
After the apartments we made our way to the great hall. This hall was nuts the ceiling must have been about 30-40 ft high and was decorated with what seemed to be hand carved wooden plants painted in gold. While we were there the hall was under restoration and parts of the walls were covered but from what we could see it was nice. I guess they would hold concerts and thanks to our audio guide we learned that Mozart played a concert for Sisi and Joseph when he was only six years old! I guess when he was done he ran and jumped on Sisi’s lap and gave her a great big hug. I guess they knew Mozart would be the Cats Pajamas even at age six! Also in this grand hall were huge chandeliers with about 40-50 candles which were now replaced by electric candles and electricity was installed in the place by none other than Thomas Edison. These were not just normal electric candles because the flame would flicker and move around on top of the candlestick to give it a real flame look.
After the the tour of the inside of the palace we made our way through a section of snow and ice on the ground to make our way to the back of the palace where the gardens were. If we thought this place was huge before the land it is on is even more nuts. Due to it being winter a lot of the plants and flowers either died or had been removed from the garden but it was still pretty beautiful. We walked over to where this huge fountain was and decided it would be a good idea to try to ice skate on it without ice skates. It was fun and I think shane captured and action shot of my slide about 3 seconds before I almost ate it. Then when we were getting off the ice we saw a since that said please keep off the ice of the fountain or something along those lines in german...OOPS. Oh well, it was fun. The palace has the worlds oldest zoo on its grounds and we were able to walk by it but the though of spending some of our time in Wien at a zoo didnt seem like the best of ideas and to see the animals out and about in the snow seemed a bit sad so we just walked along the side and were able to see a few animals like an american buffalo and some other kind of huge buffalo or yack or something with big ol’ horns.
After walking through the gardens for an hour or so we made our way back to the Ubahn to see a bit more of the city. We saw that vienna had some cool big Cathedrals so we decided to go check out one of them. I dont remember the name but it had 2 towers that you could go up in and get a view of the city for a couple of Euro. Walking into the Cathedral was crazy cause as soon as you walked in it was a total time warp. Everything was old and super cool looking inside. One thing that struck me right away was the 6 foot floating Jesus on the cross hanging suspended about 15 feet in the air directly in the middle of the church. After snapping a few photographs inside we made our way up to the south tower. We decided to go up the south tower because although it was not as high we were able to go outside on it. We had to take a tiny little elevator that with a austrian man who was playing his hand held radio and whistling along with the tunes that I could not make a word of and the lift opened up to a shady metal structure and stairs that took us up to the stable stone tower. from up there we could see half of Vienna. We could only see half because the other half was blocked by the pointy roof of the Cathedral. The view was really beautiful and you could really see how big Vienna really is from up there. It was cold and the wind was blowing pretty good so we didnt spend too much time up there but we did snap a few pictures and then made our way back down the tiny lift to the cathedral floor below.
After checking out one of Wien’s Cathedrals we decided to head over to Hofberg Palace which was another palace occupied by Joseph and Sisi. Due to the time that it took to explore their other palace we decided to pick one section of this and come back the next day to really explore it. We made our way to the treasury which was full of all kinds of crazy. Making our way through the treasury we were greeted by a crown that had to have been worth a million dollars in just gold and gems alone, not counting any historical value. Some of the stuff that they had was just insane. For example we saw the worlds biggest emerald and it was seriously the size of a softball! Walking through all the gems gowns treasures and shiny things we made our way over to the relics section of the treasury. In the relic section they had either pieces of bone, flesh, hair of a saint or someone really important encased in a structure, usually beautifully decorated. Some of the craziest claims they had relics in there were the following in no particular order:
1. A part of the cross that Jesus was crucified on. It was maybe about 2 inches by 5 inches in size and was made into a cross.
The Christ spear. This spear was said to have punctured Jesus in the side while he was being crucified. I remember seeing a discovery documentary on this...well, i am 99% sure it was the same spear and they did all kinds of crazy tests and wanted to do more but were not permitted to remove the gold that was covering half of it.
One of the nails that was nailed through jesus to hold him to the crucifix. The nail was about 6 inches long and looked to be very old and who knows maybe it was the actual nail but I am not sure who determined this or how they know.
A few relics that said that they had a piece of Christ himself.
Now I am not sure if these relics are accurate or how they know or who found them but im sure if this topic interest you more information is available on their website or online in general.
After the treasury we decided this fun filled day had to come to a close so we took a walk through the hofburg to see some of its buildings such as the library. It was beautiful and especially illuminated by the lights shining up on it. On our way home we stopped by a market to pick up some stuff to make dinner, another nice part of staying in an apartment. We made some food watched the first half of Home Alone on shane’s macbook and then called it a night. All in all a good day and a beautiful city.
Now Im going to pass the baton over to matt to do a write up on day two in Wein...should be an exciting one because we saw some funky stuff at the modern art museum...we will see how detailed he decides to get ...readers be warned :)
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Hey matt! Want a cookie?
Another highlight of this lovely 9 hour train ride was the eating of a delicious "cookie" .You will soon see why cookie is in quotes... We had packed some stuff to make lunch on the train and shane and I decided it would be funny if we could get matt to eat some of Syd's food. For those of you who do not know who Syd is, Syd is shane and morgan's dog that has come along this trip with us. Anywho, after eating our sandwiches and about 4-5 hours on the train making all our brains turn to mush a bit we asked matt if he wanted a cookie for dessert as he had finished his sandwich first. At first we thought there was no way he would fall for it because it was just a piece of you average dry dog food. After a second matt said "yeah, sure i will have a cookie" and shane tossed him a delicious piece of syd's food and matt tossed it directly into his mouth...all of us burst out laughing and matts face turned from sour to laughing along with us. Then matt flipped it on us a bit. He pulled the dog food out of his mouth for a second and then said "eh, lets give it a try" and tossed the food back into his mouth and began chewing... He actually ate it!!! I seriously laughed until I cried which I hace not done for some time. He was a good sport and it helped pass the time on the train.
Once we got into Vienna we got to shanes friends old apartment that still is furnished with a few things (she is moving and right now has 2 places). Super nice of her to let us stay here for free!! Although it was obvious that someone had been smoking in the apartment recently it was still a free roof over our heads with a heater which is 100% necessary due to the fact that while in vienna it has been in the teens. We went out to try to find a place to eat which was a little tough because it was sunday and things close early. We did find one restaurant that was open and had some good local food. I would get a bit more into the food but we are about to leave for our train to Munich so for now we are out...but we are going to try to catch up on all the fun things we did and saw here in vienna and post them as soon as we can. I am not sure if we are going to have internet in munich but we will be back in Berlin in a few days. Hope everyone is doing well!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Xmas (and Fireworks)
The remainder Morgan’s day was going to be spent cooking Xmas dinner, so Scott Shane and I decided to put clothes on and see some more of Berlin in the few hours of daylight we had left. Even though we had a late start and most places weren’t open, we made the trek to the Pergamon Museum, where we saw...the Pergamon altar. It has basically been stripped down in sections from its original spot in what is now Turkey and reconstructed in a new building built especially for it in Berlin. The Frieze of the altar was especially impressive, depicting scenes/battles/stories from Greek Mythology, including well known Gods Zeus and Athena. The stairway up to the altar was pretty awesome as well, originally built completely of marble. Also inside the museum were the Market Gate of Miletus and the Gate of Ishtar. We were all completely blown away by the magnificence of the Market Gate, even after seeing the recreation of the Altar. A ridiculous amount of money and labor went into its construction as well as its recovery and reconstruction, as it was demolished and buried for several years. If you have a chance to look up photos or even the some history of the altar or the gate, I would highly recommend it. We sauntered through some exhibits on Islamic and Egyptian art before heading out.
Time for more Xmas Market. I'm not entirely sure why these haven't popped up in the US. Around the corner from Museum Island sat the Schlossplatz (Palace Plaza or something like that), where the statues of Marx and Engels stood. The ideal location for a market. We ate more bratwurst and tried some other meaty items. It was another freezing cold night and the meats once again brought some temporary relief. We sort of half ran through the walkways of the market and headed out to the U-Bahn (underground rapid transit system) station. We waited for Shane to procure tickets to our upcoming trip to Vienna, and walked around the station shops. The magazine rack was a nice place to hang out since all mags in EU are available to browse having to deal with plastic covers. We bought some flowers for the Xmas dinner table setting and headed home.
Morgan had slaved away at the stove for most of the day and had prepared a goose dinner for us (tradition in her family) with caramelized carrots, brussel sprouts, german potato cakes cooked in goose fat (can’t remember the name), It was a pretty fantastic meal. We drank beer and Gluwien and she topped the dinner off with a Brandy cake with hard sauce (butter/eggs/brandy). Pretty delicious stuff. Scott and I volunteered to do dishes, which literally took us 45 mins to an hour. We both reeked of goose afterward, but it was a good reek. If you have a chance to reek of goose, I suggest doing it at least once. We said goodbye to Chris and Justine, some friends who had come by to join us. We made a couple calls to family, packed our things for our early train to Wien (Vienna), and went to bed with bellies and hearts filled with goodness.
Hope everyone had a great holiday!!
Monday, December 27, 2010
voice msg to shane from his dad
best message ever!
look at you
Due to the fact that like most of europe Berlin celebrates a good amount of the xmas season festivities on xmas eve not a whole lot was open but we did manage to find a burger place open and to be honest I was not quite sure how a burger would turn out over here but it was actually really good. I mean you cant really go wrong with some red meat topped with bacon...mmmm. Now that we were all fueled up and ready to brave the frigid temps and snow that berlin was throwing at us we hopped back onto the Ubahn to make our way to a part of Berlin that Shane had not really been to in an attempt to see the Stasi museum. The Stasi were basically the east german secret police and citizen spies. (for more information on the stasi please feel free to visit wikipedia ... we had wikishaneboyle). Like the Stasi the museum was a bit hard to find and I guess that makes sense due to the fact that the museum is where their old headquarters use to be. But sure enough like the luck we had in dublin ...it was close. Not due to weather but due to the fact it was xmas eve. This one we understood.
Now the sun was setting and once that happens it really gets cold so we decided to hit up a market to grab some food to make dinner which was schniztel with salad and spaetzle. Home made german meal thanks to Mr. Boyle. I will say it turned out pretty good and I think everyone was happy. This night shane and morgan had some friends that were from the states and the plan was to watch a christmas movie on the projector which was left by the person who shane and morgan are renting from. We decided on love actually and in the words of their friend chris...”it was AMAAAAZZZZIIINNNNGGG” which i think we all can agree with.
After the movie then morgan and chris called it a night which was actually not a bad call with it being about 12am... and Matt, Shane, Justine and I headed out to King Kong Klub to do some drinking and dancing. After putting on about 10 layers of clothes only to shed them all about 15 minutes later once we arrived at King kong we pulled up some couches grabbed some beers and did some hanging out we hit up the dance floor...it was suppose to be electro pop night but I dont know how they got that name with not knowing/having about ten songs we requested but the made up for it later on when we steered it into a new wave night with, the cure, depeche mode, new order, joy division and the smiths. It was good times and after a day of walking around, a night of dancing, a few drinks and the fact it was about 4 am we decided to head home so christmas morning would not become christmas afternoon. All in all...another good day/night on our trip.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
update
12-23-2010
Berlin in the winter is absolutely the coldest place I’ve ever been, and I don’t care that I’m exaggerating. German winters have never heard of layering. Also, wool socks are useless. We stepped into the biting cold of morning and headed to the German History Museum for some Hitler exhibit action. Most of it was in German, but our tour guides (and gracious hosts) Shane and Morgan were able to translate most of it for us. The exhibit turned out to be a fascinating glimpse inside the head of one of the most infamously destructive men in history. Even after taking into consideration the terrible things he has done, its still an interesting and thought provoking topic to reflect upon, especially considering how recently it happened. There are many lessons that can be taken and applied to our own lives. The aesthetics and presentation of the exhibit were also very well done. After meandering about for a couple of hours, we tried going into the Reunification (of Berlin after the fall of the wall) Exhibit, but it didn’t seem like any of us could take in any more information. We left about 4 or 5 to head to a traditional outdoor Christmas Market near the museum, where we marveled over several spectacular food and drink booths. We tried not buying Bratwurst since it wasn’t quite dinner time, but that just wasn’t being realistic. The general satisfaction brought about by German meats bring soon disappeared as the cold set in again. We took cover in a nearby cathedral that turned out to house several extremely old sculptures and tombs depicting famous Germans. If you ever happen to find yourself in this or any similar cathedral, just remember not to use a tomb as a makeshift tripod and things should go just fine.
We headed to Friedrichstrass (not spelled right whatsoever) to check out the Rittersport chocolate store. Scott and Shane built there own chocolate bars using the available ingredients, which I believe ended up being gummy bears, corn flakes, chocolate candy, orange flavoring. Their excitement dissipated a bit after actually eating them. Morgan and I wisely opted out of this activity...but the idea still a cool one. For reasons that I will never know or understand, peppercorn and chili powder were also options. It’s no longer candy to me at that point.
Since Christmas markets are the thing to do during the holiday (rightfully so), we went to another and much larger one in Alexanderplatz. It was a scaled down version of the OC Fair, but actually had good food to blow your money on. This particular market wasn’t shitting around; we’re talking ice skating, carnival games, fun houses, petting zoo/pony rides, Gluwine (delicious, spiced hot wine) stands, roller coasters, and the most unstable and nauseating spinning swing ride of all time. We sampled a few glasses of Gluwine, and we bought the boot shaped mugs that its traditionally served in. We were a little surprised to learn that Germans have developed an affinity for Native Americans, made evident by the 5 or 6 street performers dressed head to toe in the garb. I think Germans appreciate Native American culture more so than Americans do, which is a bit unsettling.
I think we could’ve legitimately stayed at the market all night, but the 20 degree temps had drastically different ideas for us once again. Shane and Morgan took us to a local Turkish restaurant for dinner, where we enjoyed massive kebabs and beers. Went home afterward and watched Knocked Up / Bei Eresten Mal (Tr: The First Time) in German and tried to recreate lines in English. At this point we were so tired and devastated by cold that we decided to go to bed. Successful first full day in Berlin.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Berlin
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
dublin airport
The downside to this is that if we dont get out of here soon enough we might miss our connection in frankfurt and who knows where we will end up then. Maybe if we do have to stay a night in frankfurt I can get a hold of my cousin JR and have a visit.
Stay tuned....
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
mmmm Jameson
We both awoke this morning about 5am after going to bed around 1am...so much for our theory about our sleep cycles being somewhat adjusted. Scott woke about 30 mins after me to go to the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to play a pretty clever little joke on him which involved getting into his bed while he was up. I’ll leave it at that for now. We both tried going back to sleep, but after a discussion about how we had literally experienced no history of the city, eventually just decided to get up and start our day. I haven’t personally started a day at 6am in years, so it a little bit strange. We didn’t have a sunrise until about 9:30 or so, which made being awake that early even more bizarre. We had traditional Irish breakfast downstairs at the restaurant which consisted of bacon, eggs, potatoes, pudding, fruits and good sized buffet for about 10 Euro. We came to the decision that we were going to see all major historical venues in the city, which ended up being a bit on the unrealistic side as soon as we set foot outside. We were hit with some seriously heavy snow and frigid temperatures, but we set out to get our Dublin day pass anyways. We ended up back at the hotel about 20 mins later to add additional layers of clothing.
We set out to our first destination, Kilmainhen Gaol, with our day pass and bus pass. We did more sitting in one spot than we did actually moving on bus since the Irish drive in the snow the way Californians do in the rain. We ended up walking for an additional 30 mins through snow, uphill. The Gaol is a prison built in the 1700’s and used as a county jail as well as a midpoint for prisoners being shipped to Australia. It was later used to house many of the Irish rebels during the revolutionary period. The first section wasn’t in the best shape, and they had to lock most of it up due to the amount of graffiti and damage done by visitors. The newer area was really an awesome sight...a well preserved open holding area that is used in quite a few films and was one of the first ‘modern’ prisons in terms of its open design and the way that affected the theory behind how prisoners were treated. The design is still seen today in many modern prisons.
Next we took the tram over to the Jameson whiskey distillery across the river. We took the tram this time. We ate a quick lunch, which turned out to be really good. Scott ordered chilli, which turned out to not resemble chilli whatsoever but was still delicious. The tour went through a recreated version of the old distillery. The current distillery I believe is now in Middleton. The tour itself was extremely cheesy, both in the staged rooms and the delivery of information. It reminded us of Knott’s Berry Farm. You don’t go to Knott’s for the realistic recreations of anything. The factual information of the tour on the other hand was actually pretty good. It gave us both a good refresher course on the process of whiskey making and answered some questions we both had before we could even ask them. It ended with some samples of different Jameson varietals. That made up for the disappointing tour. Scott even received an official tasting certificate for his role in the tasting at the end of the tour. We thought about buying a bottle that is only available at the distillery, but decided against it after tasting it. Before leaving, we looked at a display case that housed a 20+ bottle set of Reserve Whiskey, worth over 50,000 Euro. I’ll have my own set adorning my diamond studded fireplace someday.
We left mid-afternoon to go Cathedral hopping. We hit Christchurch cathedral first, which was a pretty impressive medieval and rather sizable church. We admired the stunning architecture, stained glass, master craftsmanship, and threw in a couple of unholy photos as is customary. We love you Jesus. The hymns being subtly played definitely added to the atmosphere. We realized we were running out of time, so we left after about 30 mins to hit the rest of the stops on our itinerary.
This leg of the trip didn’t go so well. We went to the Dublin castle, which is literally 30 seconds from our hotel and a must see in Dublin. Except that it was closed due to inclement weather. Really? 6 inches of snow? That’s cool; we’ve got bigger and better things on our list. Like City Hall...oh, that’s closed too? Chester Beatty library’s got to be open...nope. Well, we’re right around the corner from St. Patrick’s cathedral, which is TWICE as big Christchurch. How come no one seems to be in or around it? Oh, because it’s closed. I now have a newfound respect for the way Californian’s deal with poor weather, because it’s head and shoulders above the way the Irish dealt with a little bit of snow. Ok, well maybe it’s the worst storm they’ve had in 40 years. But good god, they weren’t prepared in the least for it. Everyone just kind of gave up on life and went home in sheer confusion at about 2pm.
There was only 1 stop left on our pass that was open past 5, so off we went to the National Wax Museum. I guess somewhere between the last time I went to a wax museum and today I forgot how flat out scared I am of being in them. My first indicator that we shouldn’t be inside happened right away, when I called Scott’s attention to a Barbara Bush figure inside the lobby. Except it wasn’t her. We were 2 of maybe 7 people in the entire museum, which didn’t help things for me. Scott seemed to be pretty entertained by it...especially when he had to beg me to take his picture inside one of the horror themed rooms. The whole place seemed kind of thrown together, and some of the figurines were just painted plastic. Nice try guys. We were about to leave when we stumbled into a green room. We quickly discovered that the attached computer, video camera and TV screen were the 3 missing ingredients for one of the best recreations of Michael Jackson’s ‘Billy Jean’ that’s ever been done. Why this was on the top floor of a half-assed wax museum we may never know, but we’re sure glad it was. Scott has the video on his camera if anyone is interested. And you should be.
We decided to call it an evening and grabbed a hefty Doner Kebab and a can of beer each for dinner. We ate in the room while watching ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 days.’ Perfect ending to a not so perfect day.
**Update: Apparently the Entire UK is inept at dealing with snow, and so our plans seem to be up in the air at this point. Dublin airport is currently closed, and the airport in Frankfurt has been closed at times in the past couple of days, although it is opened now. Currently our flight status is On Time, but we suspect that may change tomorrow. Hopefully our Christmas isn’t like the thousands of people we’ve seen stranded across the UK and Europe. Cross your fingers for us!! Will update you ASAP**
half a day in dublin :(
Ok so like I said we set out to snag some serious Z’s...well, that we did. We didn’t wake up until nearly half past 12. I guess this was jet lag’s way of saying, “Hey guys im here and you better not mess with me!” Really weird but there is no clock in the room and now alarm to be set so we decided to get a power converter so matt could charge his cell phone (not working here but it came along so when we are on our way back we can call and check in) We were kinda bummed cause the sun goes down around 4:30ish so it didn’t leave us with much daylight to wander Dublin.
We got all bundled up and ready to venture out into what looked like a blizzard from hour hotel window to find a quick bite to eat and ended up at Abra Kebabra... um yeah this is the Kebab version of McDonalds so I recommend that if you ever see it stay clear! We didn’t really realize until after we ordered our Kebabs and they were pulled out from under a heat lamp!! Yeah lets not speak of this lunch again...
On the plus side we had good news on the sweater front...we made a stop by the bar we went dancing at and sure enough they found matt’s sweater. No luck for my scarf tho...oh well, matt was pretty happy to get back his sweater so it turned out well cause it was worth way more.
Moving on now. We decided to head out in a direction that we had not been together but matt had wandered into on his search for the brazen head and yours truly the night before. We took a stroll down Grafton street which is where all the shopping and high end Dublin reside on a snowy afternoon. We wandered around checking out a few different areas and more or less using the little bit of daylight (when I say daylight I mean we didn’t see the sun at all but it wasn’t dark) and ended up at a pack of about 30-40 singing santas! At that precise moment the blizzard that I thought I saw before but what happened next was crazy. It started seriously dumping on Dublin. Im talking about snowflakes the size of a dime and so thick that it was hard to see the end of the block we were standing on.
Since it was coming down soooo hard we tucked under the entrance to a small corner cafe to pull out a map and make sure we knew exactly how to get back to the hotel. While we were being total tourist we realized that the local folk were too...A group of Dublin locals came rushing out of the cafe and asked matt and I to take their picture standing in the snow storm...they were in such awe of how much it was snowing and said they had never seen snow like this in Dublin! It only lasted about 15 minutes then it slowed back to a slow but steady drizzle of snowflakes. We made our way back to the hotel to relax, warm up and chill out before heading out to get some grub.
Matt and I wanted to go to hear some Irish music and get some traditional Irish food so with the help of the front desk we ended up at Oliver St. Jon Gogarty’s and ended up on the second floor of a 3 story establishment. The first floor was a crowded pub that was super loud and we both wanted to go somewhere a bit more mellow to get some food so the second floor was just that. A band was coming on with a banjo, guitar and fiddle in about 20 minutes so we sat down, grabbed a pint and ordered some traditional Irish grub.
I ordered Beef and Guinness Casserole which was beef, mushrooms, carrots onions all in what was almost like a Guinness based gravy served with some Guinness bread...it was more like a stew than a casserole and it was SO good! Matt got traditional Irish Coddle which was almost like a chowder with sausage carrots and potatoes in it...I think we both like the Guinness Casserole a bit more and we both ate a little of each.
While we were enjoying our food and a few of the local beverages the band started playing. They were really good! The banjo player was insane! He was playing this super complicated double time riff while having a side conversation with the fiddle player...it was almost as if they were talking about what they had for lunch while he was shredding his banjo. We stayed a bit longer than we planned because we were having fun so we just hung out drinking beers and watching music and then we were visited by a local friend by the name of Peter Noone.
Who is Peter Noone one might ask...well, he is the Irish local gay man that decided to talk to us without being invited and provided the answer to what a gay Irish accent sounds like...hahaha. Now mind you Peter was drunk as a skunk and was about 45-50 years old. His opening line to get into our conversation was “ hey der fellas Eye don’t you geve me your camra der and lets me take a photo of the two of yous” we let him and then he took a picture and 30 seconds later asked the same question...since the last one was blurry and we didn’t mind a free photographer and good laugh we let him try again. This time he decided it was appropriate to brush my bangs over ...before i realized what he was doing he was done and snapping the picture. Then he set down the camera leaned in and whispered “ da you twos smoke grace” with a big grin then let out a huge WHOOOOOEEEEEEEEE while grabbing the table and almost doing a backbend to the floor then didn’t even care if we answered and started to dance and nearly crashed into the band. Oh peter noone! The best is yet to come...when he was done dancing and about to leave he walked back over and said such a profound statement that I don’t think matt or I will ever forget it. “If I don’t see ya in the spring...I’ll see you in the mountains” and then Peter noone stumbled out of our live just as fast as he came into it!
Shortly after that we decided to head home and get to bed around 12:30. All in all it was a good night with good food and good people. Now matt is sitting at the computer next to me and is typing up our blog about today and I will be posting it shortly. I hear that its raining over there pretty bad so I hope everyone is safe and staying dry!
This is Scott out from Dublin.
close calls and late night
Ok so the night where the last entry left off was two nights ago and there was much more that happened that night so I will start there. So after I left the internet cafe I headed back to the pub in our hotel to watch the dancing and live music. As soon as I sat down at the bar the dancers hopped up on stage and it was more or less what I expected. Its almost like tap dance meets a jig meets lord of the dance. Lots of leg kicks jumps and crazy foot moves. It was kinda cool and a little bit impressive to see how much control they have developed over their feet. I was kinda far back because the front seats were reserved for those who at dinner in the pub before the show. One thing I did notice was that there were a few tables littered throughout the pub with taps on them with a little screen that displayed how many ounces have been poured. I was kinda curious how it worked so I chatted with the bar tender a little bit about it and I guess you just pay for what you drink. You have to put a 50 euro deposit down but if you don’t drink 50 euro worth of beer then you get change and if you go over you owe the bar. Cool and convenient concept.
So once the band started playing I was not impressed too much so I decided to head up to the room to see if matt was alive. Sure enough as soon as I got up to the room and switched on the light I could see that Matt was gone...NO SERIOUSLY he was gone as in not there! After my first thoughts of the movie taken fled from my head I looked in the bathroom and saw that matt’s hair product had been taken from his bag so I knew he was alive and well but where was the question. We had talked about going to the brazen head prior to matt slipping off to slumber so I decided to take an evening stroll in a steady downpour of snow (IT HAS BEEN SNOWING LIKE CRAZY...locals and news reports say its the worst snow storm since 1963! Lucky us!!). Maybe it was the beers, maybe it was the snow or maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t 100% sure where I was going but I could not find the pub. I wandered and when I ended up in a dark alley I decided to head back to the hotel which was now about a 10 min walk away and the snow was really coming down. Once I made it back to the hotel I sat down and turned on the TV and no longer than about 5 min later matt came waltzing through the door (I believe this was around 11:30 or so) and was greeted by a where the hell have you been!?
Turns out I must have been heading up the stairs at the precise moment that matt was zipping down the elevator. He did a sweep of the hotel pub then when he didn’t see me he also decided to venture out to look for the brazen head. So matt and I both were wandering the city not only looking for each other but on the same page but matt made a wrong turn walking out of the hotel and started in the complete opposite direction...hahaha too random and perfectly bad timing.
Well with matt having taken a 4 hour name he wasn’t tired and although I was we decided to head out in temple bar to grab some drinks and we ended up at some bar that had a band playing total jam rock music. After sitting down with a pint of Belgium beer the bass player started playing a riff and I can almost 100% guarantee that it was groove is in the heart by dee lite but the rest of the music was only okay we decided to bounce to a bar across the street...yes lots of beer but mmmm its sooo good!
So turns out that this bar is a total euro trash mini night club. We ended up dancing to pop music and yes we may or may not have giggled when Katy Perry came on for a 2-3 song block...dont judge us! Well when leaving my scarf and matt’s sweater were gone from where we had put them in the corner of the dance floor...about 2 feet from us. We wandered around trying to find them...more so matt’s sweater cause my scarf was a $12 H&M Scarf so it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. When no sweater could be found we decided to head back to the hotel and snag some serious Z’s. We finally made it to bed around 2 or 2:30 and I am pretty sure we both crashed out as soon as we hit the pillow.
Totally random night of bad timing snow and bad luck at the end with the sweater going missing but hey we made it home safe so it was all good.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
first day in dublin
So some of you may have guessed but after walking around a little bit we made our way over to the Guinness Brewery at St. James Gate. We took a few photos of the outside and then headed in for the self guided tour. The tour was okay and gave some insight to what goes into the Guinness making process which was cool. But I would say the coolest part of the brewery was then end of the tour for 2 reasons... first, we get a free Guinness! Second, the view from the 7th floor was amazing. We got lucky and although it was cold and starting to drizzle some snow we could see all of Dublin. We chatted with a Dublin local who was working the bar and she gave us all kinds of cool information about the brewery and Dublin.
After talking to this lady we decided to head down to the 5th floor where we met a guy from south Africa who as been living in Ireland for the past 7 or 8 years to make money and send it home to Africa to help out.... he said he makes more money here and even more when he gets to convert it to south Africa’s currency. He was a cool cat and he introduced us to the only Guinness that is not available in the USA. Its called foreign extra and has an alcohol percentage of just over 7 percent and is the only Guinness not propelled by nitrogen so it is a bit more carbonated. After chatting with him he poured matt and I some free pints of standard Guinness and had carved shamrocks into the head of the beer...dont you worry photos were taken! He was cool and even though they don’t usually get or accept tips we made him take one from us.
After the brewery and being slightly inebriated we decided to go to check out the modern art museum since it was close to St. James Gate. Neither of us were super impressed with what they had there...dont get me wrong some of it was cool but for the most part it was only okay. But hey, it was free so I cant really complain.
After the museum we headed back to the hotel for some dinner cause we were both starving... nothing foodie fancy to write about here but we were to the point where we didnt really care and just wanted to get some grub in us. After dinner and another few beers we went up to the room to relax before going out again and Oh yes!! As soon as we opened the door Matt’s bag made it and was sitting just inside our door which was awesome! There were really no setbacks because we packed some stuff on the carry on just in case!) The plan was to go out after kicking back for a few but ...um....well, lets just say only one of us made it past 6:30.. matt crashed out. I did let him sleep for an hour and then asked if he wanted to come out or stay in bed and he said he was too tired to go out which I don’t really blame him for since we hardly slept in the past day and half!
I went down to the pub connected to our hotel and grabbed a pint then realized I could jet across the street to do some updates so here I am. After I complete this post I will be heading back to the pub because they have some authentic Irish music starting in about five minutes. I am off for now and will maybe try to update tomorrow night if not the next day. Its cold not that the sun is down and a little snow is falling which I think is super cool (no pun intended). Ok well, im off for now. We are safe and having fun over here in Ireland but please send some warm thoughts J
So we made it to dublin
Its around 8:30pm Dublin time and matt is asleep up in the room and I am writing this update in a cyber cafe across the street from our hotel. I guess I will start from, well, the start...
Friday night I picked up Matt to come over to my place since we had a wake up call of 3:00am to attempt to make our 6:20 am flight from LAX. So far, so smooth...right? Well, finalizing packing when we both really start on Thursday turned out to take until around 11pm and we didn’t fall asleep until around midnight... now waking up at 3 am after going to bed at 12 isnt the most fun experience but wasn’t too hard to do as we knew that we would be drinking Guinness in Dublin in only a few hours. The ride to the airport from my mom and dad was great and I owe them big time for the ride...they rock and yes my mom did work unti l 11pm the night before but wanted to come along for the ride so my dad didnt have to drive back alone so she gets 3 gold stars!
Once arriving at LAX we were kindly greeted by HUGE lines at 4:20:am ...I don’t get it but hey we were there so I guess others would do the same. Due to the fact that matt has an older passport which is going to expire this year it would not scan at self checking and we were sent down to another line. This one lady was soooo pissed that she was literally screaming at the airline staff at the top of her lungs and making a scene in front of the whole airport because she had to wait for 30 min...her husband stood by (hideous Christmas sweater proudly displayed across his chest which could only be due to his ball and chain forcing him to wear it) was clearly embarrassed and I think the entire airport wanted her to be arrested and miss her flight for being so irrational.
Once we finally hit the check-in desk we were told it was a huge rush because if our bags were not checked in 45 min before they would not make the flight and the computer will not let the bag be checked in. To make a long story short we got one in by the deadline and they were not sure if our other bag would make it on the flight but they said “it should be ok...hurry to your gate you have 20 minutes” So hurry we did and made it with about 5 minutes to spare before the doors closed. But we did have the luxury of sitting on the runway for about 25 min before lift off so not quite sure what the huge rush was all about...oh well, we made flight 1.
The flight to vegas was good and pretty mellow for the most part. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the guy who checked us in at LAX was such a stellar employee that he gave Matt 2 sets of the same tickets and only printed my first two legs ...good ol lax... Now due to that 25 min delay on the runway in LA once we got to LAX we had to run to our connector and did not have time to get any food before. When we got to the gate we were told they were going to close the doors in 3 minutes so yet again we almost missed our flight. No food, bumpy first section of the flight a few screaming babies but hey, we made our flight.
Once we made it to HOTlanta I was able to get my 3rd leg ticket and this time we had 2.5 hours to spare...we finally got some real food in us and downed some airborne to avoid getting sick this time around on my European excursion. Well, like I said we were 2.5 hours early which turned into 3.5 hours when there was a delay due to technical difficulties on the aircraft....go figure since everything was going sooo smooth. Once aboard matt and I were just happy knowing that we would be in Dublin in 7.5 hours!! Although we were surrounded by about 5 little kids and babies they were all very well behaved and I think this may have been our only run of luck on our travels...more bad things to come...
Once we arrived at Dublin international airport and made it through and to baggage claim we eagerly waited to see if bag number two made it or not :/ I am sure you, the reader, can guess...no such luck. Matts bag did not make the first flight in LA. Yet one more line we had to wait in before our Dublin adventures could truly start. We gave them the hotel address and they said his bag was on the way to Paris and should be here in 1-2 days depending on if it makes it to Paris in time to make a connecting flight to Dublin. Time will tell right?
We hopped on a Coach (bus) which dropped us off about a 10 minute walk to our hotel which was surprisingly easy to find with the luck we had been having. Also, they had our room ready at 9am which was awesome so we were able to go get cleaned up (I had to share a few things with matt) before heading out to walk around a bit.
I will end this posting here just in case I run out of internet time but this will at least let those who are going to read this know that we made it here safe and in one piece minus one bag J (don’t worry too much about the bag it turned out alright).
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
2 nights out and Im not packed
Well, here we go again… back to Europe for trip 2.0 but this time I have company. My good friend Matt Udink will be coming with this time. I think we have known each other far too long and may or may not end up in a fist fight at some point which could be good reading for those who are following this (well, only if history repeats shane’s 21st bday vegas trip :). Now speaking of Shane he will be graciously be adding us to his little apartment in Prenzlauerberg area of Berlin for multiple days of our trip. I have not seen this apartment yet but it could be a little packed with Morgan Shane matt syd and I…I think im most excited to see syd and get covered with his shedding fur…yes syd is a dog Shane brought with him this time around.
So here is the plan or whatever you want to call it :
Well tonight since I have not packed a thing and we leave on Saturday morning at 6:20am I am going to try to pack tonight. The weather forecast looks like a high of 31 degrees and snow showers throughout our trip so I will be trying to figure out the warmest combo that is not too bulky. After some shopping at the REI outlet online I think im set but we will see if it all fits in my backpack. My mom and dad are coming over to hangout and help me pack …aka hang out a bit before I take off due to the fact I will be spending Christmas in Berlin with matt Shane Morgan and syd. The goal is to be all packed and ready to go so I don’t have to stress out tomorrow after I get off work. ..We will see how it goes I guess.
Tomorrow night Matt is going to come and spend the night at my place because we have a 3 am wake up call in our near future which I don’t think either of us nor my dad are looking forward to. Saturday we have a long day of traveling…6:20 from lax to fly to vegas then to HOTlanta where we get to spend a few hours in the airport..next stop DUBLIN!
We are going to be in Ireland from the 19th at 6:50 am to mid day on December 22nd. After this it’s a hop, skip and a jump from Dublin through Frankfurt over to Berlin where we will stay for Christmas. On the 26th we are off to Vienna Austria (pending Shane actually booked our tickets) where will bounce around Austria and maybe over to Munich until either December 30th or 31st then back to Berlin for New Years Eve. We get one day to recover because I have to be back at work on Jan 3rd for the start of winter quarter 2011.
I am not sure how much I will be able to update because matt and I are not bringing computers and from what I hear Shane’s internet isn’t working at his place right now but I am bringing a small notepad to keep my thoughts in order and will try to update any chance I get.
I think we should have good times, snow covered adventures and maybe a few periods where gaps in memory might occur…. I mean we are going to be in Ireland right? Well, when in Rome I guess :)
For anyone who cares here is our flight information:
Departure Flight(s) Information (DELTA)
- Delta Confirmation Code = GZF38T
-Depart Los Angles to fly to Dublin
- 6:20am LAX to LAS (flight 2590)
- 8:10am LAS to ATL (Flight 2602)
-5:55pm ATL to DUB (Flight 176)
-Arrive in Dublin 6:50 am on Dec 19th (Dublin Ireland time)
Dublin Hotel Information
-Dec 19th – Dec 22nd
-The Arlington Hotel Temple Bar:
2 Lord Edward St
Dublin Ireland
353 (1) 6708777
Flight information Dublin to Berlin (Lufthansa)
-Lufthansa Reservation Code = ZD3PGL
-12:20 pm DUB to Frankfurt (Flight LH 979)
-5:20 pm Frankfurt to TXL (Flight LH 190)
Flight Back to the USA (KLM/Delta)
- KLM Confirmation Code = 2F3ERQ
-Depart Berlin to fly to Los Angeles
- 7:15am TXL to AMS (flight 1818)
- 2:35pm AMS to ATL (Flight 621)
-8:15pm ATL to LAX (Flight 2355)
-Arrive in Los Angeles 10:24pm on Jan 2nd
Take care, happy readings and Happy Holidays to you and yours!