Österreich and Barcelona

Let’s just say that my next trip didn’t start out as smoothly as it could have. I set my alarm for 5AM so that I could get everything ready to leave by 5:30AM. Tim walked into my room at 5:27AM to wake me up. I was so rushed that I left the house without the cell phone and didn’t realize it until it was too late. But that was the only thing I forgot – I guess it could have been worse. I got to the airport, slept on the flight (since I had only gotten one hour of sleep the night before), and arrived in Zürich, Switzerland. I bought a train ticket to Dornbirn, Austria (Össtereich in German), where my friend Amanda (a friend of my roommate at UVA) was living/studying for the semester, grabbed some breakfast, and boarded the train when it arrived. However, there was one slight problem. I didn’t realize that the train ticket I bought contained a connection on it. Since this was my first trip on a train in Europe, at least without a large group of people going to the same place as me, I assumed that there was just a 15-minute scheduled stop in Bregenz, one of the cities along the way. So, since I was completely exhausted, I set an alarm for about 10 minutes before I was supposed to arrive in Dornbirn and went to sleep on the train. I woke up and looked out the window, waiting for my stop. I noticed that the terrain was getting flatter, and not mountainous, which seemed a little strange, but I didn’t think too much of it. A little while later I looked at my watch and noticed that we were at least 10 minutes behind schedule (which doesn’t really happen) or I did something wrong. After several trips up and down the train looking for the conductors, I finally found them and was informed that I was a “long way away” from Dornbirn, should have switched trains earlier, and was now back in Germany. Great!! They were kind enough to use their computers to re-route me and tell me exactly where to go. So, I got off the train in Memmingen, Germany, bought a new ticket, and took three trains to get back to Dornbirn, which got me there approximately 3 hours after I told Amanda I would arrive. That would have been alright had I brought the cell phone with me, but remember, I forgot it!! So, I had to make a quick call from a pay phone around noon (already an hour after I should have arrived) to tell Amanda when my new ETA was. I felt really badly because I think she waited for a while!

Anyways, I made myself stay awake for each of the train rides, which was very difficult, and finally arrived in Dornbirn. Amanda met me on the platform with two beers in hand. Yay! She said she thought I’d need it. And it’s alright to walk around with a beer in the streets there, as I think it is in most of Europe. So we drank the beers and walked through Dornbirn to her apartment to drop off my stuff. Then we headed back out for a quick tour, saw her school, and grabbed pasta for dinner at Spar, the grocery store. We went over to her friend Katie’s apartment, where we cooked dinner and looked at pictures of all their trips around Europe. I eventually had to take a nap because I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but afterwards we went out to the Christmas Market in the center of Dornbirn, where everyone was drinking Glühwein, and then went to Mr. John’s (pronounced "Jones"), their favorite bar in town. We hung out at Mr. John’s for a while, eating, drinking, and meeting a lot of other people from her program, and then went home to sleep.

The next morning was supposed to be an early one, but we slept in an hour longer than we meant to. We got up, grabbed all our gear, and caught a train a little before 9AM out to St. Anton, a great mountain a little more than an hour out of Dornbirn. I went skiing and Amanda went snowboarding. I was thrilled to be skiing in the Alps – first time!! (Jenny is likely going on a school ski/board trip to Austria in the spring!) The weather could have been slightly more cooperative, but it was still great! There was a lot of powder skiing, at least a lot more than I am used to. My legs felt dead after the first run. You can’t tell how big these mountains are until you realize how long it takes to get down them. The sky was clear for about one hour all day, which is when I took my pictures. Other than that, we were either inundated with fog and clouds, or blinding snow. At times it was scary because you couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of you. It’s kind of crucial to know what’s coming when you’re flying down a mountain on a board or skis. At the end of the day, as the weather conditions got worse, and my legs became useless, we went in for “after-ski.” The Austrians tend to spend hours in a bar after a full day on the mountain. Amanda and I each got a glass of Glühwein, listened to some really old American songs, and hopped the train back to Dornbirn.

Once we were back in town we hunted down a kebab shop (the only food you can find anywhere in the world, except the U.S.) – for those who don’t know it’s basically a Turkish gyro, it has some type of meat and lettuce/tomato/onion with sauce in a pita). I love them. Then we changed and caught a bus out to Mary and Kaisa’s (Amanda’s Finnish friends). We watched Blades of Glory, the Will Ferrell/Napoleon Dynamite-guy skating movie, then caught the bus back for some much-needed sleep.

I slept in on Monday (big surprise!) while Amanda went into school. Once I got up we went back over to Mary and Kaisa’s for some home-made Finnish food, meatballs and mashed potatoes. They made enough so that they would have leftovers, but apparently didn’t know who they were having over – we finished it all (2.2 pounds of meat for the meatballs and one large bowl of potatoes). It was very good! During the afternoon we hung out at Amanda’s, looked at pictures, listened to music, and then made tuna melts for dinner. We went back over to Katie’s apartment for Glühwein, cookies, roasted chestnuts, and Christmas music. Katie’s Swedish roommate, Lina, was back in town, so I met her, and the four of us ate up all the goodies. We had gingersnaps with blue cheese. I would never have put those two together before, but it was good. I’ll have to try it again.

The next morning we woke up early to catch a train to Salzburg. We met up with Amanda’s friend Caitlin and went to the train station. We stocked up on snacks and sandwiches for the long train ride. Salzburg isn’t all that far from Dornbirn, but with the connection we would be traveling for about five hours. We arrived in Salzburg and found our hostel. Despite the cold rain we ventured into the Salzburg Altstadt to the Christmas market, which takes the cake for the best Christmas market I have been to. It was massive, had a million different types of foods and decorations, and a live choir singing inside one of the squares. It was everything I had wanted out of a Christmas market. I have some strange obsession with these markets. I remember watching a late-night TV special on Christmas markets in Germany/Austria/Switzerland several years ago and it really stuck with me. I promised myself that I would get to one eventually, so I was extremely happy to be there. I even found a gingerbread man cookie cutter for Mom and Jenny at the market. They had been looking for one all over Düsseldorf and had given up. Thank you Salzburg.

After we had had enough of the Christmas market we walked through some more of the quaint Salzburg streets and found one of the coolest stores in existence – a store filled with THOUSANDS of hand-painted, real eggs. It was a little strange to go directly from Christmas to Easter, but it was truly an amazing store. I think our mouths were hanging open the whole time we walked through it. By this time we were getting very hungry, so we asked the friendly “Egg Lady” where to eat. She recommended Zipfer, a local pub and restaurant. It wound up being really cool because I think we were the only non-locals in there. We were also probably the youngest ones by about 20 years, but that was alright because the food was good. We went back to the hostel afterwards to get out of the freezing rain, grabbed beers, and watched the tail end of Shawshank Redemption before putting in American Pie. I hadn’t seen that one in forever.

The next morning I woke up and Lauren (another friend from Amanda’s program) had joined us, completing our group of four. Amanda and Caitlin had woken up super-early to meet her at the train station – I apparently didn’t hear the alarm (I’m sensing a trend with me not hearing alarms and sleeping a lot). She had had a class to finish and took a night train to meet us. We grabbed breakfast at the hostel and went back into town with Lauren. We passed by the house where Mozart was born and wandered back through the Christmas markets, but couldn’t stay outside for too long due to the cold and rain. We ducked inside a café for hot chocolates and ventured back into the markets to grab lunch before catching our train to Vienna. We got sausages and met an older couple from North Carolina. The wife was actually an alumnus of Caitlin’s school, so they had a bit to talk about. We got our last-minute postcards and souvenirs, grabbed our bags at the hostel, and caught our 4-hour train to Vienna. What we could see out the window was beautiful until the sun went down. We must have gone up in elevation because we were no longer seeing a driving rain, but large snowflakes falling over Austrian villages. We were in a six-person compartment, rather than a regular train seating arrangement. It made me happy because I felt like I was in the Harry Potter books.

By the time we got to Vienna we had gone back down in elevation, so had to walk through the rain to our hostel. We got dinner at a bakery/restaurant down the street, where I had Wiener Schnitzel, in Wien (Wien is the German spelling of Vienna) – I was psyched. Then it was dessert time. I grabbed my usual chocolate croissant and brought it with me to the ice cream shop where everyone else got their dessert. We got back to the hostel, checked out their bar, which was not very lively, and then went to bed so that we could have a full next day in Vienna.

On Thursday we woke up and took the metro into the center of the city. When we emerged from the underground we saw the beautiful Stephansdom, the trademark of Vienna. We spent the morning walking around the city and ducking into shops because it was very cold and windy, but not rainy, which was an improvement. We got lunch in an Italian restaurant, not very unlike Cosetta’s in St. Paul, and it was great. Afterwards, we walked through more of the very historic and beautiful parts of Vienna. I didn’t know quite what to expect in Vienna. I had seen very few pictures, but had heard several times that it was one of the most beautiful European cities. My Lonely Planet guide book begins its entry on Vienna like this . . . “If New York is the ‘Big Apple,’ then Vienna is the big wedding cake.” That didn’t give me any clear expectations either. After seeing the city I assume it means that you get the big-city feeling of New York, yet it is a lot prettier, like icing on the cake? It’s open to interpretation. Anyways, we continued walking through the beautiful buildings and ran across one of Vienna’s Christmas markets in Maria Theresien Platz. We made sure to get some Glühwein and try some of the local goodies. Then we continued on to Vienna’s main shopping street, Mariahilferstrasse, stopping at every chocolate shop in sight along the way. Every European city is overflowing with chocolate shops and bakeries, but Vienna in particular has an overabundance. My favorite was a very fancy shop that made massive marzipan sculptures. We got to watch the chefs in the kitchen and it was pretty impressive. We hung around the city center until dark and saw all of the Christmas decorations – there were tons!!

We then decided that it was time to warm up and get dinner, so we took the train back out to our hostel. We had dinner at a local pub just around the corner. I had goulash for the first time and I loved it. It also happened to be “Dixie Night,” so we sat in a very German pub, eating very German food, and listening to live New Orleans Jazz music. It was a strange contrast. Afterwards we decided to check out the bar scene in Vienna. The hostel recommended the Mozart Stube, but when we walked in all of the customers were men in their sixties, or older, so we quickly left. We tried another hostel recommendation, but didn’t like it, and finally got to their third recommendation, Café Europa, which was much more our speed. It was a trendy café down a side street that we never would have found on our own. It was perfect for us though because there was a lot of good people-watching, which entertained us for the whole night.

Friday was another early day. We rode the Strassenbahn (street-car) to the nearest bus depot and caught a bus to Bratislava, Slovakia from there. We were planning on flying RyanAir to Barcelona, the low-cost airline, so the airport was a ways away and in a different country in this case. But we were psyched to go to Slovakia, not because we necessarily had heard good tourist reviews about it or anything, but when else were we going to be in Slovakia? We were also excited to get a quick look at Bratislava since we had heard it was the “Twin City” to Vienna. From the views we got of Bratislava from the bus, we were at a loss for how anyone could call it even a distant cousin to Vienna. It looked depressed and run-down, and there was graffiti everywhere. The two cities aren’t even physically close. They are about a one-hour drive apart, not just a few miles like Minneapolis and St. Paul. Needless to say, we were glad we hadn’t set aside an afternoon for Bratislava.

We arrived at the airport, checked-in, and got some fairly cheap food, one of the good things about Slovakia. We boarded the plane and were excited to be leaving cold, cloudy weather for a while. The flight path to Barcelona went directly over the Alps, all covered in snow. It was cool to see. We also got a great view of the Spanish coastline and countryside on our way in. Once we were in Spain we had to grab a packed bus to get into Barcelona. We sat behind a group of four, not particularly bright, American guys. So we got to listen to an hour and a half of them arguing over what languages they spoke in what European countries. One of them is still probably very adamant that they speak Flemish in Switzerland. The conversation would have been more understandable had they not already been studying in Austria for the whole semester. We were happy to get away from their conversation as soon as the bus arrived in Barcelona (only to find that they were staying at the same hostel as us!). We took the metro and walked down Las Ramblas, the major pedestrian street in Barcelona, to get to our hostel. Our hostel probably couldn’t have been in a better location. We were right on Placa Reial, a beautiful square (in the picture) just off of Las Ramblas. We were in walking distance to everything in Barcelona! This hostel also had a much more upbeat atmosphere than some of the others we had been in, but they made you pay for the good atmosphere and location.

We settled into our room and went down to the main floor for happy hour and dinner. The dinner was alright, but not enough food, so we went out for a tapas tour of our neighborhood. We tried things like patatas bravas, croquettes, shrimp and of course, sangria (the Spanish, fruity wine drink). After a good night out we went home and slept well.

Once we woke up on Saturday we took to the streets (in lighter jackets, which was a welcome change - it was probably in the 50s, in mid-December!). We walked along Las Ramblas towards the harbour, checking out the open-air art and street markets. We walked around the edge of the harbour, looking at fish in the water and looking back at the beautiful buildings of Barcelona. We eventually wound up at the beach!! It was definitely too cold to go sun-bathing, but there was a small group of people out surfing in wet suits. We made a pit-stop at Spar, where I bought a jar of olives, and then we continued our walk around the city, eating olives. We went through the entire day without a map and turned down whichever street looked the most interesting when we came to an intersection. We never truly knew where we were, but were also never lost since we weren’t trying to be anywhere. We walked through parks, saw the Arc De Triomf, and stepped into shops along the way. A large portion of the shopping we did was window-shopping because we were out at siesta (the time when most stores close down for lunch). On our way back to Placa Reial we passed a wide array of street performers and stopped at the large food market off of Las Ramblas. It had fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, candy, and pretty much anything else you could want. Everything was the best and biggest I had ever seen. I got a pineapple already cut up for €1.50. Not bad. I kinda wished I had had a kitchen to use so I could get some of the seafood, too.

After at least 4 solid hours of walking we wound up back at the hostel, where I took a nap. Inconveniently, I had woken up on Saturday morning with a sore throat and a cold, so I was a little out of it. Amanda, Caitlin, and Lauren hung out downstairs for happy hour, then came and woke me up once I had slept long enough. We went back out into the city for dinner. We went back to one of the restaurants we had visited the night before for tapas. We had burgers, Spanish omelets, a million different types of potatoes, etc. Then we decided to take advantage of the free flamenco show for hostel guests at a nearby club. We got a jug of sangria and enjoyed the live music and dancing. It was actually a lot more impressive than I was expecting – the music at least, not necessarily the dancing. Flamenco guitar looks so complicated and sounds sooo cool. And the singers were amazingly talented as well. After the show we went back out to try and find some of the legendary Barcelona nightlife, but had a serious lack of luck. Apparently Saturday night isn’t a big deal in Spain? We were also very tired of walking, so eventually gave up and went to bed.

Sunday seems to be the day to be out in Barcelona. We woke up and started walking again, past more street perrformers. Can you guess which dog is real? We did a TON of walking in Barcelona, but it never got old because there was so much to see. We grabbed food at the Pita House. I tried falafel and it was good, but I still don’t really know what it is. The best part about the Pita House though was the American-sized Coke they give you!! It was significantly more than one gulp, which is what you get in most other European establishments. We walked through the multitude of open-air markets – stamp collecting, art, jewelry, antiques, flowers, and pets. Haven’t you always wanted a pet turkey or pigeon? After seeing the markets, we took off on another trek to see La Sagrada Familia, the extremely modern church that has become a symbol of Barcelona. It was designed by Antoni Gaudi, Construction began in 1882 and it is still not exceptionally close to being complete. There are also a few other very unique buildings around Barcelona that were designed by the same guy, i.e. Casa Batllo. Once we got back to our side of town I took a nap again in the hopes that it would make me feel better, while the other three found something to occupy themselves with.

I joined Amanda, Caitlin, and Lauren again to go out for dinner. We went on a mission to find paella, because we wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if we left Spain without having some, at least Amanda and I couldn’t. Paella is the very Spanish seafood and rice dish – really good! We started out by taking some of the smaller streets off of Las Ramblas. It seems that we finally picked the right time of day to go onto these streets. Late at night and early in the morning all of the shops on these streets are boarded up, covered in graffiti, and deserted. It’s very creepy. But when they are open and people are everywhere it is great!! We discovered the true, old Gothic quarter, which we thought we had already seen, but had been mistaken. There were more shops in these tiny side streets than I have ever seen in one place. And enough people to fill them all. We wished we had discovered the Gothic Quarter earlier, because we probably would have spent more time there. But at least we got to see it. We continued to look for paella, which was more difficult to find than we would have thought. Eventually we found a place that served it. The restaurant was pretty dead when we walked in because it was around 5/6PM, which is in-between meal time for the Spaniards. Spanish people START going out for dinner around 9/10PM.

We enjoyed the great food at dinner and then went back to the Gothic quarter for dessert. Caitlin and Lauren got waffles with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. It looked great, but Amanda and I couldn’t stomach it after all of the paella. We had made it back to the Gothic quarter as all of the shops were closing, and it started to get creepy back there again, so we walked with the dessert. We got back to the hostel and I started to pack up all of my stuff for the early morning I knew was coming. Caitlin and Lauren went for one more nighttime walk around our side of Barcelona and then we all tried to sleep. Tried being the key word. There was an extremely loud group of boys on our floor who stayed up until 3AM yelling at each other, went out to bars for two hours, and then came back in around 5AM, yelling and screaming again. All in all I think I got about one hour of sleep. I had to be up at 5:30AM, when it was still dark and people were still out for the night, to get the train to the airport (which wound up being a little more difficult than I had originally thought). I asked three different people about how to take the train to the airport and I got three completely different answers, some of which was in Spanish, which I don’t understand. I wound up catching two trains, walking a good ways, and hoping that I was headed for the correct Barcelona airport. Luckily, I made it to the right airport and in plenty of time. I had the easy trip home – just grab a plane to Düsseldorf and I was there by noon. Amanda, Caitlin, and Lauren left the hostel about one hour after me and had to retrace all of our previous steps – bus to Barcelona airport, fly to Bratislava, bus to Vienna, 8-hour train from Vienna to Dornbirn. They got home in the early hours of the next day. They were traveling for almost 24 hours non-stop. I wasn’t jealous.

Sweden

On Jenny’s Birthday (sorry, Jenny) I caught a plane to Stockholm, out of the small airport near the Netherlands. Other than a small delay needed to clean a bird off of the wing of the plane from the previous landing, everything went smoothly. I got off the plane and met up with my friend Håkan, who I had played ultimate frisbee with in Brisbane. He came all the way to the Skavsta Airport to pick me up (thank you!) and so we had a bit of a drive to get back to Uppsala, which is 70km north of Stockholm. There was a little snow on the ground, which was exciting because I don’t think I’ll see much of it this year. But the biggest surprise on the drive home was that the sun was setting at 3PM! I’ve never been anywhere where the days were so short, but I guess it makes sense because this was the closest I’ve ever been to one of the poles. Håkan drove me through the main part of Uppsala, which was very charming. We got to his apartment, set up my bed, and then drove out to Balinge, the town where he grew up and where his brother and family now live. We walked through town and picked up Håkan’s nieces, Tilde and Elvira. I felt badly because I couldn’t speak to them in Swedish, although I did learn how to say goodbye. We drove back to Uppsala and stopped to get some Glögg and Julmust, two very Swedish drinks. Glögg is a thicker, sweet, warm drink that you usually have with raisins and nuts (I have since learned that it is basically the same thing as Glühwein, which is big in Germany). And Julmust is a dark soda. Between the two, I liked Glögg better. Apparently they have it in Minnesota, too, although I had never tried it before. A fun fact: Minneapolis has been a twin city with Uppsala since 2000!

Once we got back into town we went out for dinner at one of the Nations. A Nation is kind of like a student union in the U.S.. Student members get tax free food and drinks (which is a big discount in Sweden, since tax is usually 25%), can attend sponsored cultural events, etc. Uppsala is a big university city. It is home to Uppsala University, which was founded in 1477 (makes UVA look like a baby) and is the oldest center of higher education in Scandinavia and much of northern Europe. Pretty cool! Anyway, we met up with Håkan’s friend Johan, grabbed dinner, a few beers, and played a game of darts at one of the Nations. We went back to Håkan’s to try some drinks with the Julmust and hung around for a bit before going out to another Nation for drinks and dancing.

I slept in very late the next morning (and every day I was in Sweden, sorry, Håkan), but once I was up Håkan took me on a tour of Uppsala. We went inside one of the old University buildings and saw the Gustavianum, with the anatomical theatre at the top. We went inside the Uppsala Cathedral, the largest gothic church in all of the Nordic countries, and the place where many Swedish coronations have taken place. We also visited Carolina Rediviva, the main university library building, which holds the Silver Bible. Next we walked up to Uppsala Castle (the pink building), which has its cannons pointed toward the Cathedral – apparently one of the Kings didn’t like the Church very much. The last stop on the tour was the new music and convention hall in Uppsala. It is a contemporary, several-story black and white building with panoramic views of the town. So we went up to check it out. Here is one of the shots from the convention hall - I love the pastel colors of the buildings. It was a bit cloudy, so not great for picture-taking, but still cool to see. On our way back to Håkan’s we stopped at the liquor store to buy a bunch of different types of beer (Swedish, Czech, and others) for me to try while I was in town. For an easy dinner we stopped and got kebabs and then went home and watched The Heartbreak Kid, the newer Ben Stiller – Farrelly Brothers movie.

On Thursday we went to Stockholm! It’s less than an hour train-ride from Uppsala. When we got there Håkan took me to the Medieval Museum, so I got to see what Stockholm was like hundreds of years ago. We walked through Gamla Stan – old town Stockholm, past Storkyrkan (the oldest Church in the old town - it dates back to the 12-1300s - that's old), and past the palace. Stockholm is really cool in that it is built on several islands. So there are bridges and boats everywhere. The pictures I’ve seen from summertime look pretty spectacular. We ducked into some of the nicer shopping areas to get out of the rain and everything was decorated for the holidays – I love that! We used our shoes to skate around an ice rink, passed the statue of Charles XII pointing east (towards Russia - watch out), and went to the Royal Armory Museum. Despite not being able to read most of the captions in the museum, there were still some very interesting things to look at – lots of weapons/swords, armor, fancy clothing, and carriages. By the time we left the museum it was dark already. We walked through a few more stores and then caught the train back to Uppsala for dinner at one of the Nations. I tried the famed pea soup and liked it (Håkan does not), punsch, and waffles with jam and cream. The best part was that I got to meet a lot of his friends and hall mates. All of whom I really liked. We made plans to meet up with everyone later as they visited each of the Nations. It was a fun night!

After a late night I slept in and watched Pirates of the Caribbean III – I hadn’t seen it yet! I think my first time outside was when we went to Håkan’s parent’s house for dinner. The food and drinks were great and it was so nice to get to know everyone. Håkan’s nieces were there and we were able to communicate a little better than we had the first time we met – they even taught me to count to 24 in Swedish on their Advent calendars! Unfortunately, have now forgotten. I tried a bunch of different drinks – Glögg (this time with nuts and raisins), wine, beer, and two different kinds of schnapps. It would probably take me a little bit to get used to drinking schnapps. I loved the food! We had fish, dumplings, meatballs, and of course, the lasagna that Håkan made in Australia (my favorite!). After dinner Tilde, Elvira and I played a game of memory and they beat me by a landslide. Tell your parents thanks again for me, Håkan! I had a great time. We had to make it back to Håkan’s by 7 because he had invited a bunch of friends over for a party. We waited for everyone to get there, tried the assortment of beers we had picked out, and went out to the Nations again.

On Saturday we had Fika – the Swedish, one-word term for going out for a coffee/tea/snack/etc. I still am not sure how to use the word in a sentence. We hung out drinking coffee/tea and talking for a while before heading back to Håkan’s. For dinner we ordered pizza with Christian and Annie, watched a movie, and then met Johan at one of the Nations for a concert. I was fully expecting the music to be in Swedish, but since I don’t normally listen to song lyrics anyways I didn’t think it would matter. But to my surprise all of the songs were in English – the band just spoke Swedish in between.

Sunday was a lazy day, too. It was also my last day in Sweden. We woke up and watched a string of Scrubs episodes. We left the apartment a little earlier than needed so that we could walk through town and check out the festivities for First Advent. On the way we passed by Carl Linnaeus' house and it was open this time! Linnaeus was from Uppsala and did a lot of his work there - Sara, you would have liked it!! (For those who don't know, Linnaeus is know as the "Father of Taxonomy." He came up with the whole classification system we have for living organisms, which I have had to deal a lot with in classes.) I was pretty psyched. His is the yellow house - I got this picture from Hakan - I was there in winter. After Linnaeus' we kept walking and came across the Advent market and a children’s choir singing carols. Then Håkan walked me over to the train station where I took the long trip home – train, bus, plane, and car back to Düsseldorf.

London

I was looking for something to do with my free time in November and decided to go to London for a few days. It’s not that far from Düsseldorf AND I got a flight for 20€. Not bad. RyanAir is the cheap way to fly around Europe as long as you are not bringing too much with you – if you carry on less than 10kg you don’t have to pay a baggage fee. RyanAir also tends to fly out of smaller, more distant airports. I made my flight out of the Düsseldorf-Weeze airport before checking to see exactly where it was. When I finally checked its location I discovered that it was just over the border from The Netherlands and about one hour north of Düsseldorf. It seems a bit of a stretch to call it the Düsseldorf-Weeze airport, but then again, the flights are very cheap and there is no speed limit on most of the roads there.

I arrived in London less than an hour after take-off. I met an Argentinean guy in the non-EU passport line (which was nice and short - the line, not the guy) and spent the bus-ride into London learning about Argentina and sharing travel stories. I now know the best way to drive from Buenos Aires to the beach without getting a speeding ticket (while disobeying the speed limit that is). We’ll see if that ever comes in handy. I got off the bus and walked a few blocks to my hostel. I arrived at Palmer’s Lodge, which I had booked online a few days beforehand, and was pleasantly surprised. It was an old Victorian mansion with very cozy rooms/beds and a welcoming reading room with a fire. It had all of the things that you learn to appreciate in good hostels – a reading light for each bed, a place to lock up your bags, clean bathrooms and showers, free internet, free breakfast, etc.

I had made plans to meet up with the Argentinean in the city, so I figured out where the closest subway stop was and took off. The London Underground is very easy to use, but not exactly cheap. London as a whole, as I already knew, but was constantly reminded, is very expensive. I spent more money traveling around on the Underground for four days than I spent to fly to England (the flight was cheap, but that still seems crazy). It also doesn’t help that the American dollar is doing HORRIBLY right now. FYI, the British Pound is currently worth $2.06, the Euro is worth $1.47, and even the Canadian Dollar is worth slightly more than $1. It’s not a great time to be traveling elsewhere if you are trying to get your money’s worth. I tried to save money by weaning myself down to one meal a day once I figured out how much money I was spending on food alone.

Anyway, back to Saturday night. I took the Underground into Central London, which was only about three stops away. I went to meet the Argentinean at his hostel, but he wasn’t there. The hostel had been completely full, so he left a message to meet him elsewhere. Haha, he had given me a hard time for booking my hostel ahead of time, but he was the one without a place to stay. I like it when I’m right. I never actually went to meet up with him, but I got to check out London and get my bearings while seeing the Saturday nightlife. I finally decided to go back to the hostel and caught a night bus home. I found a bus that went to Finchley, and my hostel was right off of the Finchley Road Underground Station. Unfortunately, I did not know enough at the time, or have a map to show me, that Finchley and Finchley Road are not even remotely the same place. So after a very long bus ride in the wrong direction, an unofficial tour of some of the London suburbs, and a bus transfer, I made it back to Palmer’s Lodge.

I let my self sleep in on Sunday due to the fact that I had gotten home much later than expected the night before. If I had done a little research ahead of time I would have visited some of the many food and clothing markets London has to offer, as most are held in the second half of the week. However, not knowing what I was doing, but at least in possession of a map this time, I headed back into the city to see the sights. My first priority was lunch since I hadn’t really eaten dinner the night before or breakfast. I went to Wagamama, a chain asian noodle restaurant, at Tim’s suggestion. It was very good. If they had one back in Germany I would eat there every day. Afterwards, I planned to go on a long walk starting on Oxford Street, going past Kensington Palace and Gardens, through to Buckingham Palace, and then onto the River Thames. I got as far as Oxford Street. I’m not much of a shopper, but there were a lot of shops on Oxford Street, and a lot of very cool ones. As expensive as London is, you can still get clothes, and shoes especially, more cheaply there than you can in Düsseldorf. So I spent the afternoon walking through the shops, stopping to get a cup of tea, and avoiding the cold and rain outside. I was so cold that I went into a Marks and Spencers and bought myself a scarf and gloves. They helped a lot. Unfortunately, about an hour after I bought them I looked down and saw I only had one glove on. I have no idea where the other one went. I was so mad that I had lost it so quickly that I refused to buy more gloves. And since walking around with one glove on looks kinda stupid I took the one I had off and was cold again.

As it started to get dark I walked up Regent Street, another shopping street. Regent Street has a much more grand appearance than Oxford St. All of the buildings are made of white stone and Christmas decorations were already going up. I love big cities at Christmas time! I made it Leicester Square, where many of London’s theaters and ticket vendors are located. I got some info on all of the shows in London and decided to get tickets to Wicked. Since it was still cold and rainy and I felt like it was still a bit too early to go back to the hostel for the night I bought tickets to see American Gangster, the Denzel Washington movie. I had an 1 ½ to kill before it started, so I hunkered down to read in a Starbucks for a while, and got dinner and a bubble tea in Chinatown. I went to the movie, which was in the nicest and biggest theater I have ever been in. The movie was good, but I’m not sure it was worth the most expensive movie ticket I have ever bought - 13£, which equates to almost $30 American! After the movie I was happy to go back to the hostel, change into dry clothes, and get into a warm bed.

The next morning everyone in my room was woken up by someone yelling right outside our door, “Don’t touch my things. It is private property!” Blah, blah, blah. What I could gather from the other girls in the room was that one of the girls who had been staying in the room for almost a month was a little off-her-rocker, possibly schizophrenic, and getting kicked out at last. The police showed up and she made quite a scene. Since I obviously wasn’t going to get any more sleep I went down to breakfast, then packed up my things and checked out. I took the Underground to Hyde Park Corner station, where the FREE Royal Walking Tour began (it’s not really free though, because the guides only get paid through “tips”). In true London style, it was raining/pouring, but I had an umbrella with me. The tour wound up being one of the best things I did while in London. The guide, Gregg, was from Brisbane (one of thousands of Aussies in London), knew a lot about London, and was able to put a fun spin on everything he showed us. As we waited for everyone to arrive a motorcade went by, with lots of police. It was likely someone important, but we couldn’t tell who. We started the tour at Buckingham Palace, where the Changing of the Guard usually happens, but get this . . . it doesn’t happen when it rains, which gets me thinking, does it ever happen? It probably would have bored me though, so I didn’t care. When we arrived at the Palace Gregg pointed out that the flag was up, signaling that the Queen was in residence. She hadn’t been there the day before, so it is very possible that the motorcade we had seen was the Queen on her way to the Palace. Pretty cool. We also got to see the Horse Guard, the official protectors of the Queen, parade by. Then we moved on to the Princes’ Residence and got our pictures taken with members of the Royal Guard. Next was Park Place – one of the most expensive neighborhoods in London, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, where Gregg mentioned that it looked like Fred Claus was going to premier that night, Diagon Alley – or at least where they shot some of the scenes in Harry Potter, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square – where you are supposed to see someone you know if you stand there for over 10 minutes, the National Gallery, Whitehall – the British White House, 10 Downing St. – the residence of the Prime Minister, and Churchill’s War Cabinet Bunker, where Gregg retold some of Churchill’s funnier quotes:

JOKE #1: Secretary: “Mr. Churchill, you’re drunk.”

Churchill: “Yes, my dear, but you are ugly and tomorrow I will be sober.”

JOKE #2: Secretary: “Mr. Churchill, if I was your wife I would poison your tea.”

Churchill: “Ms. Jane, if I was your husband, I would drink it.”

We ended the tour with St. Stephen’s Tower, which contains Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. The bells at Westminster Abbey were clinging non-stop and we later figured out that it was for the Queen’s Diamond Wedding Anniversary, which explains why all the flags were up at the Royal Residences – everyone was in town for it.

I grabbed lunch at Tesco, at Gregg’s suggestion, since it is the cheapest way to go in London. It’s a convenient store with a lot of takeaway food. I got pasta for 1£, which is a very good price. I ate and walked over to the Thames, which I was seeing for the first time – it took me almost 48 hours in London to actually see the river! The London Eye, the huge observation wheel (not ferris wheel, if you say that they get pissed), was going. The Eye was constructed as one of three projects for the Millennium and was supposed to be temporary. But people liked it and it brought in so much money (50,000£/day in the summer) that it’s there for good. Kinda like the Eiffel Tower. During the tour someone had mentioned something about there actually being a Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station (Harry Potter fans will know what I am talking about), so I went to check it out. Then I had to scoot back to my hostel to pick up my bags because I had booked a second, cheaper hostel for my last two nights in London. It turns out that that was a very good idea, because the power was out at Palmer’s Lodge when I went to retrieve my bags. I took the Underground to the Docklands Lightrail and caught a train out to Deptford Bridge, which is two stops away from Greenwich. I was quite a ways from the city center, but paying only £6.50/night, which is pretty much unheard of in London. I walked into the reception/bar at the new hostel and the only customers were old Rastafarian guys in a very heated discussion. I got up to my room and met the roommates – all very cool people. There was a French girl who had been at the hostel for almost a month while trying to get a job and an apartment set up. She had decided that London was the place to be and just picked up and went. There were several Aussies, some who had been traveling the world for almost a year, and we all shared travel stories.

I quickly had to change and make the trek back into the city for dinner before Wicked. I made a point to walk through Leicester Square, just in case the Fred Claus premier actually was happening. And it was!! I picked the perfect time to walk by because Vince Vaughn had just arrived on the red carpet. It was my first famous-person sighting, so I was pretty excited. Not to mention that Leicester Square was completely decked out with decorations, enormous TV’s, and fake snow machines blowing soap/foam into the air. It was cool! I quickly ran over to Chinatown to grab some dumplings and tea and then caught the Underground to Victoria Station. I made it to the theater just in time and had pretty good seats, second row up in the balcony. For those of you who don’t know, Wicked is the untold story of the friendship between Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West (from the Wizard of Oz), and is based on a book. It turns the classic story of the Wizard of Oz inside out, but still manages to get you to like it. The show was very good!! After the show I went to the River Thames and saw the Tower Bridge and nearby sights at night. Then I had to catch a train back to Deptford Bridge before they all shut down for the night.

The next morning I woke up early because I wanted to catch a tour of the Old City of London, which started at 10AM. And guess who the tour guide was? Gregg again, which was cool, but a lot of the jokes weren’t as funny the second time around. And I ran into the first Americans I had seen the whole time on the tour. They were a bit annoying. It may seem silly that I would be going on another tour of London, but there is so much to see in this city that even two tours aren’t enough. We started out at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, and saw The Monument to the Great Fire of London (1666), which you can climb and get a certificate for, but make sure you get all the way to the top. They have hired someone whose sole job is to give certificates to those who have climbed ALL the way to the top. Gregg learned that the hard way. We also saw the Royal Exchange, The Bank of England, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was used as a mark by the Nazis to bomb London – the only reason it survived the war. We also saw the Millennium Bridge, the HMS Belfast, the Tate Modern art museum, the Globe Theatre, the Church of the Knight Templar (Da Vinci Code fans!), and the real London Bridge. Many people get Tower Bridge and London Bridge confused. The pretty one with the towers is Tower Bridge. London Bridge is one of the ugliest and most nondescript bridges you’ll ever see. What’s funny is that when it had to be replaced years ago, the old bridge was put up for sale. An American bought it, paid to have it dismantled, shipped, and reconstructed in the middle of the desert in Arizona (what is in the picture). It is now the second most-visited site in all of Arizona after the Grand Canyon. Even funnier, after it was reconstructed the purchaser asked where the rest of it was (meaning the towers). When he was told that that was all of it and that the Tower Bridge was still in London he said, “Oh yah, I don’t know what I was saying. I knew that.” He has never admitted to thinking he bought the Tower Bridge. We ended the tour in Covent Garden, where Gregg told us the story of Sweeney Todd, the greatest serial killer in London history. Greatest in that he had the most victims (over one hundred!), even more famous in London than Jack the Ripper. Sweeney Todd had a barber shop with a trick chair which would drop the customer into the basement when it was tilted back. Once in the basement, if not killed by the fall, the victim was killed and skinned by Sweeney Todd. The meat was given over to a local pasty (meat pie) shop that had the tastiest and sweetest pasties in town! Ick!

Right after hearing the legend of Sweeney Todd I decided I was hungry and had to get something quickly before I caught the Tube/bus to Oxford. Despite the gross stories of human flesh pasties, I decided to get one (beef, not human, hopefully), and it was good. The rest of the tour group was heading to the pub, but I wanted to make it to Oxford before it got dark. I caught the Tube, grabbed the front seat on the top of the double-decker bus, and watched as we drove through Kensington, Paddington, and Notting Hall, all very trendy parts of London. I was exhausted and fell asleep for most of the rest of the 2-hour ride there. When I awoke it was almost like I was in a different world. Oxford is an amazingly beautiful city, mostly due to its architecture. I felt like I had jumped into a storybook. I had never seen pictures of Oxford before, so had no idea what to expect, but it was filled with monumental, old, ornate stone buildings and warm, inviting shop windows. I left the bus at Gloucester Green and met my friend Anne, who I went to high school with, at a nearby coffee shop. She is at Oxford for a masters in biological conservation. She took me on a walking tour of Oxford and explained how the whole college system and University works. And by “college” I mean the group of people you are assigned to live, dine, and bond with during your time at the University. Think of Harry Potter, or schools in the UK or Australia if you know how they work. Speaking of Harry Potter, I hadn’t known before, but many of the scenes from the movies were filmed at Oxford. Check out some of the pictures. The people lucky enough to be assigned to Christ Church College get to eat in the Great Hall every night if they want to. How cool is that? We walked through some more of the larger colleges, all impressive in their own ways. It seriously felt like I had stepped back in time. After the tour we went to the Lamb and Flag (I think?) Pub, one of the famous, old, very English pubs in Oxford. We talked to the friendly, old bartender who had just gotten back from a trip to NYC (very cheap now due to the lousy American dollar, but I’ve already done enough complaining about that). Anne and I talked about traveling, high school memories, jobs/school, and sports. Anne is playing on the Oxford University Lacrosse team and is on the novice rowing team. Sound familiar? Crew is a VERY big sport at Oxford. Oh, and if there are any girls out there that play basketball, the Oxford women’s team needs players!

After the pub, we went back to Anne’s apartment, I met some of her roommates, and we changed into nicer clothes for dinner at Worcester College. Anne was able to get me a ticket through her roommates (thanks!) for the three-course meal in the dining hall at Worcester, not quite as fancy as the hall at Christ Church, but still very cool. We had to wait for everyone to arrive, and for a master of ceremony to recite something in Latin before we sat down to dinner. We had shrimp cocktail, vegetables, pasta, a meat dish, and a custard dessert, all for 5£. Pretty good. Things can get exceptionally fancy at Oxford. Worcester has a ball once a year where the ticket, which doesn’t include dinner, is 160£! After dinner we hung out at Anne’s apartment, had some tea, listed off all the people from high school that we now know are married!, and talked with her roommate from Northern Ireland. Then I had to catch the tube back to London, which was a much shorter trip this time since it wasn’t rush hour, and then take a string of trains to get back to Deptford Bridge.

I let myself sleep in a little bit on Wednesday. I had been trying to do so much that I hadn’t realized how tired I was. And by this time I also realized that there is way too much to do in London! Or at least 4 days isn’t nearly enough to do it all. I packed up my things and took the train over to Greenwich. I was psyched to be at the Prime Meridian and to see the cute town of Greenwich. Unfortunately, the markets weren’t open, but it looked like it would be a really vibrant place when the markets are going on the weekend. I took a walk along the Thames and through the Old Royal Naval Academy, which looked a LOT like Annapolis. My walk through Greenwich got old pretty quickly because I was carrying my bag with me, which was mysteriously getting heavier by the minute, or so it seemed. So I hopped on the train and headed for the Brick Lane, a street in the Indian part of town that is lined with curry shops. There was no way I was leaving London without getting the number one most-ordered dish in London . . . chicken tikka masala, which is also one of my personal favorites. I had lunch, had hoped I would have more time for sight-seeing, but unfortunately had to head back to the airport. It was a good couple of days and I will be heading back to London whenever I get the chance!