Hello From Dresden, Berlin... then Amsterdam

Hey Everyone...

Sorry for the missing blogs. I had almost three days of not good connections to post online. Let me give you a quick re-cap of the last couple of days and I will send only a couple picks with this segment with more photos to follow.

Dresden, Germany:

From Munich, Stephen and I took the train to Dresden, Germany for a living history lesson. We saw a brand new city, completely redone from the bombings of WWII (Click Link). I know that sounds like a long time ago. Some of the buildings were so costly, it took this long to finally restore it to its better than original self.

They have a beautiful church that was completely destroyed, but it is now brought better then when it was first completed. Dresden Frauenkirche Church. They spent 200 million on this church. It has the most fantastic pipe organ I have ever seen. The murals and gold appointments are done by true artisans. Here are a couple pics. Remember, outside of the few stones on the side, this is a complete remodel.

Dresden is one of those pretty little towns that is a working machine for Germany. A lot of industry and a very nice feeling. A worthy stop to see the sights.

Next Post... Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie, The Berlin Wall

Steve

Munich Germany, Best Sauerkraut and Schnitzel in the World...

September 16, 2007

Munich:

Germany is beautiful. It is green, lush and clean. The people are very proud of their beautiful country. The way they talk about and take care of it.

I could not believe how many people wearing the traditional Lederhosen and Bavarian wear as a normal day on the town. One guy at the famous Hoffbrau house had a ploom on his hat that was bigger then his hat. I wish I had my camera with me. Even the kids wear the traditional wear with pride.

Another interesting item about the people: They are very health conscious in what they eat. They all want to eat Bio (in German it is pronounced: Bee Ohh) It is our term for Organic. At the Hostel, in the City, wherever, it is a big deal. They will pay more. I had a great talk with “Lilly”. She owns a shoe store where we bought some Birkenstock's. She is a German lady in her late 50’s. She asked me why all of the American women were so fat! She wondered how they flew over in the small seats of the airplane. I told her that they bought two seats. She thinks Americans are fat because we drink milk from cows that are injected with Hormones. I think there are too many McDonald's. She agreed on that as well.

We spent the first day in Munich at the outdoor public mall. It is classic Germany. The famous Glockenspiel (town clock) is there where every hour Hansel and Gretel go out to play. It was under repair. They were also getting things together for the famous “Oktoberfest” which stars in a week and lasts three weeks. They expect 6 million people and will consume 6 million liters of beer. In Germany beer is cheaper then water. Even the old ladies have a beer with their meal.

We ate lunch at the famous “Hoffbrau haus” which is the public beer hall. This is where Adolph Hitler had started the Nazi movement. It is in the center of town and is an important landmark for Bavaria. Not because of Hitler but because it represents all that is good about Bavaria. It has been serving food and drink for over 400 years. At any given part of the day you can eat the best Pork Knuckle, a good stein of their own brand of beer and finish it off with some delicious “Apple Strudel” All of the food was so good I had to go eat there the next day as well. Good thing I don’t live in Germany. I might become a fat German… and not because of hormones in the Apple Strudel. J

Later that day we went to the infamous “Dachau” concentration camp. It is now a national memorial and museum. It is very well preserved and is a sober trip back to the past. On the front gate entering the concentration camp there is an inscription in the gate that says: “Work will set you free”. What a joke. The Nazi’s knew they never wanted people to leave and the only that set people free was from too much work, too little food and death. There is too much human tragedy to talk about it. Click the link if you want to see more info about it. But it is important to remember. The Germans are very embarrassed about it but are willing to embrace the mistakes of following a mad man.

One of the Hostels we stayed at is called “The Tent”. It is open in the summer time and closes after Oktoberfest. It is in a park and you sleep in tents. There was people from all over the globe there. At night we sat around a big bonfire and asked where everyone was going and what they have seen while in Europe. It’s funny. You go to these hostels and talk to everyone and realize Europe is this large school and everyone is on a grand field trip. At night everyone comes together and does their “Show and Tell” time. For 3 euro the hostel cook made some great schnitzel and German potato salad.

We are on our way by train to the beautiful town of Dresden, Germany. See Link. If you remember your history, Dresden was the city that in 1945 the Allied Forces (US) leveled to prepare the way for the Russians to invade. The whole city was one giant inferno. Since then and as recently as last year (2006) they have completely restored the city. It is the capital city of the region of Saxony and has a long history dating back to the first recordings of European civilization. They just finished the famous church (forgot the name) with a 200 million restoration project. Hopefully I will take some good pictures of it.

We stay here for a day and then head to Berlin, Germany. I’m having a great time with my son who is a good traveling partner, but I’m also looking forward to getting home and seeing my family.

But for now… Bis Spater

Venice... Yeah.

Venice:

Ah… Venice. City of Culture, Beauty, Music… and way overpriced. I paid 20 bucks for some lame Pasta. And, bread rolls that were hard as rocks!

Oh… but beautiful Venice. They gotcha; you can’t disagree with a city built entirely on sandy sea and every corner is a Kodak moment. The gondoliers and their slender romantic boats. Many of them with musicians singing for your pleasure. For $120.00 you have 40 minutes of Venice like you have seen in the movies.

We have spent 30 hours here and have walked it from North to South, East to West. The amazing thing about Venice is that you can get lost in the city and find yourself again because it is small. A 20 minute walk any way and you hit water. Imagine you are on an Island with taxi and bus boats running every five minutes around the island. You are never more then a few quick moments away from any point.

For the hearty traveler like Stephen and I you can see everything there is to see in one long day (which we did). Most people take two to three days. In my opinion that is two long if you are wanting to see more of Italy in a short amount of time. There are other parts of the Italian wonderland that I would rather linger.

Venice has Italian “Mojo” going for it, no doubt, but the people that operate here know it. Therefore, you pay more for everything. How about five bucks for a litre of water. Everywhere else, including Rome it’s two dollars. Every meal is a least $40.00 dollars for two and that is with getting half of the food and options. The trinkets, souvenir's, and gifts are not bad, but the locals have a bit of an attitude. Ok… enough American whining. Now the good part.

As I type this I am in a beautiful “Compo” which is courtyard in Italian, listening to a woman play the most beautiful Cello. The weather is balmy with just a gentle breeze. The stones on the courtyard must be hundreds of years old with gentle waves running through them in height. Because Venice is built on a Sand/Mud base everything is always shifting. They say Venice is sinking back into the sea and a hundred years from now there will be no Venice. But I say, they are making two much money here and they will make these buildings and streets boats before that happens.

A couple other interesting things. There is no where for kids to play after school except the little courtyards that are around every couple of blocks so between 3 and 6pm the courtyards are full of little children playing, riding bikes, roller skating. Right next to all the tourists trying to have their romantic dinner.

When people walk their dogs there is no grass… no what I mean. So its fun watching people letting there dogs pee right where everyone is walking. The dogs are use to it and they don’t care. The Venice people love dogs. Most the dogs we have seen are either Bull/Terrier or hunting breed dogs (English Setter, Brittany Spaniel). Kind of weird. Not much hunting going on around here. No stray dogs.. every dog I have seen is a pure breed which means only rich people. You can buy an apartment with a view for about 500k. Do you want to be on the waterway… The average house would cost you about 1.5 million. Not to mention the massive repairs.
Ok… enough. My son says I’m writing too much and nobody is going to read it. We are taking an overnight train to Munich, Germany. We wake up tomorrow in Deutsch land.

But for now… Ciao…

Musings from the EuroStar..

Here is some thoughts while I was on my way to Venice. I also have some pics of Venice as well. More of Florence to come. I will also send a link to Flickr to look at all of our pics to date.

Florence: September 12, 2007

Florence… one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been too. I consider this a precious opportunity to share it with my son. How I wish I could be here with my whole family to enjoy one of the great cities of the world.

As you gaze at the great works of art in timeless museums and walk down cobbled streets of yesterday - yet today you realize that you are just a small part of a huge cosmos. Being here makes me feel that I have missed some part of my life. Not that I have any regrets whatsoever… just that this world is so much bigger than my personal world and we are foolish to not explore and enjoy all that God has given us. We live our life in personal strife, sometimes a fug for some important reasons but many unimportant reasons. It’s up to us in our own reflections and choices to choose what is really important and to live beyond our own personal gains solely; I guess giving back to God what he has given to you. A conscious effort to be a force of life, a hope to those he has put in your charge.

So balancing the ……esque moment I am having and then figuring out how I am going to make my next house payment, not to mention putting on my Super Dad cape and my Humphrey Bogart husbandry uniform; anyway God will help me figure it out. I just don’t want to be apart of the bovine throng of life. Can it be done? My essence says yes… but there will always be a struggle. I think I need to read Ecclesiastes.

We have seen some beautiful statuary and incredible paintings. In Florence there is a courtyard dedicated to great sculpture. It is next to the “Uffizi” which houses many of the great works of art man has ever made. The reason Florence is one of the great art centers of the world is due to a rich/ruling family that had lived in Florence for 400 years. They had collected some of the great works of art during a time of excelled human and artistic growth. The last inherited lineage of this family was a woman… Maria Medici (Meh deh chi). Women at this time were not able to have control of a family fortune (sorry girls), so she dedicated all of the wealth of her family and the great works of art to the city of Florence with one condition… that it could never leave the city of Florence. So for hundreds of years people go to Florence to see, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Goya, Bacilli, Lunghi… the list goes on. You can’t take any pictures of the great works in the galleries, but I will give you some pics of the works outside. Remember, the great “David” sculpture by Michelangelo? It’s here.

We will be in Venice in two hours. Another “Big Gulp” of history and culture. Two days later we cross the Alps to the Northern part of Europe.

Oh, I forgot to mention… I love eating in Italy. Last night I had ordered tomatoes in Sage and Garlic and somehow got beans in Sage and garlic. It was a good mistake. For dessert I had Gelato…. It’s like American Ice Cream on Steroids. I wish it was sugar free… I had Pistachio, Walnut, Coconut and Lemon. The lemon was actually tart. You could taste some of the peel.
Ciao…

A lot of catch up! Paris, Rome, Florence...

September 9, 2007

We have been in Europe five days now and due to our budget restraints (staying in Hostels instead of WiFi filled Hotel rooms) and being busy seeing cities that require one weeks worth of touring in two days the blog has not been blogging.

So, as Stephen and I (my 18 year old son) are traveling on a Euro star high speed train from Rome to Firenze, Italy (Florence = English) going 180 mph I have decided to do some writing while I have a down moment.

PARIS

Paris was tremendous fun and truly enjoyable for all of the reasons that appeal to me. Refined culture, great food, lots of restaurants and a city with charm only thousands of years could produce.

On our last day there we went to the “Louve” which is Paris famous Museum and ended the day at Notre Dame church and had fun watching the people as well as the sites.



Our Louve experience was way to short but we made sure and hit the hot spots. The Mona Lisa… I love that picture. We stared at it for 20 minutes. They have it set in a new display and you can actually get quite close to it. But there is so much more in the Louve that we really didn’t do it justice. I will show a couple shots of some of the great pieces.

In the afternoon we went to the Notre Dame and enjoyed just sitting in the park and viewing the beautiful scenery. On our way back to the Hostel we split up and went out on the town ourselves for a couple hours. Having an 18 year old son makes it nice that we can go our own separate ways to explore on our own. I must have walked ten miles that afternoon. I decided to walk home instead of taking the Metro. On my way home I found a street that was the France I was looking for. A whole block of outdoor markets and restaurants. Cheese shops, bakery shops, espresso shops, shops of all kinds. Plus at least 50 restaurants within one square block. So… I bought cheese, I bought bread, bought something that tasted good but I’m not sure what it was. I was a tourist with money in my pocket looking at paradise for the first time. If I could bring that street back home with me, I would be there everyday.

Returning back to our Hostel I had forgot to book us for another night and sure enough, our bed was sold. Yep… It’s 6:00pm at night and I have no place to stay. Fortunately, our host at the Hostel started calling some of the other Hostels and we were able to stay at a place that was way out of town on the wrong side of the tracks. The good news was that all we needed was a good bed, a clean shower and a safe place to sleep because we had to get up early (4:30am) to take our flight to Rome, Italy.

Oh... I forgot to tell you about the pigeon man... I think they know this guy.

ROME:

We arrived in Rome at 9:30am on Saturday the 8th. Finding our lodging was easy and for the first time on the trip we had our own shower and bathroom. I finally had a place to think by myself!

Finding out that we only had a one night stay available to us we decided that we would divide and conquer Rome in less then 36 hours. Our first stop was “Vatican City”.

The start of the first organized Christian Church within one geographical era... It was quite remarkable and very moving for me. Realizing that the church in all of its strengths and weaknesses was still going strong with the same message of Jesus Christ. Now I know the Catholic Church has got some weird customs and fuzzy theology, but their stance on the doctrine of Jesus Christ is sound. Their just a little weird on the mother of Jesus.

Picture

We took a beautiful picture of the altar at Saint Peter’s Basilica with the sun streaking through. It was like the Lord of Heaven giving us a great photo opportunity.

As we got back to our Hostel one of the workers told us that of all the nights to be in Rome tonight is the best night of the year. It is the night of “La Notte Bianca” (Click for Link). Which means the “White Night”. Basically, it means that one time a year the Romans go out to celebrate for no special reason other than they deserve it and their Italian. The roads are closed from 9pm till 6am throughout the whole city. There are bands playing music in every plaza, magicians doing tricks on every corner. All of the shops are open as well as the restaurants. Everyone comes out including all of the children. It is a party for everyone; because everyone is still up late at night and all of the lights are on they call the event the “White Night”. I guess that makes sense.

All I can tell you is that it was the craziest night of our life. I’m not exaggerating here… Literally thousands of people were in every street, plaza and courtyard. And, they were ready to party. They party a little differently in Italy. As we started the evening out at about 9:00pm everyone was doing cheers and shouting out slogans. I can’t understand what they were saying but looking at there faces it was probably something like “Italy is number one, Yea, were gonna have some fun” Stuff like that. Then as the night continued everyone started joining in groups along street corners and joining arms singing songs about Italy. They didn’t care what it sounded like. I went to bed at 4am and I think out of the 300,000 people I was the first one to bed. Next Post... Florence Italy. Ciao

Yesterday was the big day. We arrived in Paris via London, via Los Angelos, via Seattle in about 12 hours. The ride over to Europe was just ok. A couple of bad hours wishing you could stretch out but other than that, non eventful... My kind of flight.

We immediately worked on finding the right transportation into the center of Paris from Charles DeGaul Airport. This was not an easy task. With my French speaking abilities being non-existent other than Please-thank you- and excuse me... I was on my own. We finally took a stab at it and got on the bus that I knew went into town, I just didn't know where in town, and the driver didn't know where either... in English that is.

Long story short: We made it. We found our Hostel and we had a place to sleep that was clean and in-expensive. After being here two days, here are my first reflections.

1. Way to expensive. I don't know what French people do, but they pay about double for normal things that I do. So either they are making double the money and live the life I live, they get subsidies from the goverment or they live carefully within their means. All I know is there were Parisians' of all shapes and sizes spending money like crazy.

2. The gypsys around the Eiffel Tower are really a nuisance. Begging for money in all kinds of creative ways. The good thing is the French are cleaning it up and staying on them. As soon as they see the police they run (See picture above). Notice the silly grin on her face as she thought she was fooling the police. They caught her on the other side.

3. I packed too much! I always do this. My backpack weighs a ton... I mean I'm talking 2000 lbs. Tomorrow I am modifying. I have a new plan and I am buying a new bag.

A couple of pics to look at: A great shot of my traveling partner Stephen Novotny Jr. who is 18.

Tomorrow we go to the Louve and stare at the Mona Lisa. We will see if her eyes really follow you.

A look outside our window in the Hostel we are staying at. BTW... we were in a room for four people and there was one chinese guy in there with us. We kept smelling somthing really stinky. I thought it was my son's feet. After searching high and low we found out it was this chinese guys socks. They were so bad I almost lost my croissants. Anyway... the chinese guy is still probably trying to figure out what happenned to his socks. He can't ask me unless he knows... English.

Almost got the Itinerary Done...

Ok...

We are almost done. How do you fit 6000 years of Civilization in 15 days. Can't be done. My American mind wants to tackle it all but I have resolved to go at the other 3000 years on a different trip.

Here's what two days at the table looks like...

Europe... Here we come.

I will be going to Europe with my son for his 18th birthday. We start in Paris and end in Amsterdam. Not sure of everything else in between. But in the process I have discovered a couple of good web sites.



Great travel clothing at Sierra Trading Post.



REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) has a monster taking all of my cash for really cool travel stuff. I can't believe I'm paying full retail and having fun doing it.



Great deals on photo/video equip. at BHPhoto and Buydig.com . You can trust these vendors.



Some good travel web sites:



A must: Rick Steves the famous travel guide. All of his materials is a must have.



Let's Go travel has some really good things as well as STA travel . These sites will lead to many other sites.

Don't forget that it is really cheap to fly within Europe. Just figure out travel time to and from the Airport in your equation. We are doing most of our travel on Rail. Stay tune for some more updates.