Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

September 25, 2007 23:39 +0000 | 'Round-the-World Switzerland Travel 3

I'm just about to pack up my stuff and go to bed so I can be on an 11am train to Milan tomorrow. Geneva isn't really worth a longer stay and I certainly can't afford it anyway.

The thing you have to remember about Switzerland is that they're intentionally independent. Surrounded on all sides by countries united around a common currency and a common international political position, and Switzerland is perfectly happy to just be Switzerland.

As a result, this is the only leg of my trip where I have to worry about currency differences. Where everyone else uses the Euro (1€ = $1.42CAD), the Swiss use the Swiss Franc ($1CHF = $1.16CAD). So basically what prices you see, is what you pay... but what you see is a lot higher than usual. My less-than-impressive hotel has cost about $220CHF/night... not fun.

For the most part, Geneva is pretty ugly. As I mentioned earlier, it's loud, dirty and car-ridden. The cycling infrastructure is shit, but still better than what you might find in Canada (how sad is that?) and the transit system is kinda neat (though the doors are mean... I got caught in them twice in one trip).

It's not all bad though. I had some fabulous icecream from a local vendor and their chocolate is pretty good as well. Though stay away from the chocolate yogurt, that stuff is nasty.

The reason I came out to this place though was the UN. In nearly every sci-fi story out there, for some reason, the world courts and/or governments always seem to be hosted here, in this tiny Swiss town... I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I took the guided UN tour and sat in the very room we see on TV where our world leaders speak. I walked the same halls walked by peace makers and peace keepers from dozens of generations. I saw where the League of Nations rose and fell and rose again as the United Nations. It's a hell of a thing, and well worth the shiny coins and coloured paper it cost me to come here.

As an aside, I should mention that all my pictures taken to date are now in my imager. You can follow the links from here to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Berlin, Nuremberg, and Geneva or just go to the imager and look around.

September 25, 2007 08:43 +0000 | Blogger Geek Stuff 'Round-the-World Switzerland Travel 6

Pavel will appreciate this, but the rest of you might wanna read this anyway. I've added a single thing to my site that *should* fix the problem some of you have been running into when trying to post comments. For some reason, when some people tried to post a comment with a non-ASCII character in it (like curly quotes or non-English characters) the post would get truncated. I *think* I've fixt this by adding a charset definition to the HTTP headers. Apache will do this transparently when you add this to your VirtualHost.

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

So, don't necessarily go about trying to break my site by posting fake comments, but if you post something and it doesn't come through exactly as you intended, please email me what you sent and I'll try to figure out what broke.

Oh, and I'm in Geneva today. So far, it sucks. The town is small, noisy, dirty and kinda ugly. No snow, not much in the way of mountains, just cold. I'll be going up to the UN headquarters today as well as the Red Cross museum though. That should be interesting :-)

September 22, 2007 11:54 +0000 | Germany 'Round-the-World Travel 4

ANNIE IS GETTING MARRIED TODAY!

I'm half a world away, but I wanted to wish her good luck... or congratulations, or whatever you do for weddings. I'm so happy she's happy :-)

I've decided that while Nuremberg may be a new city to me, it's exploration can wait a while. I'm taking the day off to lounge about here in the Starbucks, catch up on emails, upload my 300mb of pictures and then do some shopping.

Nuremberg is really quite small, the main downtown core surrounded by an old stone wall. This makes car traffic in and out of the this area rather difficult and so, for at least a couple square kilometres, the whole area is largely pedestrianised.

While the buildings and city design are rather old though, the stores inside are anything but. There are hundreds of shops around selling designer clothes, cellphones and sports gear etc and a remarkable number of manicure shops. I swear, the ratio of restaurants to nail speciality shops is about 1:1 here... it's unreal.

I took advantage of the shops around the hostel in which I'm staying last night to go out in search of a book store. I had, after all finished Harry Potter 3 and wanted to fill myself in on what happened in books 1 & 2. I found a nice big book store and luckily, they had a small shelf devoted to English books, among them: the entire Harry Potter series.

I took the book to a restaurant, had some food, then went back to my room and read a little over half of it before I went to bed. I might need to buy Goblet of Fire before I leave town :-)

I'll post some pictures of town when I have some, so this post will likely change in the next day or so, but if I have new content, I'll post a new one.

September 22, 2007 10:14 +0000 | Germany 'Round-the-World Travel 7

A lot has happened in the past few days, and strangely enough, putting this off hasn't made writing it any easier.

Routing

If there's any piece of advice I could give to prospective European travellers, it would be to sit down, plan and book your trip a month or two advance. Freaking out about where you're going to sleep in a crowded, foreign city two days from now is not the best way to manage your trip... it sucks, and it has the effect of rewriting your plans for you.

So with that in mind, I'm sure that you all understand that I had to drop Prague from my list. I'll go, I promise, just not this trip. Trying to figure out the routing between Berlin and Geneva was going to be a bloody nightmare and it was just easier on my brain to work this out. So, the new plan is:

Frankfurt » Amsterdam » Berlin » Nuremberg » Geneva » Milan » Florence » Venice » Rome » Seoul

I had to do Florence before Venice because securing a place to sleep there that week was really hard. The Florence leg looks cool though, as I'll be staying at a hostel that does an 8hour day trip to Tuscany -- a place I wanted to see but didn't think I'd have the time. I've now booked a place to sleep in all my host cities except Rome, where I'll be staying 14days and the hostel there is telling me that I can't stay for more than 6days.

Also, for some reason, everyone here seems to want cash. Visa can say they're accepted everywhere as much as they like, but I tell you: it's just not true. Even some of the hotels I've stayed at have been cash only. Financially, this could get ugly for me.

Other Travellers

Since my last post, I've run into a lot of other (English-speaking) travellers. Americans for the most part, nearly all of them have been "good Americans". There was, however one group of "ugly americans" on the train from Duisburg to Berlin. They were on their way to Munich in a few days for Oktoberfest and they were loud, crass and just generally impolite. While I've met 7 other Americans on this trip who have been both polite and friendly, I can't help but think that these ugly ones are solidifying that lasting image that Americans get around the world. It's no wonder the tour guide I met in Berlin sometimes tries to pass for Canadian.

Some of the other cool people I met include Simone, an Austrian woman in Amsterdam on business staying at the same hotel as I was. She spoke 5 languages and we had some great breakfast conversation. I also met two Canadians (from Toronto no less!) on the Amsterdam » Berlin train who were visiting family in Germany. They knew enough German to be able to let me know that I'd gotten off at the wrong stop (!!) which was super-helpful. Lastly, I met a very nice girl named Vivien on my last day in Berlin. She had a Canadian flag on her backpack, as she'd spent a few months in Canada and was now returning home. We went to the Lego pavilion at the Sony Centre and then hung out at the Reichstag 'till the sun went down munching on German chocolate and talking about all things German from politics to the educational system. Fun stuff. She comes to Canada from time to time, so I might even see her again at some point :-)

Touring Berlin

I stayed in two different places during my time in Berlin. The first was a really pretty hotel on the South East end of the city called the Park Plaza Wallstreet Berlin. The rooms were gorgeous, the bathroom massive and the Internet incredibly overpriced. I stayed there for a couple nights before I moved to my secondary home which was actually an apartment in a central area of town called "Potsdamer Platz". The "Inn-sight Apartments" buy or rent apartments from Berliners and the rent them out to tourists as hotel rooms. The rates aren't cheap, but you do get to see what it's like to live in a city like a resident. My flat had a kitchen, and huge living space/bedroom with amazing floor to ceiling windows that opened up wide. It really was a beautiful place to live for 3 nights.

Unfortunately, my new digs didn't have any internet access though (not even some wireless I could steal from the neighbours) so I ended up forking over €30 to T-mobile to pay for 30days of internet access at any Starbucks in Europe... Given my past trouble getting a place to jack in, I figured it might be a good deal. We'll see.

On my second day of touring, I was sitting at the Starbucks in front of the Brandenburg Gate when I overheard someone giving a guided tour of the area in English to a bunch of young English-speaking types. I followed a bit, enquired and found that the tour was free (you tip the guide) and I decided to get in at the start of the tour the following day.

If you're going to tour Berlin, this is the way to do it. Our guide, Jared, a young man in his late 20s had been living here for a few months and was living off tips for tours like this one. His knowledge was extensive and both academic and anecdotal. He showed us around, bringing us through the Brandenburg Gate, the Jewish memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the book burning memorial and the Berliner Dome. He filled in the large gaps in my understanding of how Berlin worked and helped me to understand just how amazing the fall of the wall was. That tour was really the best part of my trip.

When the tour ended, I wandered into East Berlin and visited the Fernsehturm, a CN tower-like structure overlooking the city that was decorated as a football for the World Cup a few years ago. The view is pretty damn impressive and of course, I took lots of pictures. On my way back home, I stopped by the Karl Marx & Friedrich Engles monument and took some pictures including one of me trying to look as Soviet as possible :-)

My last day in Berlin was when I met Vivien, and we had a lovely time until she had to catch her train out of town. She left me to see the Reichstag alone and I reached the top (a very long line) by nightfall. I got a lot of nice pictures both of the glass dome and of the view from it. They'll be in my imager soon.

What's Next

Now I'm on the train to Nuremberg and I'll likely be there in an hour or so. Since I've finished my Harry Potter book (Azkaban), I'm hoping I can find an English copy of Philosopher's Stone or Chamber of Secrets while I'm in Nuremberg, but I'm not holding my breath. For now, I'm just enjoying the train ride (seriously, this is the only way to travel) and hopefully, my next place to crash will have something I can plug my laptop into :-)

Snippets

My time in Berlin's been tough. To be honest, I'm having a really tough time dealing with the loneliness and that feeling of exile that comes with being surrounded by Babel. There were a few times this past week that I've considered just abandoning the trip, but on the whole, I'm glad I haven't. Here's some stuff I noticed while I was gallivanting:

"WC" means "bathroom". This is important to know since WC is the symbol for it in the train stations and there's often no English (or German for that matter) to go along with it.
Bathrooms cost €½ and in the Amsterdam train station, they're co-ed.
My train trips have taken me across the rural areas of Germany and this area has wind turbines everywhere. Interestingly though, I saw a group of 9 turbines huddled around what looked like a slag heap in the distance. I can only assume that they were being used as a source of power for mining.
All new buildings in Berlin are built to a much tougher code than the ones we use in Canada. Doors and windows are designed to withstand draughts, and hallway lights are off by default, automatically turning on as you enter the hall. To Germans, this is normal and our leaving them on all the time appears wasteful to them. Similarly, the toilets all have two buttons to flush to control water waste.
A lot of hotels and apartments in Germany use a different kind of window design (apparently) designed in Germany. They allow you to open the windows wide, like doors, or open them just at the top. I have pictures in my imager to better explain.
The Reichstag, seat of parliament in Germany is not really where the power sits. Despite the new design setup to allow Germans to peer down on their government's decisions, (the dome over the Reichstag), the President and the other high-ranking types actually work in another building near the Reichstag. According to Vivien, that's where the real power sits.
The entire wall is still there... sorta. Throughout the city, as you walk down the street, look down and you'll find that in the path of where the wall was, the city has laid a series of bricks, two by two to mark where the wall was. Some people living there actually suffer from a condition that doesn't allow them to walk over this line. The wall was up so long, that for some, it's like it's still there.
The headquarters for the Luftwaffe (the Nazi airforce) still exists as it survived the bombing during WWII. After the war, the Soviets turned it into the Ministry of Ministries, a sort of meeting place for all the Ministers that ran the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
Smart Car makes a coupe.
When you ask someone here if they speak English the response is almost always "Little bit" accompanied by their holding their index finger and thumb together as if they were attempting to squish your head.
Any attempt to speak German however is very welcome. Thanks to Margaret's phrase book, I was able to tell the waitress that I just needed the bill in German: "Die Rechnung, Bitte" and she was delighted.
The logo [DB] (Deutsch Bahn) is everywhere. It means "German Railway", but they appear to own a little bit of everything.
T-Mobile appears to be Germany's Bell. They have all the phone booths and a large portion of the wireless network.
Berliner Pretzels are awesome.
The Canadian Embassy in Berlin is unremarkable and I walked past it three times before I realised what it was... so I went to visit.
My appetite has dwindled considerably since I left. I blame the jet lag, but I'm hoping it picks up soon.

September 17, 2007 16:31 +0000 | Germany 'Round-the-World Travel 4

I hope I have the day number right. I might just give up on this numbering thing and start counting the days in the cities. In that case, this would be Berlin Day 2.

My hotel (The Park Plaza Wallstreet) is really gorgeous. My room is stylish, the staff are friendly and English-speaking and the bed comfortable. My only complaint is that the internet (provided by Swisscom) sucks ass. Not only do they cap the download rate at 50kb/sec but they also limit downloads to 400mb for a 24hr period... and the cost for this? An additional €17 on your bill. REALLY lame.

So with the above in mind, I only have 2hours of online time left (well about 1.5 now), so I'll be brief.

I went exploring today, deliberately ignoring all the important spots I wanted to visit in the coming days. More importantly, I wanted to get an understanding of how Berlin works, as well as find where I'm staying tomorrow night (I'm only at the Plaza 'till tomorrow morning). Turns out that I'll be staying near Potsdamer Platz, a major train station and public square riddled with history and now home to the new Sony Centre (I'll have pictures later). It's also where I saw what's left of the Berlin Wall. Words cannot express the feeling of being so close to something that's been the source of so much pain. I swear I could feel tears bleeding from that concrete slab.

That's about all I have to say about today. Tomorrow will be the Brandenburg Gate as well as the Reichstag and maybe the Fernsehturm as well. But first, I must charge my camera.

September 15, 2007 20:02 +0000 | Netherlands 'Round-the-World Travel 5

I've had a very nice time in this city, but it's time to move onto Berlin. Since my train leaves early tomorrow (10am) I'm going to try to make this short (fat chance).

Buddhists and Red Lights

Yesterday morning I headed out in search of the Guan Yin Shrine, a Buddhist temple erected in the downtown core around 2000. I was prepared this time: this time, I had a map... it only helped a little. The big problem with Amsterdam is that the roads aren't straight. You turn left, then left again, and you've gone in a circle, and the laneways are so narrow that they're easy to miss. I'd been wandering for about an hour when I found myself in an alley with half-naked women behind glass banging on the door to get my attention... I'd ended up in the Red Light district.

Obviously, I'd intended to visit the area (it'd be a shame not to) but it's one thing to go there expecting it, it's another to be propositioned by a chick in a bikini on your way to a Buddhist temple. I kept on walking and found the temple: it was on the edge of the district -- would have been nice to know that before I left :-)

There wasn't much to the place though as much of it appears to be undergoing maintenance. A few bits of art were encased in glass, there was incense, a donation box, and a place for prayer. A very pretty, peaceful place, right in the middle of crazy downtown.

Red Lights and Nieuwmarkt

With the temple visited, the next item on my list was the Sex Museum. In the heart of the Red Light District, the sex museum doesn't so much chronicle the act of sex throughout history, but is rather a collection of sex art along with a sex history lesson. It was fascinating. From the John Lennon originals on the first floor, to the really creepy Snow White and Tarzan cartoons on the 3rd floor, to the female Mannequin urinating on the ceiling in bondage gear, to the graphic pictures of why you should use a condom, it was the best €5 I've ever spent.

New Room

The tram lines here are nearly paralell with the ground at stops.

As we'd discussed on the phone when I booked the place, the hotel had to move me to another room for the final two days of my stay. What I didn't know was (a) the view from this spot wasn't nearly as pretty, (b) the bathroom was private, but was in the hall, and (c) the internet connection was unavailable in this spot. All of this, coupled with the stark realisation that I still did not have a place to stay in Berlin (or anywhere else for that matter), made for a stressful evening. I collected my laptop stuff and headed downstairs to the garden where I could surf and get some bookings and... make a phone call from my laptop.

Fed up with the lack of ability to test my stuff with Vbuzzer, (why can't they at least have a test number before they ask me for money?), I threw $20CAD at Skype which I knew I could get to work with some tweaking. Then, when I had it all going, I placed a couple calls and realised how nice it was to hear friendly (English-speaking) voices again. It's only 4days in and I'm already homesick.

My Last Day in Amsterdam

I started today off with some "business". I sat down and plotted out where I should stay for the remainder of my trip and made some scary realisations (more on that later), then went back down to the garden to book some more time in Berlin. I now have a place to sleep in Berlin from the 16th to the 17th at the Radisson, and from the 18th to the 21st at a hotel I found online which I hope doesn't suck. Then I hopped the tram (light rail, streetcar) to the main train station where I chatted up some American professors while in line for train ticket reservations. For €9, I now have a seat from Amsterdam to Berlin with a transfer in some German city I don't care to look up at the moment :-)

After leaving the station, I headed West, looking for something less touristy. There's no sense in wandering through a city if all you see is the same stuff on everyone's postcards. Jordaan is a pretty area, formerly working-class, but it's been gentrified for the rich folk now. I found a cool smoke shop where I bought a cannabis lollipop and some cannabis tea, then found my way to a local grocery store for lunch.

One thing I had to do while I was here though was rent a bike and go for a ride. For €5, you can rent a "Yellow Bike" and ride for 2hours, and for €10, you can have it all day. I chose the former and went for a quick ride around town. The bike was a rickety old thing, but in pretty good shape (like most of the bikes around Amsterdam), but had a few quirks like no gears to change, and a backpedal break. It took me a while to get used to it while I rolled up and down laneways and alleys. Lots of fun I tell you, every city should look like this one.

When I returned the bike I asked the rental guy why so many bikes around town were "not expensive" was the terminology I used. I'll paraphrase his response from memory: "Bike theft is really common here. Mostly the junks. They steal from the students, then sell the bike for €10. You can almost always find a junk selling €10 bikes... this is why everyone rides these shitty bikes.". I assumed he meant "junkie" but since I didn't ask for clarification, I guess I'll never know. Needless to say, that while the city is made for bikes, 99% of them are rickety old things.

The last big deal of the day was a touristy boat tour. They have these long, slow motor boats here that wind through the canals of the city with a quad-lingual recorded voice telling you what you're looking at. I got some OK pictures and enjoyed the trip. It's kinda neat to see the city from beneath the sidewalk.

I headed back to my hotel and stopped at McDonald's for "dinner". I thought it might be neat to visit McDonald's in every country I visit, but the food was so bad, I couldn't finish it. What's worse, I lost my credit card while I was there (tucked it into what I thought was my money belt, turned out to be my actual belt, and it fell on the ground). I recovered it after about 5minutes of panicking (it was on the ground outside the restaurant) but it was pretty scary. I mean, I can it in as stolen and live off my debit card, but I only have the one credit card here. Very bad.

Anyway, I thought I'd close out this post with two lists. I might just use these lists for all my big posts... we'll see.

Things I've Learned

There's no General Mills here, but there is Kellogs.
Special K has a chocolate flavour
According to one woman I spoke to, while there are no recycling bins in the city, all the city garbage is sorted in a plant in the suburbs and then recycled. I find this hard to believe since extracting glass from that process can't be easy, but without any additional information I just don't know.
When taking a shower in the hallway bathroom, remember to bring a towel before taking off your clothes and getting wet.
Ordering food is downright scary when you don't understand a word of what's on the menu.
The Dutch can't cook American foods very well. Stay away from hamburgers, and the ketchup here is nasty.
The longer you travel in a non-English country, the fewer signs you read and/or ads you notice. It's both relaxing and disturbing.
Getting drinking water is a bitch. Restaurants don't serve tap water for free and a small bottle is likely to run you €2. The best plan is always to hit a grocery store and buy a 2L bottle.
The default language here is English. That is to say, people open conversations with strangers with English even though that may not be their first language. The assumption is that if you don't know Dutch, you probably know English.

Things I've Seen

Women riding bicycles in high heels
The world's largest bicycle parkade. Right next to the train station.
Half-naked women banging on glass doors to get my attention.

Next Steps

I'm off to Berlin tomorrow and thanks to some last-minute mad-booking, I have a place to sleep there for at least six days. After that the new, new, new route I have in mind is: Prague » Salzburg » Geneva » Florence » Venice » Rome » Seoul. I had to redirect to Salzburg despite it not being covered by my Eurail ticket because staying in Munich would be impossible at that time due to Oktoberfest (sigh). I'm only in Salzburg for 3 days though, and then I'm back on the original track.

The bookings I've made over the past couple days have made me suddenly realise how long this trip is going to be. It's only day 4 and I'm already exhausted. I miss English and more importantly, food that I'm not afraid of. I miss my friends, my family, my country... and it's only day 4. By the time I get to Korea I will well be beyond frazzled.

For now though, I must book rooms in Prague. I also have to check with a train station ticketing person to see if my routing is realistic. You never know, I might have more re-routing to do. I'll keep you posted.

September 13, 2007 16:15 +0000 | Netherlands 'Round-the-World Travel 5

Check out my view:

From the 5th floor of the Fantasia Hotel

I'm staying at the Fantasia Hotel, a cow-themed (you read that right) converted house on the south end of the city. My room is tiny, but it has everything I need: a bed, a shower, a toilet and a really nice view. My window looks down onto a series of backyards and courtyards and all I hear is birds, running water and the occasional car going by in the distance. Also, there is the sound of an older man on a cellphone below and what appears to be a kitchen since I'm getting the sound of clamouring dishes as well.

But why, you might ask am I fiddling with the internet and not out enjoying the city? The short answer, is that I'm freakin' tired. I took the train in from Frankfurt this morning (awesome, I'll talk about it later) and then tried to find my way through Amsterdam... I found the hotel after nearly 3 hours of walking with my giganimous pack on my back.

Three things I've learned from this experience:

Travel books (and their little maps) are no substitute for a good mapbook. Blow the extra cash and know where you're going before you get lost in a foreign city with 150lbs on your back.
Locals are not always the best source of information. The 10yearold kid I met early in my walk was more helpful than the old woman who didn't understand where I was trying to go. Ask lots of people just to be sure.
Amsterdam locals don't seem to know how to navigate their own city (at least through the eyes of a non-local). Every set of directions I received was akin to: "go down x, turn left on y, then ask someone". I do not know why this is the case.

Amsterdam is a city of alleys and laneways. In the downtown core, bikes far outweigh cars by at least 7:1. It's amazing. The stop lights have separate lights for cyclists, pedestrians, streetcars, and cars, and everything feels very small town... despite the fact that you know that there's roughly 1million people living here. It's very quiet, there's lots of patios, and as I walked from street to street, I found myself strolling through schoolyards and riverbanks without running into any barriers. I could spend a lot more time here than just a few days... I might still. My hotel can only keep me for 3 days but I'll look around to see if there's anywhere else I might be able to stay.

I'm going to get some food in a bit, but I wanted to post now as it's unlikely I'll be posting any time later tonight. I wanna fiddle with Bluetooth to get my headset working so I can call some of you before I leave here.

September 12, 2007 16:16 +0000 | Germany 'Round-the-World Travel 4

I won't be blogging in the usual common, short bursts while I'm gallivanting through Europe so the format for my blog will have to change a little. I'll be posting one big post whenever I gain access to some wifi. That may be every day, but more likely it will be around once or twice a week. To make the reading easier though, I'm going to separate everything out with handy headers. Hope it works out.

I'm not sure if you can really call this "Day 1" as I've been up since 9amEST and it's now 11am here in Frankfurt (5am in Toronto), but I think I'll just go by sleeps for this and since I haven't had a wink of it yet, we have "Day 1".

The trip out here was hard, and by hard, I in no way mean the flight, that was easy. No, "hard" was leaving Melanie at the airport. I had no idea it would have that kind of effect on me. I don't really want to talk about it as it's rather personal, but I can't really post about my day without singling out what a big deal this was for both of us. I could really use a hug.

The plane was delayed 15min (no biggie) and the flight was 15min early so it evened out. I met a nice man named Klaus on the plane who walked me through the airport and helped me find my way through the mob at customs (I swear, I've never seen so many people herding into lines like that). Klaus was super-awesome, talking to staff etc in German when our bags hadn't shown up (we got tied up in customs with the mob), but everything worked out alright and he sent me down the path to the trains for my next steps.

The Trains

The train system here is pretty damn cool, but unlike the rest of the signs all over the airport, the instructions for buying tickets is entirely in German. You might be surprised at how similar everything looks when you don't understand any of it. Thankfully the multi-lingual (though irritable) information desk person was able to explain that while the name of the station I wanted to go to was "Hauptbanhof", it was commonly referred to as "Frankfurt Am Main Hpf". The total cost would be €3.55... but I only have a $20CAD bill in my wallet :-)

The closest bank machine was out of order, so under the direction of another helpful staffer, I trotted down the hall to the grocer and found a second machine. While I was there though, I figured it best to stop in on and get something to drink. The store had a LOT of alcohol not to mention Coke (no Pepsi) for €0.75. I was just looking for water, so I grabbed what called itself Table Water and headed to the till to make change for the ticket machine... only later would I realise that Table Water is carbonated, flavourless water. ie. that nasty stuff that Pavel and my Grandfather are always drinking... I'd forgotten that it was really popular out here (ew).

Trying to Stay Awake

The train shuttled me out to downtown in about 15min taking me through the (very green) suburbs and right into the heart of downtown. The Hauptbanhof is really quite beautiful. I'll try to take some pictures and get them up for this post. I followed the map in my Lonely Planet book to my overpriced hotel and dropped my bag off at the front desk so I could wander more freely around town. Frankfurt is very pretty, but feels quite small. Maybe that's a European thing. I guess I'll find out as I go.

There's some neat differences here though that I thought I'd share. For starters, there are trees everywhere. The Germans have really gone out of their way to make this city less stone and more leafy. Also, there are cyclists everywhere and not one of them rides on the road. This is because the sidewalks are two to three times wider than a traditional North American sidewalk, but with ⅓ reserved for bicycles. The paths are elevated from the road (level with the sidewalk), marked off and about 2m wide. The streetcars here are also much quieter than Toronto's and they're level with the ground (no steps up). I hope that the new T.O. streetcars are like these ones.

Quest for the Fridge Magnet

My Father collects fridge magnets from all the cities he's visited in the past. However, he missed a few on his journey and he asked if I could pick some up for him since I was in the neighbourhood.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to buy a friggin' fridge magnet.

I swear, the people hear have no idea what I was talking about. One woman sent me to a book store, another to a kitchen supply store. After *hours* of walking (and getting seriously turned around), I found one and walked my sore feet back to the Train station to get a reservation for tomorrow.

More About the Trains

That's the weird thing about the train system here. I paid €400something for 8days of train travel, but I still have to pay for a booking to get a seat. The booking is only €3.50 but still, it's kinda weird. Also important to remember is that you should always read the fine print on your tickets. Apparently, my Eurail pass is only good if (a) it's been dated and stamped for the first day of use by train station staff, and (b) the right months have been written in the right boxes. If I'd not bothered to read the tiny font in my jetlagged-stupor, I might have ended up having to pay full fare and a €100 fine!

What's Next

I've booked a train from Frankfurt to Amsterdam for tomorrow morning at 11:30. The hotel does a free breakfast from 7:30 to 10:00 so I'll probably get that and walk down to the station to read some Harry Potter (yes, Melanie finally got me started on it. I'm on book 3) until the train's ready to go. I think my next post will be some form of comparison between air and train travel. Seeing as this run will be on one of Germany's high-speed (ICE) trains, this should be fun :-)

One Last Bit: The Technical

It would appear that my initially ignored oversight has come 'round to bite me in the ass. This blog was written in Ottawa and hosted in Toronto. I've never really needed to consider the concept of "time zones" until now (bad sysadmin! No cookie!). I'm working on a fix though and will have it in place sometime in the next week (I'm writing it on trains and planes). In the mean time, all the dates remain in EST/EDT so you'll have to do the math.

September 05, 2007 19:16 +0000 | 'Round-the-World Travel 5

I'm starting to think strategy for my trip over the pond and I'm looking for some advice regarding how to deal with jet lag etc. I don't deal well with time changes. Even a few hours has been known to knock me on my ass for a few days and here I'm looking at leaving Toronto around 5pm and arriving in Frankfurt at 7am the following day... I have no idea how to work with this.

The idea at the moment, is to land in Frankfurt, look for my hotel and stay awake 'till at least 5pm and then crash 'till the next day. But (a) do I find a hotel near the airport that's easier to get to but costs a lot more? Or do I (b) get a hotel closer to downtown so there's something to do and I'm closer to the train station when I need to depart in the morning?

In terms of cost, a hotel near the airport is about €150 ($200CAD), wheras, places closer to downtown are about ¼ that. Any suggestions would be appreciated :-)

August 24, 2007 19:11 +0000 | 'Round-the-World Travel 0

View Larger Map

Note that Google appears to have a problem figuring out the whole "round the world" bit. For some reason it will sometimes draw a line between Vancouver and Toronto, or two lines between Rome and Seoul. I can't get it to draw a line between Seoul and Vancouver... o well.