Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

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 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.