The Austrians sure do know how to pee... in Public
And now for our second night train. After Zurich we figured that pretty much ANYTHING was going to be better than that. Plus, we had great faith in the famed Swiss Rail System. Our second night train would have been relatively comfortable if they hadn't tried to cram 5 fully grown females into an 8x8x10ft box. Not to mention significant amounts of luggage from all of them and room to sleep. But somehow we managed to make up our beds and I SORTA slept on this train and before we knew it there we were in Vienna bright and early in the morning.
And now I shall recount our tales in Vienna. I think that Vienna is the reason I'm still here in Europe because if anything had gone wrong I would have broken the camels back myself after riding him to the airport and catching the next plane home. Vienna was gorgeous. Not only was it gorgeous but it was homey and friendly and fabulous. Not only that but it had things to do... TOO MANY things to do. So many things to do that I want to go back. And there aren't many cities I could say that about on this trip. Our hotel was very cute. Obviously a one star, but comfortably so. Breakfast included, a shower in our room, which got a little cold but we had had SO much worse. Not only that but this was my territory. The music nerd really came out in me, but was too tired to ACTUALLY come out so it just told me to go to bed and it would think of something good when I woke up.
Rather than pushing through we took a nap and woke up two hours later remarkably refreshed. And so we began to look at the map and list of museums and memorials. We spent the rest of the day eating, and planning. That night, we went down to the planetarium, which was in a rather seedy part of town. I think this was the only seedy part of town actually but everyone has to have one. But I'd like to take a moment to comment on the ability of Austrians to Urinate in public. When I say in public I don't mean men standing discretely in the corner relieving themselves. I mean, right in the middle of the street just peeing like it was their own personal bathroom. To their credit I believe all of them were drunk. But never the less we saw a real planetarium show. One about stars! That doesn't happen very often any more unfortunately it was only in German so we couldn't actually understand a word that was being said but there were spinny stars and arrows (random quote: "twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was.") It was nice but the circles and paragraphs didn't really help much. And so we headed home for an early night and getting ready for the big day tomorrow.
We unfortunately needed to do our laundry so we lost some time in the morning but we headed over to the butterfly house afterwards. It was a lovely burst of summer in the middle of a very cold week. Vienna was definitely the coldest part of our trip so far. The butterfly house was a tropical oasis, which was nice but only lasted a very brief time and then it was back out into the cold. This time, for a very long walk to the technology museum. Neither of us knew what to expect and we allotted 2 hours to walk around. We could have spent the whole day. The technology museum, though far away, was quite large. A lot of very nice demonstrations and explanations though a good majority of them were in German we managed to piece together quite a bit.
Which brings us to our third day in Austria. The Music day. And it was defiantly filled with music. We went ALL over the city going to different music museums and memorials. We saw stuff on Brahms, Strauss, Schubert, and Mozart. Ending with Mozart's originally unmarked grave. A very poignant place to end. It was very sad. Standing next to the grave of one of the most brilliant men of all time in a barren graveyard outside of town.
From there we went to the house of Music a much more modern approach to music though it did include some information on the Viennese orchestra, composers and some history. But a good majority demonstrated acoustics and did some interesting hands on modern composing designed by Bernstein. Overall a very interesting approach and exhibit.
The next morning we left for Saltsburg. We were only stopping there for the day to see Mozart's birthplace. Which we did. It was a very cute town, very obviously proud of the fact that they were the birthplace of Mozart. We walked around for a while seeing both the birthplace and childhood home of Mozart. As an added bonus we found the home of Christian Doppler. Yes that is THE Doppler. The one with the effect named after him and in case you were wondering his first name was indeed Christian and he lived in Saltsburg of all places. And so we proceeded to Munich. We planned to stop there for the day to see the very highly recommended Deutsches Museum.
posted at: 17:57 | path: | permanent link to this entry
The Swiss really do know how to Pee
Ahh, the night train, we were looking forward to the night train. I remember the train from NY to California when I was 14 and it was glorious, and I was even a mess back then. But, this Italian train, as many of the Italian trains we took, sucked. The conductor however was a very nice old man and we were luckily the only two in our couchette. That didn't however improve the comfort level. Obviously Amtrak really needs to communicate with the Italian railway and step them up on the comfort of their passengers. But regardless I slept... Ok I didn't sleep but we got to Geneva just the same. It didn't help any that I was relatively drunk and woke up hung-over either. So, we checked into our hotel. Which was close to the train station easy to find... and our room smelled like urine. Not just a faint odor either, someone in the recent past must have used some corner of our room as a urinal rather than going down the hall. But aside from that, the room was miniscule and we had to share a bed.
At this point I'd like to preface the section on Switzerland by saying the Swiss do in fact know how to Pee. Being on vacation in several countries in budget hotels one really learns to be a connoisseur of bathrooms. And the Swiss, do it VERY well. This was our first encounter with McClean, the cleanest public toilet in the WORLD. They even give you little wet-naps. Not really sure why... don't really WANT an answer to that question... but I stole them for future use. And the hotels in both Geneva and Zurich had fabulous bathrooms, working showers, working toilets. And now back to the regularly scheduled program.
We decided to try and push through regardless of the exhaustion and proceeded to the tourist office. For the first time we got an ANSWER. Have you been to CERN???? Why No, we haven't been to CERN YET... we also got some brochures and looked into other interesting science museums. We found a history of science museum and we decided to fill up the rest of the day with that. It had a really interesting exhibit on Galileo and some interesting instruments and history of some rather obscure Swiss astronomers. Toward the end however I was so exhausted it was getting hard to focus. So, we headed back to the hotel for some rest and boy did we get some rest. Maria and I both passed out for hours. Waking up only in time to have dinner. So, we went out for some traditional Swiss food. For those of you who don't know, traditional Swiss food is cheese cheese small pieces of bread... cheese cheese and more cheese. Actually it's just cheese. Smelly cheese. So we got very... very full... on... cheese. I like to people watch and often there are some very strange people. But I encountered in Switzerland very many strange people... I came to the conclusion that they ALL try to be subtly strange so much so that they weird you out but not enough to actually draw attention. Really, it's an art form. So, I bring this up because I'd like to describe a particularly bizarre individual sitting across the restaurant. Please imagine for me that you're eating French fries... with a fork. This for many Americans in itself is bizarre but I'm lenient about this fact. Now... during this imagining what is your hand doing. The one, not holding the fork... if the answer was nothing... you're good. However if the answer was wiping all the salt not on my hand off... you're weird. Also, add to this picture, a tweed vest, a cane, long hair and a demeanor so deeply engrossed in his book that he cannot see or hear anything going on around him. And so... slightly weirded out but so full of cheese it lost its novelty, we went to bed.
And so we came to our day at CERN. CERN. Is. Awesome. We didn't get to see any of the actual inner workings but we DID get to visit the museum, which was actually informative for someone of our level. PLUS we got to learn about GARGAMELLE... yes... Gargamelle the bubble chamber not the large bad guy from the smurfs. But it was pretty amazing to take some public transportation out to the largest particle physics collaborations in the world. Not to mention they just let us wander around the grounds. And then we headed to Zurich. Geneva, being the one of the few places I could stand to go BACK to for a considerable chunk of time... minus the pee smell.
Zurich... yes, Zurich one of the most prolific scientific cities for much of this century. We only planned to spend the day there but we were so ready for a big exciting packed day of EINSTEIN. So we checked into the hotel which was SO COMFORTABLE. For the first time I forgot where I was when I woke up. Almost as comfortable as my ridiculous bed at home with some very glaring things missing that shall remain nameless. Needless to say we woke up in the morning refreshed and ready for SCIENCE. So we headed to the tourist office.... but wait... what is that... could it be a giant PARTY... a giant CHEEEESE PARTY?!?!?! WHY YES!!! A CHEEEESE party... now I add extra e's because it was indeed entitled... cheeeese, not to be confused with cheese, which I do believe is something completely different.... but back to the tourist office... we asked about their science offerings. They gave the usual response that there weren't any. And we asked for a list of museums and they were right... there weren't any. Or anything else either for that matter. There was nothing... NOTHING. So... we wandered around depressed for a while. Then we had the brilliant idea to find Einstein or Milevas address and create our own neat-o things to see. But... it wasn't listed anywhere. Nope nothing... we couldn't find it. So we walked around depressed for a little longer. Then we decided to just cut our losses buy the things we needed to buy and head back to the train station.
At which point, I checked the balance on my phone... which was supposed to be about 20 Euro. But surprise surprise it was... 0 that's right... NOTHING. Somehow... Someone called my phone and someone answered that apparently wasn't Maria OR I and had an hour-long conversation. Luckily this happened after I dropped a few hundred dollars on a new camera because my other one broke which is a story I shall leave out for now due to it's painful nature. So, this was the LAST straw. For anyone who talked to me during this time... sorry. It wasn't really a very good day. Telestial also is a slacker it took them THREE DAYS to actually charge up the phone again, regardless of said anonymous call, and... I hate them. That's about it. So we waited for our second night train... in silence and tears... hoping for better luck with the Swiss trains.
posted at: 17:55 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Back to Italy
Rome... again... That's not exactly what either of us wanted and yet we find ourselves here yet again. Only for a night and mostly to do errands and stuff... Though since we missed it the first time around we thought we'd check out the Sistine Chapel. So we headed over there in the morning to have one last "best cup of coffee in the world" and see the god-ish things again. The last Sunday of the month the Vatican museums are free... and BUSY. So one look at the line and Maria and I independently decided that this was actually a BAD idea. So we started walking over to the good coffee and low and behold... the piazza was FILLED with people. We went in a little to listen to what was going on and indeed the POPE... of all people was speaking over a mega-phone. We thought it was mass so we stayed a bit just to actually say we had heard the Pope give mass even though we couldn't understand a word of it. Half because we couldn't speak Latin, and half because the pope speaks a lot like "grmmgrrmmmrrrmmgrmmm aghrma mumble mumble mumble" Anyway, even though I couldn't understand I really didn't recognize ANYTHING... and being the good little non-catholic that I was a the family I should have. Looking at the 100,000 or so people gathered and the big "PACE" rainbow flags and the equally as prevalent banners with multiple flags emblazoned on them... that and asking the women in one of those little souvenir shops, told us that it was indeed a peace rally on the very day that the Iraqi Elections were held and the Pope's little speech was a blessing on the peace rally. Of course it was the ONE DAY that I forgot my camera, so we grabbed a quick onetime use camera and took pictures of the hundreds of Sunday school groups, all kids of ages 5-15 clear out. It was amazing. The first actually sincere thing I've seen happen in the Vatican. And this concluded our brief stay in Rome off...
To Bologna, where we did a lot of nothing... which was exactly the plan... we stayed in a FABULOUS three star hotel... where they were nice to us... gave us soft towels... bad pop on TV... what more could we ask for. We unloaded quite a bit of CRAP that we had accumulated or decided that we didn't need anymore and our bags got INFINATELY lighter... THANK GOD!!! We managed however to book it across bologna twice in our brief stay there and the rest on the train was much needed as we headed to VENICE!!!!
Yes that's right people Venice. Does anyone know what happens in Venice at the beginning of February? The very DAYS we were there? That's right... NOTHING... I mean... CARNIVALE!!! As if the Posters everywhere saying... Hey you guys!!! It's CARNIVALE!!! Wasn't enough, we asked the tourist office lady if it was indeed carnivale... and she gave us the WEIRDEST look we've gotten yet and said... uhh... yeah! everyday... and not only was it carnivale!!! There was also a physics museum, AND a Music Museum. Venice was really shaping up to be awesome. It got better too... we checked into a PRIME LOCATION hotel, right on the grand canal with not one but TWO windows with a full view of the grand canal. We headed out for dinner and we met Valoen, the vice-president of post-production for Lion's Gate, the company who released Fahrenheit 911. It was very nice to discuss things like Iraq and American politics with an American for a bit... well an American who wasn't an idiot. But we discussed other things like funny travel stories and all in all had a very nice dinner. It turned out she was staying in our hotel as well so we walked back and she showed us the carnival costumes she had made which really were fantastic. We also saw the decorations she had put up in her room to make it more welcoming. She was really quite a cute woman. She gave us fans and flowers to help us feel festive which we were just about beginning to feel. The next morning... bright and early.... we had a very nice hand delivered breakfast in our room and then we headed out, ready for action. We took a vaperetto over to the islands of Morano and Burano, famous for the Glass and Lacework respectively. We saw a lovely glass museum where we saw many different stages of popular glasswork and did some shopping at which point we had some lunch. It was quite frigid especially on the water and Maria and I were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit. We had gotten tickets to a concert featuring several arias for soprano and Baritone from a few different opera's unfortunately there was also some Offenbach but it was quick enough that it didn't ruin the whole concert. It was one of the ""Carnivale" things so all the performers were in traditional 18th century dress which was very quaint. We were too tired to buy masks earlier in the afternoon so the drunken debauchery would wait until our last day in Venice... trust me... we had scheduled time for masked drunken debauchery. So we headed to bed in preparation for said event. At this point we were starting to be a little surprised that there was indeed no one dressed... as anything... A person here and there but really not much... We looked at some of the brochures and the cheapest specifically "carnivale" event (costume required which is the equivalent of about 100 euro) was 80 euro. Not something we were willing to pay but we figured... HEY.. It's a STREET PARTY right... we'll just.... Be drunk and debaucherize on the street... for FREE.
Which brings us to... our last day in Venice. After a very nice Breakfast... we did a bit of shopping trying to take care of finding a few gifts and of course our Carnival masks... how could you be in Venice... during CARNIVAL... and NOT get a carnival mask... eventually finding just the right one for everyone... we headed to the Physics museum. We found the street it was on... looked for it... couldn't find it. Luckily I have our handy CELL PHONE... so we call and figure out, through a lot of broken Italian the number of the museum. So we went in... to find... a HIGH SCHOOL. We wandered around the high school for a bit finding no trace that a museum was there... would be there or had ever been there. So, feeling remarkably like we were trespassing we left the high school... looked around in the other doors, opening into very foreboding empty and dusty rooms and eventually gave up. No physics museum :( but the worst part is that it was so close to within our grasp we were standing RIGHT THERE... and no physics museum. Both Maria and I were pissed but... we decided Ice cream could fix everything. But we couldn't FIND any ice cream and by the time we could I wasn't hungry for any freaking ice cream THANK YOU. But, we decided to lift our spirits with the music museum. Does anyone remember the prolific amount of music that came out of Venice?? Yeah like... Vivaldi for instance, Albinoni, Monteverdi... yeah them... well... there was an exhibit on Vivaldi... but the entire size of the museum was one room... and not a very large room either... a rather... small room... I did learn some interesting facts about Vivaldi... he had asthma, and was a priest... but he couldn't serve mass because it wasn't good for his asthma... so... he wrote bucket loads of music instead, much to the churches chagrin it seems. OK well that was disappointing but... we had some drunken debauchery to do... and so we headed over to where the pamphlet said the STREET PART-AY was. And there was... no.... party... nothing... not even people... in fact... there were LESS people in the "party place" then there was in the rest of Venice... So, this was the last straw... I ranted and we've all heard me rant before... this was quite a rant. Mixed with some nastiness, and quite a bit of dumb humor about the crappiness of our situation and even more bitterness about the lack of... fun in Venice... especially during Carnivale. We found the restaurant we wanted to go to during said rant... and as we were about to go inside. The building tension with Maria and the overall disappointment came to a head and BOY did it explode. Maria and I had quite a blowout. Well... for us... I walked away and realizing I was hopelessly lost after about 3 steps I wanted a map... but SHE... THAT SHEEEE had the map... (Being very angry I didn't remember that I indeed had a map in my bag at that very moment but this fact is irrelevant) And so... since... that WOMEN... didn't want to give me the GOD DAMN MAP... I sat with her at dinner... staring at a very particular point a bout 4 inches above the top of her head. That lasted about halfway through dinner at which point... we did what we usually did, talked over all the crap, realized we weren't ACTUALLY mad at each other we were actually mad at ourselves for not making the other one happier, and mad at Venice... for SUCKING... when it's supposed to be awesome. But dinner was good... and we both drank a significant amount of alcohol... for me this is not a very significant amount... but we were relatively drunk... and proceeded to debaucherize. Which... we did very well... wearing our newly bought masks... and taking interesting detours to try and find where Venice had hid carnivale... unfortunately we had no success but we took some funny pictures and went to catch our very first night train....
posted at: 17:53 | path: | permanent link to this entry