One of these days I’m going to start writing again… Forget it- I’ll just write already.
As you can see, Jon and I have returned from our travels. Sorry the writing fizzled out there towards the ends- we were trying to soak up our last few days and couldn’t be bothered to sit in a computer lab. Let’s see if I can sum it up…
We headed back to Paris where we collected our giant backpacks which we had locked up in lockers at the Paris train station before leaving for London, and then Brussels. That was probably the smartest thing we did on our entire trip! The next time I take a trip like this I think I’ll try to have a central home base where we can re-charge, re-pack, and rest in between forays to different locales. It’s a lot easier traveling around with just a weekender bag if you can.
We then headed to a hotel to round out our last two days in Europe. We did a lot of just hanging out in cafes and browsing through the neighborhood… but the one “site” we did manage to squeeze in was a trip to Paris’ Catacombs. That was pretty amazing. Back in the Times of Yore, they didn’t have preserving methods for bodies before burial. People in the neighborhood started getting so sick from all the diseases developing in the decaying bodies from the nearby cemetary that the government undertook a massive dig of the corpses. They placed these remains in the maze of underground tunnels that exist underneath the streets and parks of Paris. Now you can walk through some of these tunnels. There are bones and skulls piled neatly on top of each other from floor to ceiling. It is very surreal. Jane’s Addiction used a photo of the scene for their compilation album, “Up From the Catacombs”.
The weirdest part of it all though were the other people down there who kept posing with the bones and smiling… probably in the same way they had posed in front of the Eiffel Tower earlier in the day. I wanted to shake them and say, “THESE WERE PEOPLE! WE ARE IN A MASS GRAVE!”. I didn’t feel like it was an appropriate place to ham it up for the camera. People become so desensitized… I feel like they weren’t even thinking about the horror and reality of it all.
So then we flew back to the States. It’s crazy how quickly these things can all seem like a dream. It was such an amazing trip. Someday I’ll go through all of our pictures and try to organize them in some sort of reasonable fashion. It’s such an endeavor though…
About a week after we returned, we hopped back on a plane and headed to NYC for Jon’s medical school graduation ceremony at Madison Square Garden. He graduated with Highest Honors! That was pretty awesome. My mom came, and Jon’s mom, sister and brother. Jon’s mom took us all out to eat at this amazing restaurant called Per Se to celebrate. And Jon, my mom, and I went to see Wicked on Broadway, which was a lot of fun. I feel like it was my mom’s first vacation. We traveled a ton when we were kids but she always had some sort of conference to go to as well. So mostly it was just me, my sister and my dad doing all the fun stuff.
Now we have moved yet again. I think that marks 6 states in two years. Sheesh. But we’re actually staying put here for awhile. I’m finally getting my act together for grad school… and I’ll start taking classes at George Washington this Fall. Jon has started his residency and seems to be liking it pretty well, although the hours are taking some getting used to. We have a big yard with a privacy fence and we’ve finally been able to install a doggie door which has been our “dream” for years. It’s the small things, man.
We had a return flight to Paris from London. It was decided though that since we had already spent a few days in Paris, and it had been very hot and very expensive, we would head up to Brussels, Belgium for a couple days instead. I have a cousin who lives in Sweden and he had recommended that we visit Brussels while we were in the area. By this point we were such train traveling savants that another two hour trip seemed like a cakewalk.
Unfortunately, we found out too late that on the day that we had to return to Paris, in order to fly home the following morning, the Belgium transit system would be on strike in its entirety! So we ended up having to cut our stay in Brussels short by one day which meant that we really only had an afternoon to check it out. That’s not nearly enough time to properly explore a beautiful city like Brussels, but it was enough time to drink several beers and sample chocolates from various suppliers…. And really… if we had had another day, wouldn’t it have just been spent drinking more beers and eating more chocolates anyway? Let’s be honest.
I have to begin this post with some sad news… (Don’t get too worried- I’m using author’s license when saying “sad”).
Back in 1999 I spent a wonderful summer as a student at the University of London. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember much about the class lessons… I think for the most part the professors were on vacation too. But what is truly worth a mention, that summer was spent forming some of the most important and strongest friendships I had in college, (and a few other not as long lasting, but nonetheless very fun friendships as well). Two of the most notable friendships that came to be during this time were with Valerie K. and Joe V.
I had known Valerie through our mutual friend Andrea for a couple of years. But it wasn’t until this trip that we became friends in our own right. Joe and I had a more unexpected start. We had a Spanish class together the previous Fall, but sat on opposite sides of the class. I honestly don’t think we said a word to each other the whole semester. The next term though, we found ourselves in the next Spanish class together as well. Out of a vague familiarity I think we unconsciously chose to sit near each other. Towards the end of the semester we starting hanging out outside of class a bit, and found out that we would both be studying abroad in London at the same time and residing in the same dorm in the Bloomsbury District.
Once in London though, Joe, myself and two other people I had known before (Greg- a friend of mine for years, and Jenn- a friend of a friend) became inseparable. We sat next to each other in the cafeteria, traveled to Amsterdam and Dusseldorf together, spent countless nights at the pub, went to a God Speed You Black Emperor show that changed my life, and yes, ate together. Our local place of choice was a falafel/kabab place right around the corner from our dorm called “Groovy Grub”.
………..
On our second day in London I dragged Jon over to my old stomping grounds in Bloomsbury. It was a textbook perfect London day- drizzling and a little cold despite the late May date. As I walked out of the Russell Square subway station, it all came back to me. The main street leading to our dorm looks the same, and different all at the same time. There seemed to be a lot more restaurants there now. I don’t remember having that many close-by options, but I was on a student budget so I might not have explored some of the restaurants. That day, I had a one track mind though- I wanted to get a falafel sandwich for lunch and I knew just the place. But alas, it wasn’t to be. As I turned the corner to go to where Groovy Grub should have been, I was greeted by a sign above the window advertising an Indian restaurant. Indian food is delicious, but I was feeling nostalgic. So, Jon and I headed to the pub across from my old dorm where Joe, Greg, Jen and I downed many pints, and ordered two more for old time’s sake. We sat there and watched a soccer match with the “lads”, had a meat pie and then continued on with our day.
(On a side note- the computer lab where I opened an e-mail account because I was having trouble opening my “pilot” MSU account abroad was still there. I remember sitting there and registering with a brand new e-mail server that I had just heard about called “hotmail”. Weird).
London was awesome, as usual. I had a bit of a culture shock though being back somewhere where everyone was speaking English… I was glad to get reintroduced to the concept before heading back to the States.
Jon and I were pretty desperate money-wise by this point so we stayed in a hostel farther out in London than I had ever been before. It was in an area called New Cross. The hostel had gotten decent reviews online when we booked it, but after staying there I feel pretty confident in saying it was the dumpiest place we stayed on our trip. Blah… Community showers are the grossest.
On our way to London we decided to fly because all the Eurail seats were booked on the Eurostar and the full price tickets were more than airfare! Well… as we were going through security they CONFISCATED MY HAIR PRODUCT!!! I almost wept. Curls+humidity+no product= a very sad, fro haired Nancy. The bottle was almost gone but… it was still heart breaking. When we arrived in London I was just going to buy some mousse 90’s style but I couldn’t find any travel bottles. So, I bought a travel size of gel. Sheesh…. gel is the grossest thing ever (after community showers)! I felt like I had a sticky helmet on my head the whole time!
In London we spent most of our time chilling out and drinking… As you do in London I suppose. We did the compulsory walk to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament etc. We, of course, made a stop into delicious Wagamamma, and had Indian food twice over the weekend as well.
Jon and I planned to leave Florence last Sunday and ended up spending an excruciating day at the train station attempting to get on any train out of the city. Ir was crazy hot in Florence and super crowded and we just wanted to get the Hell out. Jon described Florence as the “worst place I have ever been.” I had visited before for a day or two and had been underwhelmed as well, but people are always talking about how amazing it is so I decided that it deserved another visit. In the end I feel that a long time ago, before it was so insanely crowded (like before cars or planes) Florence was a nice, beautiful respite. But in the present state I can honestly say that I will never go back again. There are so many beautiful places to see in Europe! The crowds in Florence are stifling!
Finally we were able to get on a local train out of Florence and, after making three change overs on what should have been a two hour train, ended up in Venice. I had heard a lot of bad things about Venice, but I honestly liked it a lot. Maybe during the high season it is excruciating as well, I can’t say. But it was totally different from any other city we had visited and we found a really nice B and B near the heart of things so we couldn’t have been happier.
Mental note though; don’t enter St. Marks Square with anything that could be construed as food in your hand. Luckily Jon was able to shoot some footage of the reason why:
People were gleefully taking pictures with pigeons all over themselves, their children, their tables… everything. It was like the sheer numbers of pigeons flocking had made them completely forget that they are considered the rats of the sky…
From Venice we took a quick train ride to Vincenzia because Jon wanted to buy a watch to mark the occasion of him starting his residency. We ended up at this family owned machine shop run by this amazingly nice Italian couple. Jon picked out the watch that he wanted and they wrote everything up. The problem was when he took out his credit card to pay they said that they didn’t take cards because they were so small. That is weird to our American sensibilities because everyone in the States makes large purchases on their credit cards. We didn’t have much cash on us, and weren’t prepared to spend money from our trip fund on the watch anyway. Jon had been planning to pay it off over the course of some months after starting his job. So, the couple started calling everyone they knew: starting with the bank to see what could be done. In the meantime the woman gave me a necklace for free that they had machined themselves from stainless steel. From this point on you can see it in the pictures as I haven’t taken it off. They then called all of their friends who had shops to see if they could run our cards and then give them the cash. Finally they found a friend in a neighboring town who had a cash machine and was willing to do that. So the man drove us out there with our packs, we scanned Jon’s card, and then he gave us a lift to the train station! It was so nice of them!
The watch business took so long though that most of the trains out of Vincenzia were gone. So we decided to take the night train to Munich. When we got settled into our cabin the train worker came by and checked our tickets and told us that we had the cabin to ourselves. We were so excited! But then, just as we had fallen asleep we were violently awoken by someone trying to open our chain locked door. Jon opened it and this couple, who from their accents I presumed were Canadian, entered our cabin. I apologized several times for the fact that we had put our packs on the other beds explaining that we were told that we were by ourselves. They were unfazed and threw our packs into the top luggage compârtment. But then, after they were all settled, the train worker came back, looked at their tickets and told them they were in the wrong compartment! I could have slit them. After seeing that all of their luggage was put away though he didn’t make them move. I could see that Jon was seething and the next day we spent about two hours wishing seriously bad things on them. They were in 73: we were in 45. Who mixes those numbers up? Ugh.
So then in Munich, when we arrived at 6:30 AM, we started going around to find a place. After being turned down by about 5 places we decided to find a computer lab and see what we could find on there. Once at the computer lab though we found out that there was some sort of soccer match that night and literally every single hotel under 250 dollars was sold out! (On a Wednesday!). It was unreal.
So… what else was there to do? We went back to the train station and boarded a train for Innsbruck, Austria. (We have rail passes so it doesn’t cost us anything extra to take a train as long as it doesn’t require a reservation). I am sooo glad we did! Innsbruck is BREATHTAKING!!! It has been the host of two winter Olympics. The mountains literally meet the town. It was HOT though! It was weird being surrounded by snow capped mountains and walking around in flip flops. It was also weird walking around in two countries by noon…
The next afternoon we boarded the train yet again for Switzerland. For those of you who don’t know, a few years ago when I was living in Portland I put an ad up on Craig’s List for a roommate. A girl from Switzerland answered my ad and we lived together until her visa ran out and she returned to Switzerland. So, we had made plans to visit her for the weekend. She is a cardiologist and was on-call the night we came in so we just ordered a pizza and hung out in her super sweet apartment. I don’t even think the pictures can express how cool her apartment was.
The next day Christine had to work again until 5. She gave Jon and I two free tickets to go up to Mount Titlis in a neighboring town. We took the train over. Once we reached the mountain we took the world’s first revolving gondola to the top. It was spectacular! Once again it was green and lush at the bottom and snowy at the top. People were still skiing and snowboarding up there! It wasn’t that cold though at all.
That night Christine met us in Luzern and we had dinner and some drinks. Then we took the train back to her place and crashed. We had discussed plans of going to Zurich the next day, but when we awoke to a lovely Saturday morning we all agreed that we would rather have a relaxed day at home instead. She made us an amazing breakfast with eggs, bacon, etc. and the best array of Swiss cheeses I could have imagined! Then we did some more of this and that…. Later on we all went out to buy some groceries to cook out on her amazing terrace, buy ping pong paddles to play on her complex’s custom granite ping pong tables (with forged, carved aluminum “nets”), buy our tickets for Paris, and rent some movies. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun.
The next day we had to get up super early because the only train available to Paris had been one at 6AM. Sucky. But we got to Paris early and had enough time to check into our hotel and hang out at Sacre Cour for awhile before totally crashing out for a mid-day nap. Our hotel was amazing. We had come to Paris to celebrate our first anniversary on May 12th so we definitely splurged on the hotel. It was sooo nice! The most amazing part was the balcony from our room with a panoramic view of the Paris skyline. There’s nothing like sharing a bottle of wine with your own private view of the Eiffel Tower.
The next day was our anniversary and we started out with breakfast on the balcony. We got a bit of a late start so we went to the Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame and spent some time just walking around. Later on we went to a phenomenal restaurant to celebrate.
The next day we checked out (but thankfully left our bags with the concierge), and headed to the Eiffel Tower. We had a picnic in the park and then went to get tickets. I had been up as a kid with my parents but every time I’ve been back to Paris since then the lines have serioiusly been a mile long. Yet another reason to travel in the off season- we had virtually no wait! It was so fun to go up to the top!
Okay…. Now I feel like I have been writing forever and I still have to load pictures…. Last night we headed to Reims, France in the Champagne region of France. Anyone who knows me at all knows I am a total Champagne-O so… needless to say, I have been mildly drunk through this whole synopsis… We went to the Tattinger cellars today… I have nothing to say for myself.
I may or may not have drank these bottles of champagne…
I am rapidly losing my buzz though so I’m going to try to finish this up ASAP.
I’m lazy. I feel overwhelmed by how far behind I’ve gotten… I’m in Paris right now. I am hopeful I will be able to sit and write tonight from Champagne! (Thinking of you, Binny). Keep checking!
I am in Switzerland right now visiting a friend… and I don’t have time to write right now but… I encountered this painting on the window of a kindergarten yesterday on my way up to the top of Mount Titlis. Apparently our Puritanical background even influenced our Smurf viewing… Here’s pic of Smurfette (Schlumpfine) hitting the slopes…
This Way Maybe 