The Final Leg

Hello everyone!

Wanted to write a short note letting you know that we've arrived in Belgium! In Bruges, to be more specific. The train ride today was a bit lengthier than anticipated; we thought we'd be able to get from Amsterdam to Bruges with a single change of trains in Antwerp, but it ended up taking three changes (four trains) to get us here. We're pretty sure the ticket agent was a trainee, so...

In any event, we had a lovely couple of days exploring the streets and canals of Amsterdam. We're spending just a single night here in picturesque Bruges, and tomorrow afternoon we're going to make the 1/2 hour jump over to Ghent for a couple of days. We'll end our trip staying with a friend of mine (whom I met in Taize) in the south of Belgium, hopping up to visit Brussels for a day as well, before we fly back to France for our last two days in Europe.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to post pictures later!

-Brock

Photo Update!

I've got a good internet connection, and you know what that means - photos!

We're coming to the end of our second full day in Berlin; tomorrow we head for Erlangen to meet up with my friend Merten. We spent the first Berlin day walking the city and seeing the sights, and today we spent the entire day at the Berlin Zoo, which is a phenomenal place. Last night we had the fantastic opportunity to visit three very different bars. The first was a small brick place in a basement, packed to the rafters and featuring a swing/jazz band (trombone, trumpet, clarinet, rhythm section) comprised of guys mostly in their 60s or 70s, and they were rocking the house. It was amazing. The second place was an extremely edgy bar named using a rather vulgar play on words (in German) that I'll have to explain in person, if you're interested. And the final bar was the most "normal," but featured an excellent dance floor. All in all a wonderful Berlin evening.

Here are a few more pictures!

In the Krakow train station, waiting for our train to Warsaw

Warsaw!

Lauren presents... Warsaw fountain

Warsaw's "Old City" - not actually that old, since Warsaw was essentially flattened in the course of WWII. It has a very interesting mix of (very successful) attempts to rebuild a European city, mixed with Soviet-style architecture

Warszawa Centralna Station

Berlin Dom, also a spectacular rebuilding effort after it was devastated in WWII

Inside the Berlin Dom!

And on top of the Berlin Dom, with the famous Berlin TV Tower in the distance

Berlin in the sun!

Brandenburger Tor

Berlin wall fragment & display

Hippos at the zoo

Baby hippos, too.

RHINO!!!!!!!!

Baby warthogs. Lots of babies at the zoo in the spring.

Owls!(?)

Family portrait.

Gargantuan elephant

Lauren at the Berlin Zoo gate

Till next time!

-B

Running Commentary...

Hey everyone!

Just another brief update for now. Today we left Poland, catching a 5-hour train from Warsaw to Berlin. We arrived safe and sound in Berlin around 8 in the evening, and found our lovely hostel without any trouble. We're very excited to spend the next couple of days exploring the city! We've been hearing a lot from other backpackers about big trouble in the south of Europe; apparently many southern cities (Prague particularly) are experiencing very serious flooding. No worries for us, though; we've been having some very nice weather. We'll keep you all posted!

All the best,
-B&L

Preliminary Krakow Pictures!

Hi again!

I've suddenly discovered a pretty solid internet connection, so I thought I'd post a few pictures from our short time in Krakow!

Our hostel just inside the old city on Florianska Street, facing the St. Florian Gate

The "Cloth Hall," a large indoor craft market located in the center of Market Square, one of the biggest squares in Europe.

St. Mary's Cathedral, on Market Square. Lots of intricately dressed street performers hang out just in front, taking pictures with tourists.

Path leading up to Wawel Castle, complete with traditionally-dressed accordion player! 

The cathedral at Wawel Castle.

Another view of the cathedral. 

Smok Wawelski, the famous Krakow dragon who lives between Wawel Castle and the Vistula River. Or lived, rather: according to legend, the dragon died after drinking half the river in a fit of thirst.

Pierogis at Zapiecek restaurant, which is a truly magical place. Open 24/7, it serves many delicious varieties of pierogi (tried so far: cottage cheese, cabbage, meat, apple, mushroom). We ate here 3 times within 24 hours, and 4 times within 30 hours. And we'll probably go again.

Catch you all later with more updates and pictures!

-Brock

Quick Update!

Hey everyone!

I'm so sorry that it's been such a long time since we posted. May passed in a flurry of visitors; we had the wonderful opportunity to spend a lot of really good time with Lauren's Mom, our friend Alyse and her dad, as well as Lauren's Dad. It made for a very busy but very enjoyable month.

I'm writing this quick update from Krakow, Poland. We arrived in our hostel this evening after a shockingly trouble-free day of flying with Ryanair, first from Marseille to Gothenburg (Sweden), and then from Gothenburg to Krakow. We had a bit of time this evening to explore the old city, which is absolutely gorgeous, and tomorrow we're going to make an excursion with cameras in tow (though given the state of the internet here, we may not get to post pictures for a while).

We're spending four days here in Krakow seeing the sights, and then on Monday we're hopping on a train up to Warsaw for a day. Our next stop is Berlin for three days, and then we'll head south to Erlangen to meet up with my German exchange partner from my 3-month European experience in high school. We're going to travel with him to Wietzendorf, the small town where I spent my time, to visit with his parents for a couple of days. Then it's up to Cologne for a day, and yet further north to Amsterdam for three days. Our journey finally ends with six days exploring Belgium! It's unbelievable how fast the time has gone.

We'll try to post some updates as we go, of course contingent on the internet!

-Brock

The Rocky Road to Dublin

Greetings all!

As many of you know, Paris was only part one of our weeklong adventure. On our last Parisian day we took a bus from a station near the Arc de Triomphe to a discount airport about an hour outside the city, thinking we were ready for our first encounter with the infamous low-cost airline, Ryanair. Check-in was a bit chaotic, with Ryanair's love for long, nonsensical lines becoming swiftly apparent, but we made it onto the plane and to our seats without too much trouble. I should say, to the seats - on Ryanair, it's a first-come, first-serve on the seats - the only way to actually have a reserved seat is to pay extra.

The flight itself was one long advertisement, with the flight attendants moving up and down the aisles selling this thing or that thing, and in a couple of hours the nose pointed down and we got ready to land. At that point disturbing whispers began to circulate: "this doesn't look like Dublin." "I don't think we're in Ireland." "No, definitely not Ireland." After a very rough landing we were informed that we'd landed, not in Ireland, but in a discount airport outside of Glasgow, Scotland. As it turned out, virtually the entire country of Ireland was closed to air traffic due to crazy weather.

Being a discount airline, instead of putting us up for the night Ryanair decided to leave us sitting on the plane for 4 1/2 hours - midnight to around 4:30 am, with the lights on, every 45 minutes or so coming over the PA to tell us that they'd have an update "in about 20 minutes." Needless to say many of the passengers became extremely irate, and started giving the flight attendants a lot of grief. As a sidenote, on Ryanair flights nothing is free - a small bottle of water costs 3 Euros - so we were left with only the provisions we'd thought to bring.

 The result of 4 1/2 hours of delirious exhausted boredom. Try to guess who drew what.

Eventually they de-planed us into this tiny little airport with approximately a single employee at 4:30 am, who was promptly bombarded by questions by several airplanes worth of upset travellers, and had no idea what was going on. After a couple of hours of waiting around, we spent another hour in a series of nonsensical lines and finally ended up on a flight to Dublin.

We took a double-decker bus from the airport to the city center and staggered into our hostel at about 10 am - having been charged the full price already for our night on the plane, since we'd had no way to tell them we weren't coming. The upside was that there was a room ready and waiting for us, and so we went and collapsed into bed for a while. The other upside was that the hostel (Isaac's Hostel, if you're ever in the area) was one of the hippest, coolest hostels I've ever seen. It had a basement area complete with reading room, sauna, pool & ping-pong table and Playstation.

Around 2 or 3 in the afternoon we were feeling the gnawing hunger of those who haven't had a square meal since the previous day's breakfast. We set out in search of food, and settled on a tiny little fish&chips joint, nestled away on a corner near Christchurch, and ended up with a giant bag each of fish and chips. It was kind of like carrying a baby. We went and sat by Christchurch and ate our food with desperate enthusiasm. We didn't actually go into Christchurch; in Dublin, many museums are free, but churches charge admission.

Outside Christchurch with my fish&chips baby - note the glazed expression, courtesy of zero sleep

Next we needed something to wash our food down (or, as it turned out, to mingle with the food in our stomachs to produce a concrete-like mixture). We headed to a large Irish pub called O'Neill's, which we later learned had some history; it's been O'Neill's since 1927, but the building itself is 150 years old. It featured gorgeous dark woodwork spread over two floors, and even at 4 in the afternoon there were the requisite red-faced older guys haunting the corners. A 3-piece band (fiddle, guitar, accordion) was playing in the next room, and the last song they did before we left was "Rocky Road to Dublin." Perfect.  And of course, what else could we get at O'Neill's? Had to be Guinness.

Again, note the persisting glazed expression.

The next day was Friday, and after a very enjoyable breakfast of toast & jam at the hostel we packed up and walked one minute to the next hostel, Globetrotter's, a smaller place with a B&B feel, where we shared a dorm room with a couple of quiet guys, and a pair of extremely loud Scandinavian (?) girls.

Our first stop of the day was Dublin Castle, a structure erected in 1204. We arrived to find a large sign announcing that the castle was closed until July because "Ireland is hosting the EU Presidency." The sign noted that "The Library" was still open, so we checked it out. Feelings of disappointment dissipated immediately upon entering the first exhibit of "The Library." 

The Untouchable Dublin Castle, as seen from the door of the Chester Beatty Library

The Chester Beatty Library is a stunning collection of literary and artistic artifacts dating back hundreds and hundreds of years, most of them collected by Chester Beatty in his travels through Asia around the 1920s. The main exhibit was a "history of the book" display, with hundreds of manuscripts and artworks exemplifying the best in Eastern and Western illumination, illustration, calligraphy, and bookbinding. There were even video screens showing contemporary scholars reproducing said works in absolutely intricate detail using period tools and techniques. Needless to say I got pretty excited, and it was difficult to leave. For more info check out http://www.cbl.ie/.

Next we wandered around Temple Bar for a while, looking for somewhere to eat. In Temple Bar it's common practice for restaurants to have an employee standing in the street with a menu or pamphlets, accosting people as they walk by. We ended up settling on a nice, "traditional" restaurant.

And what did we have for our second lunch? Big surprise!

The Guinness Storehouse was our next destination. It took a bit of wandering to stumble upon it, but stumble we did, though we were close to calling it a day and going home to consult a map. We paid the hefty admission price and toured through what was essentially a Guinness museum, or a shrine deifying Arthur Guinness, depending which way you look at it. It was very well put-together, though I was disappointed that we didn't actually get to see any parts of the active brewery. The tour, which spanned 6 floors, ended in a large circular viewing room on the top floor, where we exchanged our ticket for a "free" pint and enjoyed a panoramic view of the city.

Starting to sense a theme? Brock + Lauren in the Sky Lounge.

Perhaps you, our dear family & friends, can solve a conundrum for us. As we were walking through Temple Bar this particular day, a couple of young girls (14 years old or so) came up and shyly asked Lauren if they could have their picture taken with her. Lauren, taken aback, said yes, and the girls took a picture and ran off. At first we checked to make sure we still had our wallets, suspecting a scam. But nothing was missing. So, the only thing we could conclude was that Lauren must have looked particularly like a celebrity that day. So here's the question:

Name that Celebrity!

After a pit-stop at the hostel we headed to the Duke Pub, another heritage-rich establishment, and took part in a "Literary Pub Crawl." It was a tour of four pubs, led by a pair of actors who regaled us with historical tales and acted out a couple of scenes from famous Irish literary works (the first scene they did was from Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"). It was an extremely amusing and enlightening way to see some of Dublin's oldest pubs, though by the end of it I'd given up on the Guinness in favour of something a touch lighter. 

Dublin Literary Pub Crawl: O'Neill's At Night

Realizing that we'd skipped dinner, we went in search of food before bed, settling on a hilarious diner situated on the main drag, complete with jukebox (one of us got really excited about the jukebox).

The Jukebox

Eddie Rocket's Diner, pictured the next day

Saturday was our last day in Dublin! We feasted on a full "Irish Breakfast" at the hostel - sausage, eggs (scrambled & poached), a warm slice of tomato (???), thick ham/bacon, toast, coffee etc. etc. Good, solid stuff. I went out and finally managed to visit a few bookstores, and since it was a beautiful morning I took some shots of the city itself.

The River Liffey runs right through downtown Dublin, emptying into the Irish Sea

O'Connell St, Dublin's main drag. Our hostels were both just east of O'Connell.

For our last lunch in Dublin, we lamentably didn't have fish & chips. Instead we headed to the venerable Stag's Head, built in 1770 and touted by our Lonely Planet guide as "possibly the best traditional pub in Dublin (and therefore the world)." We started with a pair of Irish coffees, with the "Irish" being poured straight out of barrels mounted on the walls, and between us enjoyed sausage & chips & sandwiches & soup & a fantastic, fresh seafood chowder. The pub, smaller than I'd expected, did indeed possess a fantastic, mysterious atmosphere, and didn't disappoint with the decor, featuring a gargantuan elk's head hanging above the bar.

Irish Coffee...

...straight from the barrel!

The Stag's (elk's) Head

Burdened once more by heavy stomachs we went to check out the infamous Trinity College, taking in a display of the Book of Kells (a heavily-illuminated copy of the four gospels c. ~800) and the Old Library, which contains some 200,000 old books in a cavernous vaulted room.

Trinity College

The Old Library

The Old Library (detail)

And that, dear friends, sums up very well our Dublin experience. We spent a bit of time reading in our hostel, finally feeling our energy levels flagging for good. We went to bed fairly early, because the following morning we were up at 5am to catch the bus to the airport for our flight home.

BONUS ROUND - NOTTINGHAM

Since Ryanair wasn't running any direct flights from Dublin-Marseille on that Sunday, we ended up with an 8-hour layover in East Midlands Airport, a tiny airport in the UK. After determining that the airport's main attraction was a snack machine, we decided to explore other options for passing the time and ended up taking a bus to Nottingham. Yes, Nottingham, of Robin Hood fame!

The bus dropped us downtown and we wandered for a bit, taking in the British scenery, before stumbling entirely accidentally on the perfect place to spend our time - a tearoom. We enjoyed a decadent lunch of tea, coffee, scones and crumpets. I had to begrudgingly concede that lunch in Nottingham was at least somewhat nicer than eating peanut M&Ms for 8 hours in the airport.

Nottingham!!!

What could this be?

Buttered crumpets and the best cup of coffee I've had in months.

The Full Spread.

All the best!

-Brock