All Trip Pictures

Austrians Don't Talk Like Arnold - 20 August, 2010

For the past month I've been pretty busy. I have been using weekends wisely and have made several short trips to Amsterdam, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and Bratislava.

I was in a small town near Munich for work. I go there a few times a year actually. But this was the first time besides Oktoberfest when I actually had enough time to see the city. That being said, I was only there for a few hours. I walked around a bit, saw the glockenspiel, and ate a pork sandwich. Nowadays I really struggle to find interesting things to see in all these European cities. I usually don't go to any museums or monuments anymore unless I happen to stumble upon something good or it's really famous. It's not that I don't like these things. It's just that usually, after I go home and return to my life, these are not the things I remember; these are not the places that stay in my mind or the experiences that change me. Instead, I try to search for the more interesting things. So what I did find worthwhile in Munich was the permanent wave in the Eisbach river and the group of surfers that ride it. The wave is manmade and I guess is formed by other water coming from an underground tunnel. The surfers are a group of locals who all seem to know each other and always have a crowd watching them. I only watched for 20 minutes, but this is what I will remember most from this city.

The next few days I traveled around Salzburg, Austria. The first day I spent hiking in Berchtesgaden National Park in Germany, and marveled at how much gear people think is necessary to bring in order to hike halfway up (people usually take the gondola up the first half) and all the way down a small mountain. Most groups had a full large day pack and two trekking poles per person. It's good to be prepared and all, but you don't need this much stuff for a 6 hour hike in a well populated area. This goes with my personal stereotype that most Germans are overly prepared and like having and using a different tool for all occasions. The last day near Salzburg I went to Eisriesenwelt, the largest ice cave in the world. An ice cave is any cave with significant amounts of ice year round. The tour for this cave starts at 1641 meters up the mountain and goes through the first 1 kilometer of the cave. Inside is a world of natural ice formations which are constantly changing as new water leaks through the walls. I've been in lots of caves before and this one was the best and most unique. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed, but go here to see the majesty.

On another trip I went to Vienna, Austria with Stefanie and some of her friends. We spent most of the time in cafes and museums. I tried the wiener schnitzel, which supposedly comes from Vienna (spelled Wien in German), and lots of other regional foods, but nothing really stuck out as being exceptionally good. It's a bit sad, but I can't really think of anything really noteworthy about the city. It's nice, very historical, plenty of things to see, but I never found anything really original or exciting. While I was there, I did take a day trip over to Bratislava, Slovakia by myself, and I actually found it more interesting than nearby Vienna. To me it looked like an East European town with Mediterranean and West European influences and remnants of the Soviet era. It's a relatively quiet small town with not too many tourists. I liked walking around and even popped my head into two different church services to check things out.

All in all I consider Austria as Germany's less popular but very similar cousin. Other than a different accent, I didn't find too many real differences between the two. I had a good time, but I was disappointed that I never heard anyone talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger.


Again with the Dutch - 8 August, 2010

My friend Shelley and my aunt Caroline both went to Amsterdam in the last two weeks, which is coincidentally fairly close to where I live. So I decided to meet up with each of them. In truth, I probably would have met up with them whereever they went. But Amsterdam is nice too. I'm glad I went, both times. I haven't seen Shelley in 4 years or so, and I always like hanging out with my aunt.

Stefanie and I drove there as a day trip to see Shelley. 3.5 hours each way, not so bad. We mostly just hung out and sat in cafes. But there were some notable experiences. I learned all about cannibus at the marajuana museum, we ate these delicious deep fried gravy balls (don't knock it until you've tried it), and we took in some of the local street entertainment (see picture to the right). This guy was awesome on so many levels. The man himself seems fairly old for doing this, and seems like there might be a screw loose as well, but this just makes the show that much better. His first act is to trip down to that thong he's wearing. He does a little dancing around to his music, then he climbs the rope and does several corde lisse tricks holding certain positions. Finally, he walks around with a tray asking for money, still in his thong. You don't usually find something this unique very often. Some people say that it's a bit disturbing and you don't want to see it, but then they can't take their eyes away from him. I, sir, applaud you.

I took the train to see my aunt and stayed overnight. I dropped my bag off at my hostel and then went to the meeting point I scheduled with my aunt. I was a little late, so I was surprised when I didn't see her there. It's not like my aunt to be late for something like this, but I waited around a bit more before I accecpted the fact that she stood me up. I finally found her 5 hours after we were supposed to meet. She thought we were meeting on the following day. I told her about the old guy doing rope tricks and she was totally into it. It's too bad that we never got to see his show. Apparently he doesn't keep to a schedule. Instead, we went to a few historical sights and took a nice informal boat tour with the St. Nicolaas boat club, where we saw the smallest house in Amsterdam and maybe got in one of the Google street view pictures when the car went by. I'm still looking for the street view picture.

Other than that I didn't really learn much more about the Netherlands, other than the fact that Holland is only a small part of the Netherlands. Eventhough the Dutch guy at work always says Holland when he reffers to the whole country.

In other news, I also went to Salzburg, Austria last weekend, but I will save the details until after my trip to Vienna in two weeks. Then I will have more insights on Austria. The next trip after that is a joint trip to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.


Beach Weekend Sardinia - 9 Juli, 2010

There were cheap plane tickets to Sardinia, so Stefanie and I took a long weekend trip. Little did we know that face-melting, egg-frying, even-cracking-the-car-window-won't-save-your-dog heat was awaiting us. Note to self: don't go south during the summer. We actually didn't plan on this being a beach vacation, but it was so hot that other than sitting in the air conditioned car, there wasn't much else we wanted to do but go swimming. Normally I don't like to sit on the beach every day, but I was very glad to cool off in the clear Mediterranean waters.

Luckily we didn't spend the whole 4 days on the beach; otherwise I would have died of boredom instead of the heat. We spent a day driving on the panorama packed coast and another in the mountains. We toured some of the ancient monuments like the ruins of Tharros and sa Ena 'e Thomes. We ate lots of mozzarella, olives, tomatoes, pasta and pizza. We watched the last two world cup games. We were going to go hiking too, in spite of the heat, but Stefanie stepped on something in the water during the first minute of the first swim. After that she couldn't walk too much without being in pain and she still has a fairly large bruise on the sole of her foot.

We saw a lot of the natural landscape that Sardinia has to offer, but we saw almost none of the culture. It was summer and of course tourist season, so almost everywhere we went was covered in tourism. It was hard to see through this mess. However, there were small pockets of cultural insight that we encountered: a man herding sheep on bicycle; old men meeting at their favorite spots for their mid morning chats and sits; local restaurants in every little town, all advertising that they also serve pizza; the occasional topless woman sun bathing on the beach. All of which added to the experience, but I still feel like we missed out on the real Sardinia.

My next few trips include a day in Amsterdam to meet a friend, a possible long weekend in München and Salzberg, followed by another short trip to Amsterdam to meet my Aunt.