Hamburg, Germany: I Can haz Hamburg-er?

A late morning was necessary, as we both wanted to sleep in. I was impressed by how efficiently the space in the hotel room was used – it was a tiny room, but it felt normal. Yet somehow the bathroom was as big as the room itself. Remember this when I get to the Berlin hotel room.

We didn’t have any specific plans beyond what the guy had told us on the train the night before, so we decided to wander to downtown – usually a safe bet. When we seemed confused for a moment, a nice lady offered to show us how to get downtown. I really noticed that Hamburgers (that word never ever gets old) have a distinct pride about their city. It’s not in your face – they just love the place and want to make sure you enjoy it, too!

So after she bid us farewell, we walked towards the Rathaus, complete with obligatory Christmas Market. We were hungry, so we walked around for a bit, found nothing, and then ended up at a different Christmas market, where we enjoyed German pizza (the name escapes me – super flat crispy dough), sautéed mushrooms, garlic bread, pommes frites, and washed it down with warm drinks at a nearby café (and warmed up – I thought Prague was cold. Hah.)

Caramel white hot chocolate!!!: 

We walked off the calories with a stroll around the lake, and had a nice view of the town. Note the Christmas tree in the center of the lake:

 We then decided to take the ferry to nowhere in particular, as we were told we’d get nice views. The views were nice, saw some cool riverside mansions, but nothing especially memorable. We got off at a different stop to walk back to the hotel so we could research dinner and I could get an extra layer of clothing.

We decided to check out one seafood place, but it was the farthest restaurant away on a stretch of seafood restaurants, so we tried just about every place before it as well, due to the fact that was well below freezing. To our annoyance, almost every restaurant was closed for a private party. What the heck?! Totally not used to that in the states…

Cold and hungry, we’d almost forgotten about the original place. We decided it’d be our last shot. Sure enough, it was open, and we had a table within minutes. Our waiter was fun, and he recommended the Northern-German specialty of boiled haddock. I usually only eat raw fish, but I wanted to give cooked fish another try. It was cooked perfectly, though it was served with bones, which made it hard for a cooked-fish-n00b like me to eat. That said, the fish had nice flavor, and was juicy, and it had a nice mustard sauce with it. I’m not sure I’m completely sold on cooked seafood; that said, I’m going to try to start cooking a bit of it at home…

Hamburg has a festival called DOM 3 times a year – we knew in advance that Dom was going on while we were in town. It’s identical to a county fair. Gluhwein was essential, and it gave us some warmth to walk around a lot. During said walk, we saw some priceless stereotypes (I thought Americans stereotyped a lot, then I went to Germany):

People said to check out Reeperbahn, and DOM was right next to it, so we cruised through. Don’t see what the fuss is about, it’s just another “red light” district. But then again, I’m not much into strip clubs, and everything reeked of cigarette smoke. Seemed pretty generic, though. Shockingly, this is not a strip club:

We did want drinks though; conveniently, Felix had looked up a local hangout called the Red Lounge. In fact, the entire room was lit with red lights. Our waitress spazzed and served us pilsner instead of hefe, and Felix was slightly irked. I was a bit entertained as he tried to reason with the waitress, who spoke little English. Felix was obviously right, though, and we had new beers served. After, I had an “Absinthe Dream”, and Felix had a Long Island. I’m not a huge absinthe fan, per se, but it was used just right in this concoction, which had pineapple juice, and some other stuff (I can’t remember). I caught him up on the state of Scrabble, and we enjoyed a not-so-crazy late night. We wandered home around 2.

Our train the next day was not until 3:30, so we had some time to see more of Hamburg. Of course, we slept in again – go figure. Felix was craving a burger; I really wanted to have a burger in Hamburg just for shits and giggles. I’d spotted that Curry Papa had burgers the day before, so we had lunch there. French fries (pommes frites in Germany, lolz) are done so well in Germany, and they went great with my massive cheeseburger. Nom!

We walked through the town to Saint Michael’s Cathedral, which had one of the most epic organs I’ve ever seen.

On the way back was the bombed-out Saint Nicholas Cathedral. It’s a pretty chilling scene – a picture says 1000 words, here. They build a viewing platform in what remained of the tower, so we took the elevator up, and got a foggy, but nice view of Hamburg. It was interesting when the monument spoke about the history of the church, that it spent 75% of the time apologizing for Hitler…

The ruined cathedral: 

Then it was time to get the train back to Berlin, our next stop. We were only in Hamburg for less than two days, but honestly it didn’t feel like there was all that much to do. A nice place, though.

Prague Part 3 + Kutna Hora: BONEZ

When I last left off, it was in the midst of a 4 AM somewhat drunken night in freezing-cold Prague.  4 AM bedtime of course made for a late morning. Nic, Jason (Kansas guy), a guy from Hawaii, and I went for a huge American breakfast – I had 3 eggs over easy, with bacon, potatoes, a mini bagel (it was a bagel place, after all) and hot chocolate. The location was conveniently at the food of Prague Castle – my sightseeing destination for the afternoon.

NOM: 

The student discount for the full Prague Castle tour was 50% off, so I opted for the full tour. At the art museum, some landscape works of Pieter Stevens caught my eye. The second stop was the iconic St. Vitus Cathedral – the stained glass was breathtaking. My other favorite spot was Saint George’s Basilica, which had a very mysterious vibe.

Stained Glass: 

I decided to walk all the way back to the hostel – this proved to be more work than I’d bargained for. I walked down by the river, and decided I’d take the scenic route over the rock barrier to the river. It went for a while then dead-ended. Oops. I finally made it back near the hostel, then took a wrong turn, and ended up over a km from the place. Aargh. I did find it eventually, and collapsed into a chair with some water.

The same 4 of us + an Aussie decided to try the other Czech restaurant we’d been recommended to visit. The place had been brewing for like 600 years or something, and their dark beer was delicious. I finally had GARLIC SOUP (it is as amazing as it sounds!), then Aussie guy and I shared a big plate of duck, sausage, chicken, beef, pork. One of those meals I’ll never forget. Hawaiian guy ordered the 3.3 lbs of meat plate. He didn’t finish it, but made it through a good two pounds of ribs.

Ribs:

Nic and I planned to visit the Bone Chapel in Kutna Hora the next morning (in time for me to hit my train to Berlin), so coupled with the fact that most of us were already hungover or just dead tired (I was in the latter category), we didn’t go out partying that night (others did, of course). We watched Pulp Fiction in the lounge, instead.

We did somehow wake up in time to get the train to Kutna Hora. It was the first day I experienced snow in Europe, and it was definitely colder than the previous days. We trudged down the road to the cathedral, and were pretty blown away by how eerily amazing this place was. There were THOUSANDS of skulls, and thousands more bones (I want to say 40,000 bones, or so maybe?). Just think, every one of those skulls was a person at some point. Each one of them had some story, from a different time, and I just wanted to sit and have a conversation with a few of them (I made some funny faces instead, oops). The main chandelier was made up of at least one of each bone in the human body. We even had the whole place to ourselves for 20 minutes before a big tour showed up – which was just enough time to take in the energy, and maybe make some silly faces with the skulls. I might be going to Hell now…anyway, I’ll leave you with a couple pictures to try and recreate a bit of the awe-inspiring environment by which I was enveloped.

Chandelier:

O hai thur: 

Freezing our asses off, we stumbled into a church nearby, and found out we could walk upstairs. Upon further inspection, we realized “upstairs” included walking inside the roof of the castle – unreal!

Unfortunately, I had to make it back to Prague to catch my train, so we headed back to get the train, stopping at a market on the way, where we had to communicate with the butcher via the weighing scale – ha! I hope the Czech Republic isn’t the European country where if you give the thumbs-up it means something akin to ‘screw you.’ But there was of course time for hot chocolate at the Prague equivalent of Starbucks.

Cool ceiling: 

Then it was time to say goodbye to Prague (I could’ve stayed at MadHouse for weeks, and will likely go back one day), and onto an unremarkable train ride to Berlin. I hope to run into Nic again either when he visits the West Coast one day, or when I finally make it to Montreal one year (I’m thinking Toronto/Quebec trip after the [mid-August] 2014 Scrabble Nationals in Buffalo, NY. We got along really well, and both being on our first Europe trips, and first solo trips, we were both learning to adapt to new environments, so we had that in common, too. A cool guy, for sure.

Felix randomly walked by me at Berlin Hbf. We had train station currywurst, and then stopped to get beer in a supermarket. There, we ran into a Hamburger, who started telling us what beer to buy. We soon realized we were on the same train to Hamburg, so he decided to join us for some beer on the train. He was a fun guy, laughed a lot, and gave us a whole list of things to do in Hamburg. I think Felix and I caught about half of what he said, but his ideas were very good.

Results of the train ride. We tried to at least organize our debris: 

Our hotel was right by the station, and upon arriving at 1 AM, passed the heck out.

Prague, Part 2: A Mad, Mad House

OK so I am home from Europe, and I have written almost the entire blog. But I decided I wanted to wait for pictures, and wasn't going to have them on my computer until I got home, hence little posting in quite awhile. I'll try to do one a day from here on out...

So after three days of the familiar Scrabble tournament environment, I walked the three km to my new hostel, the MadHouse Prague. And let me tell you, this hostel is probably one of the coolest hostels in the world. It caters to solo travelers, and the “employees” (mostly travelers who never left – including the owners themselves) take everyone out for some kind of nightlife…every night. Plus: cheap beer, a kitchen, a cool hangout lounge, and a really central location, and more. Quite frankly, by the time Thursday came around, I really didn’t want to leave. I wish every city had a place like this one.

I quickly met two travelers my age from Orinda (plenty of mutual acquaintance), as well as a large number of Aussies. Them Aussies are everywhere! That evening, I won five of six games of beer pong (what up), and then we went to a student bar nearby. It was fun, but the cigarette smoke in Prague is pretty crippling for me.

Trolling:

The next day, Tuesday, I finally willed myself out of bed around 11 AM. The shower on our floor was busted, so I had to trek downstairs to clean off – anyone who knows me knows I am useless without a morning shower. Once I was finally bundled up, I made my way to Choco Café, as recommended by Sandy. I had a hot chocolate with a chocolate from the Dominican Republic. But this was unique hot chocolate – it was literally pure chocolate. Overload, but amazing.

 I walked to the Old Town Square, and moseyed through the Christmas Market. Some Czech dude was doing a great rendition of “What a Wonderful World”. I found the meeting point for the free tour, and noticed a couple of my hostelmates were headed towards a different tour. We’d discussed meeting up for this one, so I nudged them in my general direction. It was snowing, but the tour was very informative, and I got to walk all over New Town/Old Town/Jewish Quarter. It’s ironic that the Jewish Quarter is now the swanky, most expensive part of Prague. A couple of pictures of Prague:

Clock Tower:

 "Old New" Synagogue:

After the tour, my hostelmate-now-friend Nic and I wandered into a Czech restaurant. We had some tasty goulash! Then back to the hostel for more beer pong.

Nightlife on this night included drinks at a trendy bar, where I learned some good stories about the MasterChef Australia judges from an Aussie at the hostel who is in the Melbourne hospitality industry. I love hanging out with Aussies because then I can nerd out about MC:AUS.

After drinks, we headed to a rock and roll club, which played lots of newer rock (right up my alley). Nic almost gave himself a concussion when he tried to dance on a table and hit a motorcycle tire, so we retreated back to the corner and talked/drank with some other solo travelers (an organic farm worker from Kansas, and a Kiwi-Perthian. When we were finally too tired to drink anymore, we went for late night burritos (yes, late night burritos in Prague), and then called it a night around 4 AM.

I leave you with this picture:

TravelBlog Special Edition: The SleazyJet-Schoenfeld Extortion Saga

If you want to skip to the punchline of this travel war-story, here you go: EasyJet is a complete fucking SCAM. Don’t be fooled by their cheap façade. Take a train or (ideally) a bus instead.

There are two important things to know about me:

1) Don’t sell me stuff I don’t need.

2) Don’t take advantage of me or the people I care about...

We arrived to the S-Bahn station for Schoenfeld airport about 45 minutes before the flight to Geneva. We knew we were cutting it close, but we didn’t realize that the S-9 train that goes there is notorious for not following the schedule.

So Felix goes with his carryon luggage to the flight, and I wait in the short line to check my baggage. I finally put my baggage on the counter, and the guy tells me to bring it to a different counter. I bring it there, the guy complains that I have no tag, and then sends me where I came from. Then another worker lady informs me that I have missed my flight (note: it is 8:25, my flight leaves at 8:56). I think this is ridicuious, and she continues that checked luggage ends 40 minutes before the flight ends, I take no issue with this policy in theory (and I did show up 35 minutes before the flight), but when she insulted other people later for not knowing these rules ahead of time, I was appalled as it says NOTHING about the 40 minute rule on your boarding pass. Maybe it said it online when I bought my ticket, and if so, I claim responsibility for that, but for fucks sake, put it on the bloody BOARDING PASS.

So this lady clearly wants nothing to do with me. I seem to remember EasyJet doing some sort of gate-checked luggage. I ask if I can do that, and she says yes (note, she didn’t OFFER to let me do this, which I find pretty annoying). It will costs me 50 euro to gate check my bag at the gate. Well shit, what are my other options? I ask how much it will cost if I skip the flight. She informs me that I will have to pay a flight change fee, which I recall being at least 50-75 euro. So OK, I’ll eat the 50 euro, there’s still hope.

She runs my credit card. Doesn’t work. Debit card. Doesn’t work (yes - I called BofA before my trip, and they know I’m in Berlin). She’s clearly annoyed with me, and then three guys come up behind me also late for the same flight – and they’d come from POLAND – a 3 hour drive. So now I ask, thinking I’ve run out of nine lives here, if I can pay cash. I CAN? REALLY? Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? Fortunately, I have a 100 euro note left over. Hope is still alive. She sends me to the ticket counter so that they can complete the cash “transaction” (extortion is a better).

Finally I have everything set, and can go through security. As I leave, I hastily explain to the Polish guys to ask about gate checking, but I’m not sure they knew what it was, and I had to look out for myself at that point because it’s now almost 8:40.

First lady has no idea what gate checked luggage is. Fortunately I get across what is going on to her, and get into the short line. In line, people are willing to cut to the front. Of course now I can’t bring on any of my liquids, which makes me really sad, as I had to give up a present I was planning to bring home:

My best friend Noah’s step-grandpa has been very sick for awhile, and I had bought some bottles of Flensburger Pilsner in Hamburg (Flensburg is said step-grandpa’s hometown) to take home with me for Noah’s family. But no, gate checked luggage counts as hand luggage. Of course the baggage lady has to be rude about this fact. Not sure if it’s the same way in the states, but the guy actually checking the baggage offers to split the beers with me, which is normally a funny joke, but I’M TRYING TO GET MY FLIGHT. She glares at him, takes my beer, and scowls at me again. Everyone in line is yelling at her because this rule is clearly groundless.

But fine, it can’t be changed. I HAVE TO GET TO MY FLIGHT. I inform the guy that my flight is in five minutes, and he laughs. Thanks for the well wishes…It’s funny, I’ve primarily had only good experiences with TSA workers in the US. No issues in Canada either. First time at a European airport…OK well n(airport)=1 + n(workers)=5 or so are pretty small sample sizes, so I’ll reserve judgment. And maybe I can find some Flensburger in Zurich, or something!

Up to this point, I can’t fault you if you truly think this is entirely my fault. If you’re one of those people, I hope you’ll pay full attention here:

So I spring to my gate, arriving about 8:50, and the ENITIRE FLIGHT IS UNBOARDED, and herded like sheep into a tiny RyanAir gate. Felix is incredibly relieved to see that I’ve made it. In fact, the flight is pretty clearly delayed. So I WAS in fact there within 40 minutes, but EasyJet opted not to update the departure time to reflect the fact that we wouldn’t be leaving on time. If they had, I would not have been charged 50 euros, and could’ve checked my bag. Instead, I gather that my bag was the first fucking bag on the plane.

Not to mention that my lungs are all fucked up from all the smoking I’ve had to be around the last 10 days, so I’m completely out of breath, and now don’t have my bottle of water. Actually, writing this an hour later, I STILL haven’t had any water. Just on principle because I’m not paying EasyJet another fucking cent for water (2.50 euro for a bottle, to be precise).

We ended up boarding our flight 20 minutes late. As I described above, if I checked in 35 minutes before a flight that is 20 minutes late, that should be like saying I checked in 55 minutes before my flight. But thanks to EasyJet, that delay was not registered, and I almost missed my flight, and essentially bribed them 50 euro to get on the plane. See it however you want – 35 or 55 minutes, and you want to tell me I’ve missed my flight? Fuck your company.

While we were waiting in line, Felix relays his own annoying story. EasyJet allows one bag of a certain size onto the plane. He has a backpack and a piece of luggage. So the lady who didn’t know what a gate-checked bag was (and works security at an airport, hah), got mad at him for that. So he puts the backpack in the luggage, with all his stuff in it. This of course makes everything OK - *sigh*. When he got to the gate, they made the same stink, as he’d taken his backpack back out. He said that the gate lady was shocked when she found out he could just put his backpack in the luggage. But he’s flown EasyScam many times before, and knew the rules of the game, so he was prepared.

Of course when we did board the flight, I got to experience EasyJet’s wonderful boarding procedure. Assigned seats, let people board all at once, from the front AND back of the plane. Because that strategy will work SO, SO, SO WELL. Has nobody taken a psychology class? A math class? Any class that will give you any idea how people operate? I guess not. So the flight took a good 30 minutes to board, and I guess the plane was sitting there in the below-freezing water, that they had to spray the plane with hot water. Because that sight is really reassuring. I did luck into an aisle seat somehow – I’ll take the small victory. Anyway, we eventually took off, and the Polish guys were nowhere to be seen – shit.

Not really sure if I can dispute anything since I paid in cash. I’m out about 75$ US, but I’m on the flight, and so is my baggage. It’s a war story alright, all a part of traveling, but I’m pretty disappointed in this airline.

I guess the Easy in EasyJet simple means that when they’re done using you, and extorting you, you’ll feel so easy. That’s more or less how I feel right now. The irony of this situation, is that the only reason I immediately thought to ask about gate-checking my bag, was from reading myriads of horror stories on the internet about EasyJet’s baggage policies, back when I was buying this ticket in September. Yet again, Yelp [and other customer service sites] don’t lie. My research saved my ass, even if I did have to pay out my ass for it. Yet again, I have adapted and problem solved a situation on my own in a foreign country – that means I’m maturing, and staying focused, which means this trip is continuing to be an incredible success.

I will never fly EasyJet again. If you are traveling in Europe, I hope you will think twice before flying with this extortive company because what they do is just not OK.

Anyway, I get to Geneva tonight, spend tomorrow in the city (SWISS FONDUE TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!!!!), Wednesday on the train (stopping in Berne and Lucerne, I believe), Wednesday evening and all of Thursday in Zurich (CouchSurfing – the cheapest hostel is 50 euro!) My host seems incredibly kind, and is even willing to put up with the fact that I have to get up to go to the airport at some ungodly early hour Friday morning – and she lives near the airport, and is picking me up from the train station on Wednesday. Awesome.

For about an hour there, I really felt like I’d had it with Europe and was ready to come home…but nah, traveling rules and I’m excited for my three days in Switzerland!

On the whole, the people we met in Germany could not have been nicer. The unprompted advice and kindness we were shown by people who clearly love the cities in which they reside, natively or not, was really warming to Felix and me (amongst the freezing weather!)

And to those of you world travelers out there (I’m looking at you, Jesse Day) what’s backpacking without some absolutely inane travel complications?

Oh look I failed at travelblogging

So when I last left off, I had one day left in Vienna.

Matt and his girlfriend wanted to see the Freud museum, so we decided to have lunch at a pay-as-you-go student-loved Pakistani place (4 stars on yelp). It was fantastic. The Freud museum was very cool, though I wish they had talked more about the cocaine part of Freud's existence.

After, I split off to go visit a cafe. I ended up at the touristy Cafe Central, and had sachertorte + hot chocolate. Very rich, but tasty, and a fun experience.

I then got completely lost trying to find the Rathaus. Eventually, I got back within the range of the first district's free wifi, and found it eventually. It was absolutely gorgeous, and the Christmas market was pretty cool, albeit dominated by tourists. I took some pictures, and then headed back to the flat.

Matt and I went to a student run Christmas-drink party, where we met up with one of his friends, as well as some couchsurfers he knew from Portland! I had gluhwein (yum!) and punsch (fairly yum, as well!) It was very cold, though, and they ran out of alcohol, so we headed to a local bar, and shot the shit for awhile. Eventually, it was time for bed, though, as I had my bus ride the next morning.

Fast forward to the next morning. Finding the bus was really easy! I talked with a guy from Winnepeg, and then sat down in my seat. The seats were clean, the bus was pretty new, the personal TVs worked great (I watched Fast Five), they gave free hot chocolate, and the bathroom was easily accessible. A brief stop in Brno, and we did it all again (minus the movie part - was feeling more like music).

Arrived in Prague, and got a little bit confused with the tram system, and eventually just took the metro to Vysehrad, near the tournament hotel, and walked to my hostel. I was very happy that I had my own room to chill in. The owner was so kind - she was older, and said 'please' after every sentence. Unfortunately, the grocery store was not where she said it would be, so I was forced to wander around until I found a corner store. Apparently the corner stores in Prague are run by Vietnamese immigrants, so they don't speak Czech OR English...

I bought what I thought was herbed cream cheese, but it turned out to be horseradish flavored. That + some salami and bread was dinner. I wasn't really all that hungry, anyway. I went to bed late, studying words and watching Breaking Bad.

I'm going to skip the next two days (Saturday/Sunday), as I really have nothing to say about the Scrabble tournament. This is a travel blog, not a Scrabble blog. I will pick up from my walk to the new hostel (Monday evening) in my next post. In real time, I am leaving Prague tomorrow, and should be able to catch up on the train ride to Berlin, tomorrow.

I am exhausted, and sick of the cigarette smoke. The cigarette smoke in Prague is overwhelming. My voice gets hoarse everyday.

I'm growing up so fast...

They say that new experiences abroad help you to cope with new situations, and give you new perspectives. Already today, I handled the unforeseen issues really well.

I decided not to stay at the Corinthia Towers in Prague. My dad was willing to cover me for the event, but when I found a quaint little hostel a pretty 1 km from the hotel that had private rooms for $24 US/night, that seemed a much better strategy. Knowing how my colds work, I should be recovering by Friday, and good enough to stay at the MadHouse Monday-Wednesday. Granted, that won't be the same as the weekend, but playing Scrabble all day, partying all night, and being sick? That could end horribly, and I've accepted that plans change. Though that said, I think I have a fever right now, and my colds don't usually involve fever. *shrug* - I'll pay close attention to it in the coming days. It would be nice not to be sick during the Scrabble tournament - you know, with getting really sick during this year's Nationals after seizing a two game lead halfway through the tournament, but again, I'll do what I can.

It's almost 11 PM, and I woke up at 4:45 AM, so my hope is that I will adjust a fair amount tonight. That is, if I can make this fever go down. Oh ibuprofen, you and your many uses. We'll see.

Anyway, this evening I was able to book all of my remaining bus/train rides (at good prices!), change the hostel for part 1 of Prague, and update my budget completely, so despite feeling like I am burning up, I am really happy with myself for handling this situation maturely, effectively, and intelligently.

But I did get out today and do some fun stuff!

I had a street-stand debreziner in a tasty roll, and then Matt and I headed to the north outskirts of town. There we hiked up into the Viennese vineyards, saw panoramic views of Vienna, and sat and talked for awhile, basking in the view, and enjoying the 50ºF weather! Seriously, I could've worn shorts today, but it's gonna be the warm-highlight of the trip...things are about to get colder.

On the descent from the vineyards, I took one hill a bit too quickly, got my foot stuck under a small root, and went flying. Jeans got a bit muddy, but I fortunately missed all the rocks.

The tram ride home was a fascinating glimpse into the relationship among and betwee between Austrian school children and immigrant Turkish school children - right after Matt had told me about the growing diversity and influx of immigrants into Austria.

We stopped at a supermarket on the way home, and Matt inquired as to whether I might make some guacamole (we'd been talking about health foods, fruits, veggies, etc.) Apparently Austria's avocados are from Israel, and they oxidize right before your eyes - though once you add the lime juice, the process is delayed greatly. It turned out well, and the flatmates really enjoyed it! One of them, Felix, made a zucchini soup, which was much welcomed for my sore throat. Delicious. Also had .65-Euro supermarket pizzas that were actually pretty darn good. Matt dips his cheese pizza in ketchup! I was blown away! Interestingly, Heinz ketchup is much more expensive in Vienna.

We were going to have punsche at a Christmas Market tonight, but it seemed like it would work out better for everyone tomorrow, so instead I got the productive stuff done.

OK yeah I'm not feeling so well, and I've been staring at this CPU WAY too long. ibuprofen time!

Also: just got a CS invitation in Zurich from a rather pretty girl who is brand new to CS and has no friend or references. I'm gonna assume she is legit! :)

What did I get myself into?

Flight summary: I didn't sleep on the flight to Dusseldorf. I slept at Dusseldorf airport for 2 hours, then boarded my flight to Vienna, and kinda slept. AirBerlin was pretty darn good for a budget airline - the food was edible, seat next to me was empty, there were entertainment systems, wine turned out to be free, and the attendants were very nice.

I found my way to my host's flat in the outer neighborhood of Simmering with no trouble. Don't be fooled by the name, it is very cold in Simmering. The building was pitch black, and the door #s were hard to read, so it took me a good 15 minutes to find the correct flat. But I did eventually! I met my host and his housemates, we talked for awhile, and then I went to sleep around midnight. Kinda fell asleep between 12 and 4, then was wide awake until 7, when I finally conked out until 1:30 PM. Shit.

Oh, and to make matters worse, my body began feeling rundown as well, after going over 50 hours with hardly any sleep. At the time I thought I was getting sick, but as I write this, I think it's just me being rundown.

So once I finally got out of the house, I did some touristy stuff. I visited Schonnbrun Palace, and St Stephen's Church. It is quite something to ascend from a downtown metro station only to see a massive church in front of you. Pretty cool moment.

After, I made my way down a shopping street to the Haus der Musik, as recommended by Kenji. I spent a good three hours at this interactive museum, refreshing myself on the Viennese schools of classical music, how hearing works, and trying lots of cool experiments with soundscapes, wave modulation, etc...I went fairly late, so it was pretty empty, although a big group of tourist kids caught up to me and made too much noise (I am a crotchety old person, yes), so I ended up letting them get ahead of me so I could enjoy the rest in peace. My body started to give out, so I soldiered on with ibuprofen.

Upon getting home, my host was back from his exam, and he and I + another housemate talked music, and jammed/rocked out to some SOAD. He then made an austrian soup for dinner. I hadn't eaten since the flight to Dusseldorf, so I had a can of Ottakringer and four bowls of the soup. We talked US (he recently CSed down the west coast) and Austria for a couple of hours, then the housemates and I played some Mario Kart before bed.

I was out instantly around 12:45. And then I woke up at 4:45 AM. And never fell back asleep (writing this almost six hours later). My ill-symptoms hadn't gotten any worse, and they always do if I am actually sick, so I'm pretty sure that there is no contagiousness in me - I'm just rundown. And look at the evidence - it doesn't lie.

But I made the decision to change my booking in Prague. I had 6 nights booked at a crazy party hostel, but I fail to see what good could come of staying in a party hostel during a weekend when I'm recovering from being rundown. In fact, I could potentially make things much worse. And I'm supposed to take the Scrabble tournament seriously, right?

So I changed my reservation at the hostel for Monday-Thursday, where it should be slightly tamer during the week. This of course leaves me with nowhere to stay Friday/Saturday/Sunday night. Worst case scenario: I shell out a lot of money for my own room at the Corinthia towers. Best case scenario: someone still needs a roommate. But I think staying at a calm hotel will work better than a crazy party hostel. Also, I just found out that the temperature in Prague will be below freezing, so even more reason to lay low over the weekend.

I really didn't think I'd have this much trouble adjusting. I guess it really is that much harder going East than West - I didn't have this problem in Thailand! I know I sound like I am complaining an awful lot, but I am glad I am here, and am excited for this trip. I just want to finish adjusting my Prague plans so that I can be at more peace with my updated situation. The 45 degree F weather in Vienna is just fine though, and it's only partly cloudy today - and 50!

Gotta get ready to go now - meeting up with my host downtown for some street food, and then he's going to show me a good viewpoint of the city. Maybe I'll hit up a cafe afterwards, but I want to call it an early night tonight. Gotta get my mojo back, and not let this rundown-ness turn into an actual sickness. Will update.

Why this trip?

I already mentioned that I'm trying to make more spontaneous decisions in life, and just do stuff for fun, without thinking too much about them. So that is a central theme of this trip, but there are some goals I hope to achieve.

In a sense, this is a solo trip. Yes, I will travel with Felix for 4 or 5 days, and I will see Scrabblers that I know in Prague, as well, but I am doing this journey on my own, and I want to see what happens.

See, traveling alone scares the hell out of me. I've always been convinced that I'd only have fun traveling if it was with my friends. My time in Southeast Asia last year was so amazing in part because I got to experience the whole thing with friends. But I also met lots of cool people in Bangkok, a few of whom I'm still in contact with a year later. So maybe this sentiment is true, or maybe I'm just nervous to travel by myself. I intend to find out what traveling alone is really like.

So with that in mind, I am going to try out two methods of lodging: CouchSurfing and hosteling. I will be CouchSurfing in Vienna this week, and hosteling next week in Prague. They're definitely different ways of traveling, but I am excited to see how they work out. I also plan to CS in Zurich at the end of my trip. I'll be staying with some Austrian dudes this week. Should be cool?

Anyway, I guess there isn't that much deep I hope to get out of this trip - I mostly just want to challenge myself to try taking a trip on my own, especially if I ever want to consider LIVING abroad...

That and I'm trying to envelop this idea of living a spontaneous life. This trip is possibly the most spontaneous thing I have done, so we'll see.

For now I'm just exhausted. I can't wait to be at my host's house in Vienna, so I can get a good night sleep, and start out strong Tuesday. Assuming they are open, I intend to visit Schonbrunn Palace and Haus der Musik. And eat food. That's all I got for now though.

Oh, and I'm talking with Felix right now, and it looks like we are buying tickets to Hamburg, so I'll see two German cities this trip.

OK - enough blogging, time to get ready for the flight. Thanks for following along! :)

So Apparently I'm Going to Europe...

I guess this is my pre-departure post...been kinda busy.

At some point in September, I decided I would take a medium-sized trip to Europe in November/December. I'd sent my friend Felix, an eternal postdoc at the U of Geneva (I think), a message saying I was thinking of coming. After talking for many hours over the next couple of days, I decided to cross the Atlantic for the first time. It's weird - looking back over the last two months, I don't even remember when I decided to take this trip. This realization is a good thing, I feel, because it shows that I'm calming down, and just doing stuff without deep reasoning, just because I can, and I should WHILE I can. So here I am at gate 101 at LAX awaiting a flight to Vienna via Duesseldorf - my first trip to Europe.

My itinerary for now:

11/26-11/30 Vienna, Austria (Bratislava, Slovakia?)
121/30-12-6 Prague, Czech Republic
12/6-12/10 Berlin, Germany (Hamburg?)
12/10-12/13 Geneva + Zurich, Switzerland

Transatlantic flights from LAX were $816. Fantastic. Unfortunately roundtrip flights to LAX proved to be extremely shitty, at almost $200. So in the end I save ~$100, but fly on "airberlin", which seems to be a low cost carrier not offering many perks. So in a sense, it was a colossal failure, as I likely could've flown something like Swiss Air from SFO for not that much more than $1100. Oh well - live and learn!

But on the bright side, I got to see my friend Sandy's new gorgeous Malibu house. This place is seriously cool, with some crazy bathrooms designed by the glassworker who built the house. We also played two games of Collins Scrabble (as a warmup for the Mind Sports Invitational Scrabble Tournament, which we will both be at). I averaged 590, and played words like TAGMEMIC, BURLESK, and BEDLAMS. Sandy then provided me with pork belly, prime rib, duck, and risotto. Consider me sated for the 11 hour long flight ahead.

The sun came out in Malibu as I was headed back to the airport, but the iconic drive down PCH is always fun.

I've arrived plenty early for my flight. I've heard horror stories about the 6kg max weight of carryon baggage, so I've checked my new pack, and brought a Scrabble bag as a carryon. I don't think they weigh tuff at the gate, and my carryon looks smaller than everyone else's anyway. On top of that, I also secured an aisle seat for the transatlantic flight. I'm not sure if it's a control freak tendency, or just a desire not to inconvenience people, but I strongly prefer aisle seats for any flight longer than an hour or two. I just like knowing I can get up whenever I need to - no need to worry about someone sleeping in the way of my ability to get up and walk around. And I'm such a crappy sleeper on planes anyway that it's no trouble if someone next to me needs to get up. I actually asked if I could get a seat in an emptier row towards the back. As of when I got the ticket, I think the lady was able to fulfill my request, but I guess we will see when I board. Unfortunately, there are no outlets on airberlin, so I'll just have one charge worth of laptop to study as many words as I can. I also have a short book to read, my phone full of music, and hopefully SOME rest. I've also heard that personal entertainment systems are only onboard some of airberlin's fleet. I'd think there would be for transatlantic, but we'll have to wait and see.

I effectively pulled an all-nighter last night, trying to pack appropriately. I bought a backpack a few weeks ago designed for, well, backpacking. My goal is to travel lighter, and more efficiently. In Asia last year, having a huge carry bag and a small backpack did NOT work. So yes, my back will get a workout for the next three weeks, but it's a great quality pack with good support, and is quite comfortable. Anyway, I finally had all my stuff packed by about 3 AM (wake up time = 5:40 AM), and then realized I'd overpacked. So I took out a shirt, some socks, a heavy hardback book :(, and some other stuff I deemed unnecessary, and got the weight down to something more reasonable, before finally getting a little rest between 4:30 and 5:30 AM. So I've been kind of a zombie today, and my nonlinear narrative in this post indicates zombification. I don't think I ever realized just how heavy my laptop is, even though it's still lighter than most PCs. There really is something to be said for getting an iPad...

Anyway, I'll stop this post here, but will write a separate second post now before I step on the plane...My intent is to write another travel blog while I'm in Europe. No promises, but I'll try. I finished the entire Asia trip blog...and only three months late! Feel free to bug me...

A taste of Hong Kong (and now I want more!)

Gabe and I snuck out of the Pan-Pacific Manila at probably 4 AM. Jesse was still tossing and turning, but definitely asleep. We decided not to wake him, as he had a two day layover in Tokyo he'd likely want to be rested for.

For the first time on my trip, I forgot to tell the taxi guy to turn on the meter. We had to endure an overpriced cab ride with a driver who was annoyed we decided not to get to the airport three hours early. Whatever man.

We knew about the airport tax at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, so we passed through security and customs with no problem. Gabe had been moved up to business class, so when we got to the gate, he tried to get me moved up. As it turned out, business class was full. Or so we were told.

As I handed in my ticket to board the plane, the gate worker took my boarding pass, and then wrote a new seat number on it. 9E? wow that sounds like...BUSINESS CLASS!!!!!

So yes, I had gotten moved up after all. I got to enjoy another super comfortable seat, warm towels, and unlimited juice in the short flight from Manila over to HK. Definitely helped to get a little more rest before going nonstop for a day. There was "only" 12 hours or so between the landing at HK and when we had to be back for Gabe to catch his flight to San Francisco (his 2nd layover). :)

But Gabe knows the city well, so once we got off the train in the city, we were all set to have dim sum. At the train station - a joint called Tim Ho Wan. Yes, a Michellin-starred dim sum restaurant, at the train station.

10 AM. Dim sum. GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!!!!!

We had a bunch of classics, and they lived up to my every expectation. Granted that the majority of my Canada/stateside dim sum expeditions have been with Gabe, or James (another dim sum connoisseur), I shouldn't be surprised that the renditions I have had on this side of the Pacific have been fantastic. But even so, I was still blown away. I was equally entertained by the fact that the people eating on either side of us were Chinese tourists from Vancouver.

From there, we walked through the city. Strangely enough, the streets were only kinda overrun by people - "dead" by Gabe's standards. It felt a little bit San Francisco-y to me, except for the fact that it was clearly Hong Kong. And I was actually THERE!

Our walk led us to the ferry across the water to Kowloon. After a nausea inducing jaunt across said water, we made our way into Kowloon. We didn't have enough time to see everything, so at Gabe's request, I made the decision that we would focus on food. Gabe knew of a famous wonton [soup] place in the middle of tourist town, so we made our way there, along the way getting lost in the bajillions of Indian dudes trying to sell me Rolexes and suits. If I had more time, I may have gotten a suit, since they can be cheap - maybe next time.

Somehow we found our way to the place, Chee Kee, and sat down to enjoy what turned out to be the best wontons I've had. The nomming continued.

Afterwards, we walked back to the subway, and returned to HK proper. Gabe was on a mission to find egg tarts. We stumbled upon a bakery after walking past Occupy: Hong Kong (a bunch of people asleep in tents). Gabe had the last egg tarts in hand, ready to pay, when a man came out from the back with a piping hot tray full of fresh ones. Audible! Audible! I went for an onion roll, which I had previously tried in the Convoy district of San Diego. It was amazing. I almost got a second one, but I wanted to save room for more food.

I tried the egg tart, though - amazing.

At this point we had to start thinking about making our way to the tram up the mountain. We had a planned 5:00 PM meetup with Sandy and Joe, who were in Hong Kong for a few days. At this point it was after three. We decided to take the double-decker trolley back towards the center of the city. I started to nod off, until I saw this bus, which made me smile.

And as I looked around after we passed the bus, Gabe pointed out a place that served xialongbao. Long story short, we made a detour, and stopped in for xialongbao, and more dumplings. Pretty much the last essential food could now be crossed off my list. Okay there were probably more foods, but this was essential. The restaurant, Din Tai Fung, also Michellin-starred, exists stateside, too, but according to dim sum master Gabe, it's actually reall, really good in HK. Consider me sold. I'd like to note now that there is plenty of food porn from my brief excursion to Hong Kong on my facebook album for this final stop of the trip.

xialongbao!

That's four trips to eat now, if you've been counting, and three of them were quite large. I'd also eaten some breakfast on the plane. But by the time we'd finished, we were clearly late to meet Sandy and Joe. We scrambled around trying to find a cab, and finally jumped in one, to race to the trolley station.

When we got there, the line was huge. Instinctively, we wondered if we'd even be able to find Sandy and Joe. Yet somehow, as soon as we get out of the cab, there they are, also having recently arrived. Sometimes you do find needles in a haystack - immediately.

We agreed it made most sense to just cab it up the mountain. It was foggy, but by the time we'd paid and maneuvered our way up to the viewpoint, I was not disappointed.

The view of Hong Kong from the mountain truly is one of the most incredible urban views on the planet. I had planned on the view being the last big event on my trip, to sort of put everything in perspective (amazing views have a way of doing precisely this, for me), and sure enough, I felt a wave of clarity come over me. Somehow, everything made sense, everything was real. I went through with this trip, and I felt like an ever so slightly mature person.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any really good pictures, so I'll leave you with my best effort. Ultimately, the memory was what I wanted, and it seems probable I will return to HK again, likely with a camera that isn't six years old. So I didn't feel all that bad leaving without pictures. Kowloon and the mainland were a bit obscured by fog, but the experience felt just as magical.

Yeah, that's Gabe's camera. Look at what mine came up with:

Regrettably, I couldn't stare out at the city forever, and we had to make our way to the airport. We thought about having more food, but honestly, our stomachs just couldn't take any more.

Soon it was time for Gabe and I to part ways - he to catch his flight, me to go wait three hours for mine. Once I was settled in my seat at the gate, the emotions started to overtake me. I was incredibly excited to return home - five weeks on your first trip is quite a lot! And one of my best friends, a different Jesse, was meeting me at SFO to visit for a few days. But at the same time, the trip was over. I was ready to go home, but I wasn't ready for the adventure to end. I actually made this happen. 6 countries, 4 travel buddies, and many new friends later - I had undoubtedly the best five weeks of my life.

As I finally finish this blog, months later (yeah yeah, I got lazy), the travel bug is eating away at me on the inside. I'm dying to eat, drink, and backpack my way through Europe. I'm itching to become absorbed in China and Japan. To make my way through Peru and Brazil. New Zealand. Vietnam. Hell, anywhere.

I want to get back out there as soon as I can. I want to travel with friends again, as I struggle to decide if I could really backpack on my own. I want to see more of the world. And now I know it's possible.

I don't know what's next, but it will be something. I appreciate from the bottom of my heart those who traveled with me, the people I met, and even the people following along from home, wishing me well. This trip was more than I ever could have imagined, and I wish it never had to end.

That's all I got. I'll try to blog my next trip, whenever that is. Thanks again for following along, and if you ever want to travel with me, do not hesitate to ask :)

Love always,

dacrON

The thought-provoking "city" of Manila

Yeah yeah, I know, I failed to finish the blog. Aarrghh. Well here - I'm going to finish it now. I'm only what, three months late? Not bad! :)

We had added Manila to the trip when we realized we could extend the trip with doable flights by a couple days. The Philippines wasn't the top place on my list to visit, but when I found out we could add it in, I was pumped. It was cool to not know what to expect about a city, at all. It was only two days, but I got a good feel for the city in that time.

So if you'll recall, I was getting rather sick. But I wasn't about to let that slow me down. We had barely checked into our hotel at the Pan Pacific in Malate before we were off to go explore the town (okay fine, we took a swim first). We were all exhausted after having spend the previous night on a train from Vientiane to Bangkok, but we wanted to at least get a little exploring done, to have some ideas for the next two days.

We wandered around for awhile, before stumbling upon a local bar. We ordered some beer and "satays". Now, we were accustomed to SE Asian satays. We were not expecting what we got. Actually the chicken intestine turned out to be pretty good. The other pieces? Not so good - no idea what it was even, cartilage?

But the sickness was catching up with me. Even Gabe was feeling sick. Not to mention we were all exhausted.

I'll leave out the details, but I didn't sleep well that night, and had to break out the azithromycin. Thanks to Matt Canik for entertaining me during those painful early morning hours.

I knew Gabe and Jesse were excited to see the city, so I decided to buckle down and enjoy everything as best I could, given the condition of my body.

There was a nearby mall, so we stopped in to get lunch before heading out to explore. Manila was beginning to make an impression on me. Gone were the crazy malls of Bangkok. Yep - this mall felt like it was straight out of the states. And the restaurants at the food court? Well let's just say my stomach was relieved to have Sbarro over chicken intestine. It's totally cool to see stuff like Jollibee everywhere.

Gabe fulfilled a Krispy Kreme craving, and we then took a cab to the Intramuros (I guess I'd describe it as the Spanish Quarter?), and walked around, with no general direction in mind.

It was some point during this morning that I realized that despite the similarity to the US, it was going to take time to get used to seeing so many people armed with firearms.

We stumbled across Fort Santiago, and decided to walk through it. In a truly busy city, Fort Santiago is an extremely peaceful escape in the middle of it all. While there was a lot of walking involved, I did get to sit down and rest some, and get some nice pictures (didn't say high quality).

When we next went to search for a cab to go to Makati to meet Jesse's new friend Roxy for dinner, the drivers laughed at us. "You want us to take you from the Intramuros to Makati at rush hour? Yeah, right!"

Finally, an older gentleman volunteered to take us. He was uneasy about it, but could tell we were frustrated. Sure enough, the traffic was like nothing I have ever seen. NYC rush hour has nothing on Metro Manila. It took us two hours to get from the Intramuros to Makati, almost an hour late for dinner - a drive that wasn't more than a few miles. Our driver looked crestfallen that he'd agreed to a price that would've been fair during off-peak hours. He didn't have to ask - we paid him double, and even THAT felt like highway robbery (so I think we tipped him on top of it). But during the ride, we did get to talk with him about what it's like being a cab driver in the metro city. He said that with gas prices and traffic, it's sometimes hard to justify even taking passengers to some locations. I personally didn't see how he could profit, but he assured us he was working incredibly long days to support his family. But his chin was up, and I give him props for that. I also had mad respect when he started taking side-street shortcuts - driver after my own heart.

Thank the lord I didn't have to pee this entire time...seriously so thankful.

Roxy just laughed when we finally found her. We sat down to catch our breath and have a beer before going in search of dinner. We settled at a place called Fely J's. Unfortunately, I was still sick, so I didn't eat nearly as much as I would have liked - especially as Filipino cuisine is really adventurous, which any other day of the year would be fantastic.

I did get to at least try everything, though, and it was good, but my stomach was more interested in being totally lame. It was cool to talk to Roxy about growing up in the Philippines, as well as our common interest of Ultimate (she and Jesse had met at a tournament in Manila just two weeks before). Jesse also turned into Santa.

After dinner we found a bar to grab some beers and relax. Jesse ended up with a Happy Horse beer (google it). My stomach was screaming at me to go to bed, but with the trip so close to ending, I wanted to savor every last minute. It soon became apparent though that shennanigans were about to go down. And soon enough, Roxy procured two balut eggs. Again, Wikipedia it. Jesse had tried it before, and I couldn't believe he tried it again. Gabe also went for one full force, and can now wear the title of "FEATHERS" proudly. I already am not a big egg fan, and was still feeling sick. I just had to wimp out here, and I don't regret it one bit. And then Roxy had to have some. Best facial expressions ever!

Eventually, we decided to call it a night, and parted ways - Gabe, Jesse, and I taking a cab through a notorious red light district, hehe.

I went to bed that night praying I'd feel better the next day - I wanted to be able to gorge!

And somehow, that next morning, I felt better! It was a Manila Miracle!

Lunch (we slept in) was at the Filipino institution of Max's Restaurant. Being not a fan of bone-in chicken (lame, right?), I had a beef stew, which was very tasty. The chicken looked great too. We split a dessert sampler, which had all sorts of goodies, including, unsurprisingly, delicious flan.

Then we went to Goldilock's to go polvoron shopping. Polvoron is a Filipino shortbread cookie which is a popular food given as a gift. We stocked up to bring back to our friends at home - undoubtedly some of the people reading this got to try it. I know my best friend, Noah, went through his box in about two days.

Next it was time to go to the Imelda tour, at the Cultural Center, which we heard was supposed to be amazing. You can imagine how silly we felt holding 6 bags of polvoron throughout a two hour tour. Ah, well. Anyway, the tour turned out to be fantastic - the guide was engaging, intelligent on the subject matter, and hilarious. The subject matter is essentially the Marcos-era of the Philippines through the eyes of his wife Imelda Marcos (yeah, the lady with all the shoes). The take home message, said the tour guide, was to ask yourself if the Philippines really were better off without the dictatorship - with democracy instead. This question confirmed a lot of the feelings I had wrestled with over the past two days, and put a lot in perspective for me. Do I have an answer to this question? No - I don't know that much about the country, and would be trying to sum up an entire people through a two day excursion. That'd be wrong to do on so many levels, but that said, I do talk about some of my thoughts below.

But this tour was incredible - if you should find yourself in Manila, you must must must must sign up. I will remind you of this at the end of the entry.

Dinner that night was with Gabe's college buddy, Merrill. We left a bit more time on this evening, and didn't have too much trouble with traffic. We met at a mall in the seemingly wealthy Bonifacio Global City. The "mall" (it seemed never-ending) was extremely high end, like something out of Beverly Hills. The restaurant we ended up, Abe, at was a part of the same restaurant group as dinner the night before, coincidently.

Fortunately, I was ravenous this time. We gorged on dishes including the most DELICIOUS lengua (beef tongue) I have ever had. I think I had fifths, on it. Dessert included halo-halo, which is...uh, a conglomeration of tasty stuff (read: Wikipedia it - bottom left of dessert pr0n below). It's possibly the strangest dessert of the planet, but it sure is tasty! Not to mention more amazing flan...

After dinner, we had to catch a cab back to Malate as we all had to get up early the next morning for our flights - Gabe and I at 3:30 AM!

But there were a lot more people than there were cabs. We couldn't get a cab at the taxi stand, figuring we'd be able to hail one down more easily. 75 minutes later, we were half a mile from the mall, in a desserted, but clearly part of the same extremely wealthy neighborhood, on a street where a cab was a rare occurrence. We made irrational decision after irrational decision, but eventually got that cab. Should've stayed in the taxi stand - oops.

We settled in for the night, knowing the next day was going to be super long. One more day and one more city of the trip lay ahead.
___

Manila was the most thought-provoking part of my trip. I'd like to insist that I mean no offense by any of my following comments to my Filipino friends.

It felt to me that Manila (perhaps the entire country) is in the middle of an extended identity crisis. As Merrill explained to me, the population is somewhat segregated into 4 or so wealth classes. These classes are very distinctive - I was constantly being solicited by homeless people, yet dinner at the mall in felt like I was at Fashion Valley in SD, or third street in Santa Monica. There was no attempt to hide the disparity - it was undoubtedly there. It's not like this is a unique occurrence in the world, but it was my first experience dealing with it so blatantly.

Additionally, it was clear that the infrastructure was really old, and there were transportation issues that so clearly needed to be fixed. Also, reading about the corruption issues was telling. Not to mention the amount of armed security guards roaming the streets. And the hyper-capitalism everywhere.

This is the best way I can sum it up: Manila felt like the US without rules. On one hand, I'm not sure how safe I felt, but on the other hand, it was so much more lively and exciting than the states. Positives and negatives added together usually come out to a positive, and Manila is no exception. It was a whirlwind of an experience, and I have to say I'm really excited to see how the city develops as time goes on. I don't know if there is a city quite like it on this Earth, and I encourage anybody in the area to visit. If you don't leave feeling thoughtful, then you haven't had the Manila experience. And TAKE THE IMELDA TOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best money I spent all trip.

Maybe I'll go back someday - Cebu Pacific Airlines offers cheap flights to and from Manila and many cities in Asia. I'm so glad I went, though. And if I did, I'd go beyond the city limits, even if the US government does tell me that's not such a good idea. C'mon, who doesn't want to go to Borracay?

P.S. is there a gene in Filipino people that enables them to make freaking amazing flan? Talk about a PhD thesis that needs to happen...

Vientiane: A Taste of Urban Laos

When we last left off, we had just arrived in Vientiane. We took a taxi to the hotel we hoped we were staying in. As it turned out, the only room they had was a loft suite, so we broke down and paid an extra $20 USD for what turned out to be a ridiculous room.

For some reason which I cannot remember, we decided to ask James for advice on where to go. James has never been to Laos, but of course he had a recommendation!

We were very hungry after our huge lunch at the Xiengkhouang airport just hours before (the wearing off buzz and the 45 minute flight made it seem like 8 hours, when really it was more like 2). So we set off for the Vientiane streets to try and find Makphet. I encourage you to visit the website and read about what they are doing. It's totally awesome.

We had no reservation for dinner, and didn't really expect to get a table, and after getting lost for twenty minutes, found out that there were in fact no tables available for the evening. But then the manager said, Well you can sit upstairs if you want, but we don't really have enough servers for you and you will not enjoy your experience.

He seemed so apologetic, but we rather had our hearts set on eating here. And looking around the room, it was clear that we had beaten the dinner reservations (it was only about 6:00 PM or so), so we decided to eat upstairs!

Not only was the service great, it was some of the most attentive service I have had at a restaurant, ever. Our food was served promptly, yet we were not at all rushed. And we had the entire loft upstairs to ourselves, which was nice - we could just spread out and relax. After the Phonsavan escapade, a nice meal was really all we wanted.

My favorite dish was the water buffalo stew. Really a step up from the low quality of beef in South East Asia.

The rest of the food porn from this meal can be found on my facebook page. This was truly a delightful meal, and exactly what I needed. So good.

This was our only night in Vientiane, so after dinner we walked over to the night market on the river. Te night market is clearly the happening place in Vientiane. Everybody was out on a Tuesday night with perfect weather. We walked down the steps getting closer to the Mekong, and I had one of those moments of reflection staring out across the river to the Thai side. I didn't have all that many chances to stop and think about the last month, but it dawned on me that I had arrived in Thailand a month ago, already, and that this trip was almost over. I was getting so used to the quirks as well as the friendliness of the Lao PDR, and heading back to Thailand, even if it was just passing through, already felt "normal", as if I was returning home...

...but the ambling through Vientiane was not yet over, as we walked up the riverwalk and saw the big statue dude:

It's basically a statue of a Laotian farmer holding his hand out to greet you, and honestly, I think it's a nice representation of the Lao locals we ran across in our 9 days here. Everyone was just so friendly.

Walking back to the market, we may have decided to be those nerdy tourists who went on the swing set and teeter-totter that just happened to be there. Photo evidence exists on a camera that isn't mine. We'll see when Jesse or Gabe posts pictures *nudge nudge*.

After that, it was bedtime. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

We woke up bright and early to go explore the city some more. We only had until about 3:30 PM until the journey back into Thailand began, so it was up and at 'em.

You have to keep in mind that Vientiane is the only "big city" in all of Laos, and really it's population is similar to San Francisco proper (JUST the city). But the "big city" vibe here is akin to what I'd feel the "big city" vibe is like in Fresno. Vientiane just isn't a very fast moving place. There's not a lot of big tall buildings, stuff is fairly spread out, and the pace of life isn't that quick.

Our research prior to the trip suggested there wasn't all that much to see in Vientiane, and in hindsight, there's probably some truth to these reviews. It's a really nice city, absolutely worth a stop if you're in the area, but unless you just love visiting wats, there's not too much to do in the capital city itself - the adventure lies in the country's interior, as I hope my blog has aptly described!

So for most of the morning we did in fact walk around and look at wats. Wats are really pretty, and Buddhism is a fascinating philosophy, but after awhile, the wats start to blend together into some sort of wattage.

Our aimless wandering happened to lead us in the right direction for touristing. After stopping in a market to buy a loaf of bread (which was promptly devoured), we walked up what was unmistakably the country's widest road, towards the Laotian Arc de Triumph.

But first, the other best sign of the trip:

Once we arrived at the structure, we walked up the stairs to get a view of the entire area. As I mentioned before, Vientiane is pretty spread out, so the city seemed to expand infinitely.

We had time for about one more tourist stop in order to save time for my one request in Vientiane, so we tuk tuk-ed over to the main tourist attraction, That Luang. I guess after going to Doisuthep in Chiangmai, That Luang wasn't quite as impressive as I'd hoped, but I suppose it's still pretty cool!

In all reality, I was starting to get rather hungry and dehydrated, and really wanted to make sure we had time for the final stop before we left Laos. That's right, we had to have lunch at Hungry Burger! And as it turned out, we did have enough time, since it was reasonably easy to find and close to our hotel. Feel free to read my review (yes that's right, I have a blog about cheeseburgers!) of this oddly Portlandesque food cart!

But after a taste of home, it was time to leave Laos. I'll spare a lot of the details, but it was another small fiasco filled with changing vehicles, language barriers, and overall general confusion. One moment of note was that we shared a songthaew with a bunch of Aussies who had clearly just come from Vang Vieng (the tourist party town 6 hours north of Vientiane). They asked us why we would ever skip Vang Vieng on a trip to Laos, and went on to explain that it was such a cool time - only 14 ODs in 2011! OK, so I admit, I did kind of want to spend a night in Vang Vieng, but we only had so much time, and I couldn't be happier with how we allotted that time.

Eventually, we took the only train in the entire country across the border into Nong Khai, Thailand. Here's a final view of the Mekong, denoting this part of the Thai-Lao border:

After crossing the border, we found a place with Pad Thai across the street from the train station, and we all chowed down before boarding the overnight train to Bangkok.

Actually, the overnight train was pretty nice. I took my first sleeping pill, and was comfortably sleepy the entire night. I actually quite enjoyed the experience, and would totally take a sleeper train in Thailand again, should I have more time than I did this time around :)

I'll throw in one more story here, since there is a bit of a travel day at this point in the trip. When we arrived at the Business Class lounge at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, we all took nice warm showers. I then promptly went in sandals, a t-shirt, and shorts to sit in the lounge which understandably had the AC blasted. Long story short, I gave myself the chills, and spiked a fever on the plane. Fortunately, I was pretty confident that I had self-inflicted myself with chills, so I didn't worry too much about the symptoms (except when the Manila Airport informed me of mandatory temperature checks - which never happened).

I also got my worst case of bad food at this point too. I can only assume it was that the tasty lounge food had been sitting out a bit too long, or wasn't cooked enough, as I felt quite sick the next couple of days. I was proud of myself for not freaking out too much, given the awkward timing (getting the chills/fever at a similar time to a case of food poisoning). Logic works, self! :)

But I won't leave out the free Thai massages that business class travelers receive. They hire the best of the best. What an absolute treat.

So that concludes the Laos portion of my trip. I still can't believe I went there, and I wonder if I'll ever have the opportunity to go back (and if so, who knows what it will be like!). The days were winding down, and it was almost time to come home. But first, a completely unexpected Manila experience!