The random photo album with some images of Luxembourg and this final sweep through Benelux.
Before we left for this short excursion, I contemplated the extra space in my massive Kelty backpack. The extra payload was necessary for hauling the tent, but it still had plenty of flapping fabric. I wondered aloud if there were any comforts that would make my backpack more shapely. Marty looked down at the air mattress he had spent the night on. “We could bring this.” Normally when I sleep in a tent I have a thin ¾ length Thermarest offering me minimal lumbar support. The mattress seemed excessive, but it might fit.
Cut to urban campsite in Brussels. After setting up my tent, which is starting to show its age and experience with bleached colors and exposed fibers, I unrolled the massive mattress and started stomping on the foot pump. The pump has a long, ribbed, plastic tube that connects to a valve on the mattress. As anyone who has spent some time at a carnival or amusement park where crinkled straws are sold will know, ridged plastic makes a piercing whistle whenever you blow air through it. With every pump, the tube screeched and I felt like every other camper had their eyes trained on the prissy American who needed his eight inch thick mattress for a good night’s sleep. With every whistle I wanted to explain “I’ve hiked the AT!” Weeeet! “I’ve slept on top of a scorpion!” Wheeet! “I’m a friggin’ geologist!”
But the next morning as the alarm started chirping, I felt like hauling and pumping the thing - and all the soreness and embarrassment this decision might have caused - was absolutely worth it. I was sleeping outside and more comfortably than I do on my low German-dorm-issued cot. The only problem was things had gotten a little damp. The night before I had rolled open a flap near our heads to let the interior breath a bit. During the night and early morning a slow, drenching rain had moved through as slow drenching rains are want to do in this part of the world. We had happily slept on while our jackets and daypacks soaked up the invasive drops.
The rain made for a messy escape, but we had everything rolled up in time to catch our train at the Gare de Luxembourg station in Brussels which was right next to the EU campus. The plaza in front of the parliament building is named for the other capital of the EU making for some confusing train schedules as we tried to figure out which way was up (“We need to get to Gare de Luxembourg in Luxembourg, is that the same as this Gare de Luxembourg?” “Why are you asking me as if I would have a clue?”). As we searched for the station I was able to bust out the one French phrase I command on an unsuspecting grocer, “Excusez-moi, où est la Gare de Luxembourg?” I received some hand waving in a left-ish direction. It was enough to get us to the train where we slowly chugged half the length of Belgium and Luxembourg in three hours.
Normally I wouldn’t mind a chance to sit and read or journal with new European scenery whizzing by the window, but we didn’t grab breakfast before leaving Brussels (we thought it might be at the station. Turns out the “Gare” is pretty dead on a Sunday morning.). We wouldn’t arrive in Luxembourg until 1PM and there were no food carts on our comically small train. So we grumbled audibly while our stomachs did likewise.
We had two missions in Luxembourg: Get food and find the Internet. Marty still hadn’t heard from his friend. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out my evening, anticipating a call from Dr. Sander from the University of Bonn. After my “History of Creationism” talk the previous Tuesday he invited me to meet Don Lessem, a visiting American journalist-turned-dinosaur educator who makes it his life’s work to get the wider public interested in the past. We had vague plans of meeting for dinner Sunday night. As Marty searched for wireless access (a scarce commodity in these parts of Europe) I received a call to meet at the Institute at 6:30PM. That was about what I expected. What I didn’t foresee was a meager train schedule. I suppose Luxembourgers are just as reluctant as Belgians to leave the homeland. I would need to leave at 2:25 if I wanted to make it to dinner in time (key to the first impression). If I missed that, the next train bound for Germany would make me wait around 1.5 hours.
So, after a three-hour haul across Benelux, I only had an hour-and-a-half to explore before I needed to abandon Marty. We had to get moving. We crossed the soaring bridge to the Old Town and searched for a place with traditional Luxembourger fare, whatever that is. We found a trendy, but rustic restaurant with a potato dish that looked hearty and local. We sat down and a waiter, who suspiciously raised an eyebrow at our presence, laid out a tablecloth and presented the menus. We made our decisions and started glancing at the clock. Slowly we realized this wouldn’t work. Our preferred dishes would need to be baked. We only had an hour and hadn’t received our drinks. Time slipped away. Yeah, we had terrible luck with service and we just needed to take our stomachs into our own hands. So we got up. We also felt terrible.
What impression were we leaving of hassled Americans? We wanted to explain that we wanted to sit and savor good food, stretching our Sunday lunch into a three-hour excursion into the culinary offerings of Luxembourg. That there needed to be more trains looping through this part of the world. But we couldn’t explain. There was no one around to tell.
So, we moved on to a bakery recommended by Lonely Planet where soups and salads were the standard, quick bill-of-fare. We thought we would order at the counter and be filling our shrunken stomachs in ten minutes. Instead we found a seating area with knots of old women and couples lounging around Pottery Barn tables, savoring their coffee and not acting like they had a train to catch. We made our selections from the on-table menu. No one came for ten minutes. Cursed and hungry, we departed again doomed to roam barren Luxembourg for enternity. At least this time we were assured no one heard our accents and no national stereotypes were perpetuated by our actions.
We crossed the street and entered a kebab stand; the preferred first stop of most twenty-something males exploring Europe’s geography, but not its culinary variety. We had the thrill of ordering döner kebab in an ornate basket topped by delicious French fries (I will freely admit that I never expected Europeans to fully grasp the power of the fry. I’ve been proven wrong on multiple counts.). Filled with grease and mystery meat, we turned and power-walked back towards the train station (never a good second step after filling with said meat). With only a few minutes to spare I grabbed my luggage and hobble-jogged to my waiting train. Marty remained to try for contact one more time before leaving for Stuttgart and his final preparations before leaving for home this week.
Two weekends earlier, when I made a last-minute decision to visit Luxembourg, I consoled myself with this thought as I rolled out of town without walking through the diving chasms or lush gardens: I would be back soon with Marty and plenty of time to exhaust the micro-state of its riches. Well, the trains had other plans. At least I can say I’m intimately familiar with the route between the Old Town and the distant train station.
I got back to Bonn with just enough time to drop off my gear and hustle to Dr. Sander’s office. He was still discussing sauropod research with Mr. Lessem and I got to eavesdrop on the interview. I experienced the wonder these massive animals inspire one more time before hopping the Atlantic Ocean. Dinner was at a biergarten along the Rhine that I checked out back in October. The dogs and children romped and the barges chugged by while we discussed science education, how sauropods got their crazy necks, and the art of navigating Chinese regional politics. What more can you ask for from a good dinner?
And thus concluded my final European Continental excursion. As I type this I have about one more real week in Germany before I grab a flight to the island of Ireland and the arms of my Carolyn. The next few posts will deal with saying good-bye. Look forward to astute observations on German behavior, my living situation, and lists of things I will miss and things that I won’t. I bet you can just feel those curiosity juices percolating through your higher faculties.
Tschüss!
The album one more time.
Showing posts with label Public Transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Transportation. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A Final Brussels Bout
A photo album that has some Luxembourg, a little Independence Day (a little on that later), and some images of this final border-skipping gallivant. In the next few posts it will all make sense.
I’m feeling nostalgic. I’ve been flipping through digital photo albums from last August, musing on how far I’ve wandered and how little I’ve gotten done. In less than two weeks I say goodbye to Deutschland…kind of. Carolyn is meeting me in Dublin at the beginning of August. We’ll wander for ten days then I fly back to Frankfurt. The next day I fly out again, bound for parts west. So technically, I say goodbye to Germany on the 14th of August, but my real goodbyes have been going on for a while. Here I say goodbye to Continental exploration:
Two weekends ago I took my last international weekend ramble with Marty who you may remember as the Aeronautical Engineer who accompanied me to Prague, Vienna, and Copenhagen. His stated goal in taking on this Fulbright thing was to visit every country that borders Germany. There are nine. Can you list them (hint, how well do you know your WWII trivia?). In case you missed one or two, here’s the rundown: Denmark, Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands. He had knocked seven off the list leaving Luxembourg and Belgium as the only obstacles to his Circumnavigation of Germany Merit Badge.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to accomplish this goal. A jaunt to Krakow or Warsaw will have to wait until I take a trip to Eastern Europe to check out Russia, Estonia, Poland etc. at some distant, as yet determined time (I have determined it will be at a time when my wallet isn’t quite this lean). But I'll be damned if I was going to watch someone else get so close to this noble goal then stumble at the finish because no one wanted to see Brussels. So, I was going back to Belgium.
Marty met me in Bonn. Both of us had spent the previous week furiously working on our projects since our time is quickly winding down. Our preparation for the weekend basically consisted of Marty saying, “Hey, I’ll be in around 8. Oh, and we might be meeting a friend of mine in Luxembourg.” So, when he arrived, one would think we would sit down to do some itinerary work. Neh, we had Kölsch to sample.
We bar hopped and re-hashed the following conversation for about two hours:
Me/Marty: I can’t believe it’s almost over.
Me/Marty: I know, isn’t it crazy?
Me/Marty: Yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy.
When we decided to call it a night, we remembered to check our train times. We would go to Belgium first, getting there as early as possible, explore Brussels, then drop down to Luxembourg for the night. It was also established I should bring my tent. We didn’t bother to look up campgrounds, but figured we might as well have a place to sleep in case the airport was booked for the night.
We discovered there was only one way to get to Brussels before 1PM (I really don't understand how the city functions with so few connections to the wider world) and that was on a train that left at 8:30AM from Cologne. It would be an early morning, but we managed to drag ourselves out the door and caught the tram to the Bonn station. About 1.5 km from the station, we came to a screeching halt and sat…on…the…tracks for about ten minutes. Our connection to Cologne was long gone.
Desperately we tried to figure out a way to get to Cologne so could catch that 8:30. We had one shot. The our train pulled into Bonn at 8:08 and into Cologne at 8:28, leaving us about a minute-and-a-half to make the jump to our Brussels-bound train somewhere in the massive Cologne train station. We were pacing by the doors as we pulled into Cologne, throwing ourselves onto the platform as soon as the door rattled open. My lopsided, tent-filled pack threatened to take out septuagenarians and four-year-olds as we sprinted down the stairs, got held up by a woman really taking her time with those steps, and up to our Brussels-bound platform.
We hopped onto the train and slowed down to look at the platform’s sign. It declared half the train was headed for Amsterdam, the other half for Brussels. But which half were we on? An overheard conversation told us Amsterdam. We tried to jog through the aisle to make the Brussels section, but middle-aged women carefully arranging their overhead luggage, and giggling tweens clogged the flow. Then we reached a dead end. The aisle terminated into an engine. We hoped off and had the distinct pleasure of watching our ride to Brussels receding to the horizon after disconnecting from the engine we had just discovered. Damn.
We found an automated ticket machine and established that the next train to Brussels wouldn’t get us there until 1:20PM and would involve two half-hour layovers en route. This would be a long ride.
The up-shot was we had a half-hour to kill in Cologne, so Marty and I were able to scamper to the neighboring Cologne Cathedral. Marty was properly awed by the towering height of the Gothic structure and it's soaring windows and I provided a little of my commentary, but not too much. We had the first of three trains to catch.
It dumped us off in Aachen, a German town on the border of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany (where they have the best deals in the Tri-Country area). We had a half-hour. Anyone up for another cathedral?
Back in November I visited Charlemagne’s Byzantine-inspired church and saw his golden casket, but I wouldn’t see it a second time. A couple hundred yards from the steeple we had to scramble back to the station for a ride to Liege, Belgium on a train that somehow timewarped from 1880s Wyoming. The red paint was photogenically peeling from the battered exterior as we slowly chugged across the border to the grungy, industrial city that is best known for its less grungy waffles.
A Liege waffle is an ovoid affair with caramelized sugar grilled right into the dough. We were able to track down this Belgian staple near the space-age station before finally boarding for Brussels.
With three and half hours of travel under our belts we rolled into capital of Europe, a third visit to a city I never expected to see once. Despite previous experiences, there was still confusion over where exactly to get off. Instead of building one massive station as a central hub for trans-Belgian travel, Brussels has three stations. Each sports a Flemish and French name giving a person six unfamiliar words to juggle as they try to plan an excursion. Of course, we really didn’t plan our excursion, compounding our confusion when we stepped off at “Midi” then decided to hop to “Centraal.”
At the station we found out we would need to leave in about three hours if we wanted to make it to Luxembourg to see Marty’s friend who was being frustratingly coy about when/if he would even be able to meet us. After following a winding route that might have doubled as a rat-maze experiment, we dropped our bags and scrambled for food. We managed to take out two-birds with one stone by getting a Frikadeller (fried, meat-ball like sausage) sandwich with fresh Belgian French fries between the bun. I don’t recall the Flemish word for this entree, but I think roughly translated it meant “Heart attack on a bun.” It as also delicious.
As we strolled through the streets of Brussels in search of the Mannequin Pis, Marty managed to find an internet connection outside a bar. He checked his e-mail and found out his friend wouldn’t be able to meet us that night and would shoot for a rendezvous the next day. Through the wonders of technology we discovered we had the rest of the afternoon and evening to spend savoring Brussels rather than sprinting off for a 6th city in one day. This newly discovered time was crucial because Marty had one Belgian goal: sample as many varieties of their legendary beers as possible before moving on to wine-guzzling Luxembourg the next day. With that goal in mind I had a new appreciation for the Mannequin Pis as a symbol of the city.
I led a now practiced tour through the winding Medieval streets of Brussels. I will freely admit I never planned to have the capital so perfectly mapped in my head when I touched down last August, but I can now describe the most efficient path from St. Michael’s Cathedral to the Grand Place. Just in case you need it at some point.
As we swung through the tangled mess that is the seafood café district I pointed out Delirium Cafe, an establishment that holds the record for most available varieties of beer in one establishment. Erin and I checked it out back in February. Marty wanted to check it out today. It was time to start checking brews off the list.
Because it was early in the afternoon, the place had a subdued local vibe with people sitting around massive barrels discussing their beer selections and circuitous routes to Brussels (it’s never direct unless you’re Eurocrat). Marty drank a sweet thing called a “Pink Killer” and I had a Trappist triple. We had no idea where we were spending the night, but we knew we would feel good once we got there.
For a shift from the shadowy subterranean to the roaring ‘20s, I lead the way to Mort Subite, the bar Mike, Tim, and I discovered two weeks earlier, and I would happily revisit any chance I get. The waiters are appropriately brusque and home brewed beer appropriately delicious. The clientele ranged from families of exhausted tourists to elderly, Belgian couples out for some Saturday shopping (who managed to look much peppier than the Italian ten-year-olds).
It was time to sort out where we would rest our heads for the night. While the airport sounded appealing, I was short on digestive biscuits and had hauled my tent along, so I miraculously remembered where the youth tourism office was and inquired if there was a campground within an easy bus ride of the city center. They said they could do me one better and circled a campground within walking distance that called the European Parliament its next-door neighbor. This we had to see, so we went back to the station, saddled up with our gear and started the familiar walk uphill towards the Old England and the Royal Palace.
The U.S. really needs to import some better street performers. I would pay good money to watch something like this parade by my window on a daily basis. To pay up I would put it on my bill.
After a stroll through more suburban Brussels we arrived at the designated address. We saw a small neighborhood church and a cracking asphalt driveway leading into an unseen parking lot. Things weren’t looking too promising. We ascended a short flight of crumbling concrete steps and discovered a storage facility and parking lot that would have worked for a West Side Story set.
I briefly scanned the ground for a tent-sized patch of gravel and pavement without obvious shards of glass. As I tracked the parking lot, Marty noticed a promising sign for “Camping” pointing to an enclosed lot next to the storage yard. We stepped through a chain-link gate and a wild garden spread before us, punctuated by neon rain-flies. This would be a good place to call home…assuming it didn’t rain. We paid our 9 Euro, probably the most expensive camp site I’ve ever stayed in. To be fair, I would be sleeping on the most expensive ground I’ve ever pitched a tent on, so it all worked out.
Following a Lonely Planet tip, we found a tiny pasta café along one of the fashionable shopping boulevards just outside the Old Town. There were three items on the menu: spaghetti carbonara, Pasta Bolognese, and Pasta Marinera. There were three drinks: soda, beer, and wine. Nine combinations yet the waitress brought along her notepad in case things got complicated.
It was delicious and relatively cheap for a mountain of noodles. With a solid base, it was time to pub crawl. As we dove into the winding alleys of Brussels, we heard thudding bass echoing off the baroque façades. We followed the music to the Grand Place where a massive stage had been erected to support a twenty piece band, a half-acre of LCD screens, and a lead singer belting in Spanish. You will understand our confusion when we learned this was in celebration of Flemish Pride.
Belgium is a divided country. The Northern half is Flanders and when they look south to Wallonia, the southern French speaking half of Belgium, they see nothing they like. Okay, it’s not that rabid a rivalry, but there is a political party in Flanders that agitates for secession from the French. This concert wasn’t really a demonstrative political act, it was just an event on a day that celebrates Flemish pride, but I did wonder what the Wallonian perspective would be on the whole undertaking. I guess it’s like going to a Civil War reenactment, or Alaskan Secession meeting, and wondering what people in the North or the lower 48 think. In all probability, no one really cares. They just want spectacle.
And spectacle we got as digital fireworks exploded behind the troop of artists who had performed and now joined voices in what Marty and I assumed was a Flemish standard. The crowd didn’t seem to know the words. Everyone lingered on stage after their bows hoping for a call for encore. None came. The square, filled with mostly subdued gawkers to begin with, quickly drained to the bars. Marty and I followed.
We settled on the pub Marty had used to check his e-mail earlier so he could digitally touch base again. After leeching their wi-fi, it was the least we could do to buy a drink. That is, if they wanted to sell us one. We sat in the Biergarten for fifteen minutes, then a half-hour, then forty-five minutes, praying a waitress would arrive. People around us had beverages, maybe we should go in? I checked after waiting twenty and was shooed out the door by an overwhelmed waitress who had a bachelor party on her hands.
So we sat and waited. There’s nothing as sobering as sitting in a bar without a beer. Another pair was also waiting. We would make disbelieving eye contact then look hopefully towards the door. After a certain amount of time elapses it becomes an investment. You continue to wait because leaving would prove the preceeding minutes were wasted. When our drinks finally arrived we could say we were drinking 3.50 Euros and 45 minutes of sitting worth of Belgian beer. After one we were done with Kwak Café.
Marty enjoys his Kwak, a type of lambic beer named for the sound the liquid makes when it sloshes through the neck.
We were getting tired and ready to collapse into the tent, but decided we needed at least one more authentic Belgian brew in our systems before calling it a night, and Marty had a hankering for some superlatives. Back to Delirium.
This time it was late on a Saturday night. Two floor of bars were operating and the local dive bar had evaporated, leaving a fraternity residue. The place was packed with young tourists from roughly 20 different countries. Indians carried two liter boots of beer, and Canadians drained a dozen varieties before shouldering their way back to the bar for another round. Marty was a little disappointed that the atmosphere had lost a little local flavor. The laughing and people-watching at least re-energized me (along with my honey beer) for the long walk back to the campsite where we could bask in the glow of European Unity and broken fluorescent street lights before drifting into a well-earned dreams of sampling each of Delirium’s 2,200 offerings.
The photo album of random excursions from the final weeks.
I’m feeling nostalgic. I’ve been flipping through digital photo albums from last August, musing on how far I’ve wandered and how little I’ve gotten done. In less than two weeks I say goodbye to Deutschland…kind of. Carolyn is meeting me in Dublin at the beginning of August. We’ll wander for ten days then I fly back to Frankfurt. The next day I fly out again, bound for parts west. So technically, I say goodbye to Germany on the 14th of August, but my real goodbyes have been going on for a while. Here I say goodbye to Continental exploration:
Two weekends ago I took my last international weekend ramble with Marty who you may remember as the Aeronautical Engineer who accompanied me to Prague, Vienna, and Copenhagen. His stated goal in taking on this Fulbright thing was to visit every country that borders Germany. There are nine. Can you list them (hint, how well do you know your WWII trivia?). In case you missed one or two, here’s the rundown: Denmark, Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands. He had knocked seven off the list leaving Luxembourg and Belgium as the only obstacles to his Circumnavigation of Germany Merit Badge.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to accomplish this goal. A jaunt to Krakow or Warsaw will have to wait until I take a trip to Eastern Europe to check out Russia, Estonia, Poland etc. at some distant, as yet determined time (I have determined it will be at a time when my wallet isn’t quite this lean). But I'll be damned if I was going to watch someone else get so close to this noble goal then stumble at the finish because no one wanted to see Brussels. So, I was going back to Belgium.
Marty met me in Bonn. Both of us had spent the previous week furiously working on our projects since our time is quickly winding down. Our preparation for the weekend basically consisted of Marty saying, “Hey, I’ll be in around 8. Oh, and we might be meeting a friend of mine in Luxembourg.” So, when he arrived, one would think we would sit down to do some itinerary work. Neh, we had Kölsch to sample.
We bar hopped and re-hashed the following conversation for about two hours:
Me/Marty: I can’t believe it’s almost over.
Me/Marty: I know, isn’t it crazy?
Me/Marty: Yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy.
When we decided to call it a night, we remembered to check our train times. We would go to Belgium first, getting there as early as possible, explore Brussels, then drop down to Luxembourg for the night. It was also established I should bring my tent. We didn’t bother to look up campgrounds, but figured we might as well have a place to sleep in case the airport was booked for the night.
We discovered there was only one way to get to Brussels before 1PM (I really don't understand how the city functions with so few connections to the wider world) and that was on a train that left at 8:30AM from Cologne. It would be an early morning, but we managed to drag ourselves out the door and caught the tram to the Bonn station. About 1.5 km from the station, we came to a screeching halt and sat…on…the…tracks for about ten minutes. Our connection to Cologne was long gone.
Desperately we tried to figure out a way to get to Cologne so could catch that 8:30. We had one shot. The our train pulled into Bonn at 8:08 and into Cologne at 8:28, leaving us about a minute-and-a-half to make the jump to our Brussels-bound train somewhere in the massive Cologne train station. We were pacing by the doors as we pulled into Cologne, throwing ourselves onto the platform as soon as the door rattled open. My lopsided, tent-filled pack threatened to take out septuagenarians and four-year-olds as we sprinted down the stairs, got held up by a woman really taking her time with those steps, and up to our Brussels-bound platform.
We hopped onto the train and slowed down to look at the platform’s sign. It declared half the train was headed for Amsterdam, the other half for Brussels. But which half were we on? An overheard conversation told us Amsterdam. We tried to jog through the aisle to make the Brussels section, but middle-aged women carefully arranging their overhead luggage, and giggling tweens clogged the flow. Then we reached a dead end. The aisle terminated into an engine. We hoped off and had the distinct pleasure of watching our ride to Brussels receding to the horizon after disconnecting from the engine we had just discovered. Damn.
We found an automated ticket machine and established that the next train to Brussels wouldn’t get us there until 1:20PM and would involve two half-hour layovers en route. This would be a long ride.
The up-shot was we had a half-hour to kill in Cologne, so Marty and I were able to scamper to the neighboring Cologne Cathedral. Marty was properly awed by the towering height of the Gothic structure and it's soaring windows and I provided a little of my commentary, but not too much. We had the first of three trains to catch.
It dumped us off in Aachen, a German town on the border of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany (where they have the best deals in the Tri-Country area). We had a half-hour. Anyone up for another cathedral?
Back in November I visited Charlemagne’s Byzantine-inspired church and saw his golden casket, but I wouldn’t see it a second time. A couple hundred yards from the steeple we had to scramble back to the station for a ride to Liege, Belgium on a train that somehow timewarped from 1880s Wyoming. The red paint was photogenically peeling from the battered exterior as we slowly chugged across the border to the grungy, industrial city that is best known for its less grungy waffles.
A Liege waffle is an ovoid affair with caramelized sugar grilled right into the dough. We were able to track down this Belgian staple near the space-age station before finally boarding for Brussels.
With three and half hours of travel under our belts we rolled into capital of Europe, a third visit to a city I never expected to see once. Despite previous experiences, there was still confusion over where exactly to get off. Instead of building one massive station as a central hub for trans-Belgian travel, Brussels has three stations. Each sports a Flemish and French name giving a person six unfamiliar words to juggle as they try to plan an excursion. Of course, we really didn’t plan our excursion, compounding our confusion when we stepped off at “Midi” then decided to hop to “Centraal.”At the station we found out we would need to leave in about three hours if we wanted to make it to Luxembourg to see Marty’s friend who was being frustratingly coy about when/if he would even be able to meet us. After following a winding route that might have doubled as a rat-maze experiment, we dropped our bags and scrambled for food. We managed to take out two-birds with one stone by getting a Frikadeller (fried, meat-ball like sausage) sandwich with fresh Belgian French fries between the bun. I don’t recall the Flemish word for this entree, but I think roughly translated it meant “Heart attack on a bun.” It as also delicious.
As we strolled through the streets of Brussels in search of the Mannequin Pis, Marty managed to find an internet connection outside a bar. He checked his e-mail and found out his friend wouldn’t be able to meet us that night and would shoot for a rendezvous the next day. Through the wonders of technology we discovered we had the rest of the afternoon and evening to spend savoring Brussels rather than sprinting off for a 6th city in one day. This newly discovered time was crucial because Marty had one Belgian goal: sample as many varieties of their legendary beers as possible before moving on to wine-guzzling Luxembourg the next day. With that goal in mind I had a new appreciation for the Mannequin Pis as a symbol of the city.
I led a now practiced tour through the winding Medieval streets of Brussels. I will freely admit I never planned to have the capital so perfectly mapped in my head when I touched down last August, but I can now describe the most efficient path from St. Michael’s Cathedral to the Grand Place. Just in case you need it at some point.
As we swung through the tangled mess that is the seafood café district I pointed out Delirium Cafe, an establishment that holds the record for most available varieties of beer in one establishment. Erin and I checked it out back in February. Marty wanted to check it out today. It was time to start checking brews off the list.
Because it was early in the afternoon, the place had a subdued local vibe with people sitting around massive barrels discussing their beer selections and circuitous routes to Brussels (it’s never direct unless you’re Eurocrat). Marty drank a sweet thing called a “Pink Killer” and I had a Trappist triple. We had no idea where we were spending the night, but we knew we would feel good once we got there.For a shift from the shadowy subterranean to the roaring ‘20s, I lead the way to Mort Subite, the bar Mike, Tim, and I discovered two weeks earlier, and I would happily revisit any chance I get. The waiters are appropriately brusque and home brewed beer appropriately delicious. The clientele ranged from families of exhausted tourists to elderly, Belgian couples out for some Saturday shopping (who managed to look much peppier than the Italian ten-year-olds).
It was time to sort out where we would rest our heads for the night. While the airport sounded appealing, I was short on digestive biscuits and had hauled my tent along, so I miraculously remembered where the youth tourism office was and inquired if there was a campground within an easy bus ride of the city center. They said they could do me one better and circled a campground within walking distance that called the European Parliament its next-door neighbor. This we had to see, so we went back to the station, saddled up with our gear and started the familiar walk uphill towards the Old England and the Royal Palace.
The U.S. really needs to import some better street performers. I would pay good money to watch something like this parade by my window on a daily basis. To pay up I would put it on my bill.
I briefly scanned the ground for a tent-sized patch of gravel and pavement without obvious shards of glass. As I tracked the parking lot, Marty noticed a promising sign for “Camping” pointing to an enclosed lot next to the storage yard. We stepped through a chain-link gate and a wild garden spread before us, punctuated by neon rain-flies. This would be a good place to call home…assuming it didn’t rain. We paid our 9 Euro, probably the most expensive camp site I’ve ever stayed in. To be fair, I would be sleeping on the most expensive ground I’ve ever pitched a tent on, so it all worked out.
Following a Lonely Planet tip, we found a tiny pasta café along one of the fashionable shopping boulevards just outside the Old Town. There were three items on the menu: spaghetti carbonara, Pasta Bolognese, and Pasta Marinera. There were three drinks: soda, beer, and wine. Nine combinations yet the waitress brought along her notepad in case things got complicated.It was delicious and relatively cheap for a mountain of noodles. With a solid base, it was time to pub crawl. As we dove into the winding alleys of Brussels, we heard thudding bass echoing off the baroque façades. We followed the music to the Grand Place where a massive stage had been erected to support a twenty piece band, a half-acre of LCD screens, and a lead singer belting in Spanish. You will understand our confusion when we learned this was in celebration of Flemish Pride.
Belgium is a divided country. The Northern half is Flanders and when they look south to Wallonia, the southern French speaking half of Belgium, they see nothing they like. Okay, it’s not that rabid a rivalry, but there is a political party in Flanders that agitates for secession from the French. This concert wasn’t really a demonstrative political act, it was just an event on a day that celebrates Flemish pride, but I did wonder what the Wallonian perspective would be on the whole undertaking. I guess it’s like going to a Civil War reenactment, or Alaskan Secession meeting, and wondering what people in the North or the lower 48 think. In all probability, no one really cares. They just want spectacle.
And spectacle we got as digital fireworks exploded behind the troop of artists who had performed and now joined voices in what Marty and I assumed was a Flemish standard. The crowd didn’t seem to know the words. Everyone lingered on stage after their bows hoping for a call for encore. None came. The square, filled with mostly subdued gawkers to begin with, quickly drained to the bars. Marty and I followed.We settled on the pub Marty had used to check his e-mail earlier so he could digitally touch base again. After leeching their wi-fi, it was the least we could do to buy a drink. That is, if they wanted to sell us one. We sat in the Biergarten for fifteen minutes, then a half-hour, then forty-five minutes, praying a waitress would arrive. People around us had beverages, maybe we should go in? I checked after waiting twenty and was shooed out the door by an overwhelmed waitress who had a bachelor party on her hands.
So we sat and waited. There’s nothing as sobering as sitting in a bar without a beer. Another pair was also waiting. We would make disbelieving eye contact then look hopefully towards the door. After a certain amount of time elapses it becomes an investment. You continue to wait because leaving would prove the preceeding minutes were wasted. When our drinks finally arrived we could say we were drinking 3.50 Euros and 45 minutes of sitting worth of Belgian beer. After one we were done with Kwak Café.
Marty enjoys his Kwak, a type of lambic beer named for the sound the liquid makes when it sloshes through the neck.
This time it was late on a Saturday night. Two floor of bars were operating and the local dive bar had evaporated, leaving a fraternity residue. The place was packed with young tourists from roughly 20 different countries. Indians carried two liter boots of beer, and Canadians drained a dozen varieties before shouldering their way back to the bar for another round. Marty was a little disappointed that the atmosphere had lost a little local flavor. The laughing and people-watching at least re-energized me (along with my honey beer) for the long walk back to the campsite where we could bask in the glow of European Unity and broken fluorescent street lights before drifting into a well-earned dreams of sampling each of Delirium’s 2,200 offerings.The photo album of random excursions from the final weeks.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Luxembourg City, or, Crossing Three International Borders in 12 hours,
My alarm beeped me awake just in time to hear a flight bound for Budapest was going to be delayed. I was only a little stiff from a night on an airport bench and felt ready to finally get home. I had a breakfast of chocolate-dipped digestive biscuits and rode back to the Brussels Midi station to catch my ride to Cologne.
The train was a German ICE (high-speed rail) and I felt like I was safely back in Germany as soon as I saw the royal blue upholstery and “Mobil” magazines. We were flying across the Belgian country side, bound for Aachen, a German town on the border, when we had to stop. No explanation was offered. All we could do was stare out the window at the confused horses and sneaky barn cats who took a passing interest in our presence. We continued to wait. Then we backed up on the tracks and waited some more.
Eventually an announcement came over the intercom. There were electrical problems at the Aachen station. It would be a while longer. And it was. After an hour-and-a-half sitting on the tracks we slowly ran backwards to a tiny Belgian station that already had a massive Thalys (an independent French/Belgian/German company) train unloading its passengers. Lemming-like we followed each other around the station and waited by the curb for the buses the conductors promised were on their way. We waited for another half-hour.
Two city buses had been drummed up on a Sunday morning to rescue us. Each was packed with luggage and people (I should note my ICE was bound for the Frankfurt Airport so a lot of people were schlepping some pretty chunky bags) but everyone couldn’t pile on. Another half-hour and another bus pulled up.
We drove across the Belgian border and, 14 hours after I had hoped to do so, we crossed into Germany. I was finally free of Belgium's surprisingly tenacious grasp. Tired and frustrated, the passengers tried to sort out their connections at the Aachen station, debating if they would need a separate ticket to get to the next stop. I had my rail pass, so I just stepped onto the next regional train bound for Cologne. I’ve never been so happy to see the Cathedral pull into view.
I arrived in Cologne just in time for noon Mass. Before going to the service I remembered to check my options for getting to Bonn. In five minutes there was a train leaving for my home Bonn. That wouldn’t work. I wanted to get to Mass. Then I noticed its terminal destination: Luxembourg. My rail pass covered me for the day and it was good for Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg. Only one left on the docket. I was going to Luxembourg. I think God will forgive me.
The problem was I really had no idea what there was to do in Luxembourg. I knew it is a small place and it has a lot of important European Union Buildings and…no that was about it. I also didn’t tear the Luxembourg pages from my guide book to bring with me so I was flying blind.
It took about three hours to get to Luxembourg so I had plenty of time to stare idly out the window, reflecting on the beautiful castles and vineyards that populate the Rhine river valley. I really did luck into living in one of the prettiest corners of Germany.
When the train finally pulled into the station I checked my escape routes as only someone who spent the previous night in an airport can. If I wanted to be home by midnight, I had to leave on the 6:30 train. That left three hours in Luxembourg. It’s small, right?
I stashed my bag in a locker (apparently Luxembourgers don’t worry about their homeland’s security like the British) and found the tourism office. They provided me a map of the city that had all the major sights numbered with pictures of them along the margins. Of course, there was no explanation of the importance of each sight. The map just proved they existed. Well, I wasn’t going to pay for a tour guide, so the map and context clues would do.
Luxembourg takes a lot of pride in its architectural diversity. A street lined with Art Nouveau buildings? Yes please.
I set out along Avenue de la Liberte. I felt pretty free. A street festival was underway with a carousel blasting “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood while seven-year-olds pretended to drive motorcycles and pick-up trucks into each other. Then the ground gave out.
One of the reasons Luxembourg has managed to remain neutral for decades is because it started life as a fortress. The city is perched on a plateau surrounded by rivers that carved deep chasms into the rock around town. Now you cross massive bridges to actually get into the oldest part of the town.
Far below the bridges are parks and entire villages that can only be reached via tight winding roads or Dr. Seuss-like staircases. I could have taken in the view for hours. But, I only had three.
I walked along the valley’s margin and spotted a soaring steeple. If there’s a massive church, I’ll check it out. It’s usually a free art and history museum coupled with a few meditative moments. The church was the Gothic Notre Dame (Luxembourg speaks a dialect of French).
It was renovated throughout the 20th century and didn’t have the ancient, dignified feel of most Gothic churches, so I spun out the front door towards the sounds of live music.
I walked into one of the main squares of Luxembourg City where the town was celebrating Latin Day. Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba had booths set up with freebies and beverages from each country. The stage was being prepared for the next act and mariachi music filled the silence. When I think of celebrating Hispanic heritage I naively imagine a lot of color and dancing with some spicy food and beautiful people. None of these things seemed to be present. There were a few Brazilian soccer jerseys and people were sipping the caipirinhas, a South American rum cocktail. But that was about it. No tango. No salsa. I’m going to the park.
On the site of a fortress from the middle ages sits a beautifully groomed English park where I heard weird combinations of French and German being tossed through the air along with Frisbees. When I got through all the greenery, I decided to see the rest of the European Union. In Frankfurt I had seen the EU’s Central Bank, and in Brussels I saw the Commission and one of the Parliament Buildings. Might as well complete the collection (except Strasbourg, still need to see the Parliament in Strasbourg).
I crossed John F. Kennedy Bridge towards the campus which was originally home to the European Coal and Steel Community, the proto-EU which was established by Western Germany, Italy, France, and the Benelux countries after WWII as a supranational trade organization that would hopefully prevent WWIII. The buildings are showing their age.
Tarnished windows framed in ugly steel and concrete populate the plateau. My impression of the place wasn’t improved by the poor signage and an ambiguous map. Was this the Secretariat of the Parliament or the Court of Justice? Was it just an unsightly building ripe for destruction? Could it be all of the above?
As I grumbled about modern architecture, I took a moment to reflect on the symbolic meaning of these buildings. Nearly sixty years ago, Europe decided it was done beating itself up. People transcended their national biases and worked to build a peaceable community through economic obligations to each other. The EU continues to grow, but has reached the critical point of deciding on a constitution. How much sovereignty should countries be allowed? Should people be Germans first then Europeans or vice versa? It’s big stuff, and it’s fascinating to watch millions weigh in on the role they think government should play in their lives. Then I stopped reflecting. It was time to eat.
I had worked my way into a far corner of the city that lacked restaurants. What the “Eurocrats” do when they need to get a bite after work is beyond me. I pivoted and walked back through town. Because it was early on a Sunday night, most people seemed to be out for drinks. I was still feeling very poor and Luxembourg is a pretty expensive place, so I kept walking past swanky bars and swankier cafés.
Newer additions to the EU campus landscape. On the left is the Philharmonic where they probably play Beethoven's 9th, the EU anthem, on a regular basis. On the right are the towers of the European Conference center. Not sure who convenes there.
I eventually found myself back at the street festival with the carousel. This time it was blasting a country version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Nothing makes me think of good times with the family quite like Madonna. I ordered a Luxembourger sausage – it tasted just like a German sausage – and a beer. My hope was to try the local brew. Again, it would probably taste very familiar, but I wanted to find out. When I got to an empty picnic table I read the label and found out I was sipping Portuguese beer. So much for exotic local fare.
Festivals offer the lone traveler a feast of people-watching opportunities and I tried to take full advantage of my solo status: An exhausted father and his exhausting four-year-old son sat down nearby. They each had a sausage for dinner. As dad dug into his meal, the boy tried to do likewise. The mayo-slathered bun shot the wurst through his tiny fists and onto the gravel. Dad looked like he was on the point of collapse. The boy tried to eat the sausage off the ground while dad shuffled back up to the counter to get another. I watched anxiously as the boy got ready for another bite. Would the meat slip-and-slide its way to the floor again? Fortunately dad intervened at the last minute, breaking the wurst into bite-sized pieces. This scene concluded, I could leave Luxembourg behind.
As the sun set over the Rhine, I finally pulled into Bonn, nearly 24 hours later than I had originally intended. It had been an exhausting trip, the kind that seems impossibly long, the kind where you make a reference to the events of yesterday as if they occurred a week previously. But, as I stood at the Bonn Central Tram Station, I felt like I had never left. Except now I was packing digestive biscuits.
The next day I was back in the office, scrutinizing little fossil claws and feeling like I had just left this routine for a weekend. Regardless of how much time had passed, after all that exploring, it felt good to be home.
Tschüss!
The train was a German ICE (high-speed rail) and I felt like I was safely back in Germany as soon as I saw the royal blue upholstery and “Mobil” magazines. We were flying across the Belgian country side, bound for Aachen, a German town on the border, when we had to stop. No explanation was offered. All we could do was stare out the window at the confused horses and sneaky barn cats who took a passing interest in our presence. We continued to wait. Then we backed up on the tracks and waited some more.
Eventually an announcement came over the intercom. There were electrical problems at the Aachen station. It would be a while longer. And it was. After an hour-and-a-half sitting on the tracks we slowly ran backwards to a tiny Belgian station that already had a massive Thalys (an independent French/Belgian/German company) train unloading its passengers. Lemming-like we followed each other around the station and waited by the curb for the buses the conductors promised were on their way. We waited for another half-hour.Two city buses had been drummed up on a Sunday morning to rescue us. Each was packed with luggage and people (I should note my ICE was bound for the Frankfurt Airport so a lot of people were schlepping some pretty chunky bags) but everyone couldn’t pile on. Another half-hour and another bus pulled up.
We drove across the Belgian border and, 14 hours after I had hoped to do so, we crossed into Germany. I was finally free of Belgium's surprisingly tenacious grasp. Tired and frustrated, the passengers tried to sort out their connections at the Aachen station, debating if they would need a separate ticket to get to the next stop. I had my rail pass, so I just stepped onto the next regional train bound for Cologne. I’ve never been so happy to see the Cathedral pull into view.
I arrived in Cologne just in time for noon Mass. Before going to the service I remembered to check my options for getting to Bonn. In five minutes there was a train leaving for my home Bonn. That wouldn’t work. I wanted to get to Mass. Then I noticed its terminal destination: Luxembourg. My rail pass covered me for the day and it was good for Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg. Only one left on the docket. I was going to Luxembourg. I think God will forgive me.
The problem was I really had no idea what there was to do in Luxembourg. I knew it is a small place and it has a lot of important European Union Buildings and…no that was about it. I also didn’t tear the Luxembourg pages from my guide book to bring with me so I was flying blind.
It took about three hours to get to Luxembourg so I had plenty of time to stare idly out the window, reflecting on the beautiful castles and vineyards that populate the Rhine river valley. I really did luck into living in one of the prettiest corners of Germany.
When the train finally pulled into the station I checked my escape routes as only someone who spent the previous night in an airport can. If I wanted to be home by midnight, I had to leave on the 6:30 train. That left three hours in Luxembourg. It’s small, right?I stashed my bag in a locker (apparently Luxembourgers don’t worry about their homeland’s security like the British) and found the tourism office. They provided me a map of the city that had all the major sights numbered with pictures of them along the margins. Of course, there was no explanation of the importance of each sight. The map just proved they existed. Well, I wasn’t going to pay for a tour guide, so the map and context clues would do.
Luxembourg takes a lot of pride in its architectural diversity. A street lined with Art Nouveau buildings? Yes please.
One of the reasons Luxembourg has managed to remain neutral for decades is because it started life as a fortress. The city is perched on a plateau surrounded by rivers that carved deep chasms into the rock around town. Now you cross massive bridges to actually get into the oldest part of the town.
Far below the bridges are parks and entire villages that can only be reached via tight winding roads or Dr. Seuss-like staircases. I could have taken in the view for hours. But, I only had three.
I walked along the valley’s margin and spotted a soaring steeple. If there’s a massive church, I’ll check it out. It’s usually a free art and history museum coupled with a few meditative moments. The church was the Gothic Notre Dame (Luxembourg speaks a dialect of French).
It was renovated throughout the 20th century and didn’t have the ancient, dignified feel of most Gothic churches, so I spun out the front door towards the sounds of live music.
I walked into one of the main squares of Luxembourg City where the town was celebrating Latin Day. Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba had booths set up with freebies and beverages from each country. The stage was being prepared for the next act and mariachi music filled the silence. When I think of celebrating Hispanic heritage I naively imagine a lot of color and dancing with some spicy food and beautiful people. None of these things seemed to be present. There were a few Brazilian soccer jerseys and people were sipping the caipirinhas, a South American rum cocktail. But that was about it. No tango. No salsa. I’m going to the park.
On the site of a fortress from the middle ages sits a beautifully groomed English park where I heard weird combinations of French and German being tossed through the air along with Frisbees. When I got through all the greenery, I decided to see the rest of the European Union. In Frankfurt I had seen the EU’s Central Bank, and in Brussels I saw the Commission and one of the Parliament Buildings. Might as well complete the collection (except Strasbourg, still need to see the Parliament in Strasbourg).
I crossed John F. Kennedy Bridge towards the campus which was originally home to the European Coal and Steel Community, the proto-EU which was established by Western Germany, Italy, France, and the Benelux countries after WWII as a supranational trade organization that would hopefully prevent WWIII. The buildings are showing their age.
Tarnished windows framed in ugly steel and concrete populate the plateau. My impression of the place wasn’t improved by the poor signage and an ambiguous map. Was this the Secretariat of the Parliament or the Court of Justice? Was it just an unsightly building ripe for destruction? Could it be all of the above?
As I grumbled about modern architecture, I took a moment to reflect on the symbolic meaning of these buildings. Nearly sixty years ago, Europe decided it was done beating itself up. People transcended their national biases and worked to build a peaceable community through economic obligations to each other. The EU continues to grow, but has reached the critical point of deciding on a constitution. How much sovereignty should countries be allowed? Should people be Germans first then Europeans or vice versa? It’s big stuff, and it’s fascinating to watch millions weigh in on the role they think government should play in their lives. Then I stopped reflecting. It was time to eat.
I had worked my way into a far corner of the city that lacked restaurants. What the “Eurocrats” do when they need to get a bite after work is beyond me. I pivoted and walked back through town. Because it was early on a Sunday night, most people seemed to be out for drinks. I was still feeling very poor and Luxembourg is a pretty expensive place, so I kept walking past swanky bars and swankier cafés.
Newer additions to the EU campus landscape. On the left is the Philharmonic where they probably play Beethoven's 9th, the EU anthem, on a regular basis. On the right are the towers of the European Conference center. Not sure who convenes there.
Festivals offer the lone traveler a feast of people-watching opportunities and I tried to take full advantage of my solo status: An exhausted father and his exhausting four-year-old son sat down nearby. They each had a sausage for dinner. As dad dug into his meal, the boy tried to do likewise. The mayo-slathered bun shot the wurst through his tiny fists and onto the gravel. Dad looked like he was on the point of collapse. The boy tried to eat the sausage off the ground while dad shuffled back up to the counter to get another. I watched anxiously as the boy got ready for another bite. Would the meat slip-and-slide its way to the floor again? Fortunately dad intervened at the last minute, breaking the wurst into bite-sized pieces. This scene concluded, I could leave Luxembourg behind.
As the sun set over the Rhine, I finally pulled into Bonn, nearly 24 hours later than I had originally intended. It had been an exhausting trip, the kind that seems impossibly long, the kind where you make a reference to the events of yesterday as if they occurred a week previously. But, as I stood at the Bonn Central Tram Station, I felt like I had never left. Except now I was packing digestive biscuits.
The next day I was back in the office, scrutinizing little fossil claws and feeling like I had just left this routine for a weekend. Regardless of how much time had passed, after all that exploring, it felt good to be home.
Tschüss!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Breaking with Britain
As my train rolled back towards London I realized I didn’t really know much about English art (Feel free to gasp in horror). I can rattle off the names of famous Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and Dutchmen (I really am the coolest kid at every party), but I was at a loss when it came to my direct cultural ancestors. It was time to remedy the situation, so I pointed myself towards the Thames and the Tate Britain, the home to British art preceding the 20th century.
The imposing facade of the Tate Britain. You know you're in London because they're are more columns than they have in Greece.
One of the advantages here was I could briefly drop my bag. They suggested a two pound donation at the bag check. Someday I will come back with many more pounds in my pockets. But today I was running low and the bag check man got merely a sheepish smile of thanks.
The exhibit moved chronologically through art history, demonstrating how trends on the Continent affected the British Isles. The staples of British art are the portrait and the landscape. Britain had a wealthy middle to upper class and it cherished a good family portrait over the mantle.
The landscapes reveal the deep British love of the natural world. Parks today are maybe cynically seen as a kind of human domination over nature. I think the English garden gets at a deeper British desire not to dominate nature but to interact with it. There’s a reason wealthy gentlemen occupied their lazy days by playing naturalist. Catching butterflies and identifying mosses allowed a gentleman to get outside to explore the countryside. As Americans, lovers of open spaces and natural beauty, I think we own our British cultural ancestors our thanks. Even if it means looking at a lot of landscapes in oil paint.
In the 18th century British nobles, especially young men, started taking jaunts across the European continent. This gave them a taste for Classical and Renaissance art. Over the last couple of years I’ve become a happy advocate for the Grand Tour. It’s been a blast and listen to learn to ramble about art and culture.
A 19th century sculpture outside the Tate Britain that was...
Clearly inspired by this massive sculpture of Dirce on display in Naples. The Brits know how to take notes.
The Brits started fusing all these influences, creating compelling sculpture and luminous Pre-Raphaelite images that sought to throw out Renaissance and Mannerist ideals, creating “true” images that captured Nature as it is. They also started illustrating British mythological and legendary figures, seeking a rich ancient English culture that was as fascinating, but distinct from, the mythology of the Continent. J.R.R. Tolkien might have been influenced by such thinking when he wrote The Lord of the Rings, his version of English pre-history.
Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. This is Pre-Raphaelite painting at its pre-est Raphaelite-est. Anne of Green Gables was a fan.
Then I wandered into the William Blake room. My first encounter with Blake came at the Cincinnati Zoo where they have his poem “The Tyger” on display in the Cat House. In seventh grade we belted an arrangement of this poem. Somehow I missed this man’s biography. I just thought he liked “Tygers.”
He was a painter, poet, and printer who is probably best known for this iconic image of God (or Urizen) as the divine clockmaker:
He was a proto-Romantic in the mid 1700s who held an intense, spiritually infused perspective on the world. He saw contemporary figures like Nelson, Pitt, and Newton as Biblical warriors in combat with chaos and evil, so he illustrated them as such. In a dim room above his print shop he exhibited a series of 17 paintings depicting Biblical scenes, historical scenes, and images from his own rabid imagination. Each image was accompanied by a poem or extended, rambling essay. At the time he was basically considered a nut. Now he’s a genius.
Nelson taking on the Biblican Leviathan (and Napoleon) while whereing his briefs.
The Tate exhibits many of these 17 pictures with better lighting and excerpts from his original descriptions. Wandering through that room was a chance to immerse myself in the mind of a creative personality who I hope to get to know a little better when I get closer to an English language bookstore or library.
My final goal for my day was a trip to the National Portrait Gallery. In my previous trips to the city I heard the name and ran the other way. Who wants to spend their afternoon looking at a bunch of blank faces? Well, either I’ve gotten wiser or just more boring (you don't need to weigh in on that). Now this sounds like a great way to while away some time in London and maybe brush up on my English history.
The walk from the Tate Modern leads along the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and through Trafalgar Square. I passed monuments and hoards of tourists on my walk.
A memorial to the women of world war two who hung up their hats and gave the Nazis the old one, two.
I felt exhilaratingly independent following my feet. Please note that I enjoy the company of a travel partner, but there’s something to be said for an unanalyzed reaction to a new place. There was no effort to discuss where I was going or how I would get there. I could simply act without justification.
Nelson holding court over the double-decker busses and wandering tourists.
Unfortunately my glowing sense of independence was quashed when I got to the Gallery. They would only be open for another half-hour and they didn’t want new ogglers clogging the guards careful removal of patrons from each gallery. Oh well, there was walking to be done. Unfortunately storm clouds were gathering ominously as I walked through the theater district one more time.
Bent over a map I heard an American family debating the merits of a cheap theater ticket kiosk.
Dad: It says ‘official seller’ over the door, Honey.
Mom: Yes, but this place has too much…glitz. It’s supposed to be less…glitzy.
Me: Are you looking for the half-priced ticket booth?
Mom: (A little confused about this American-accented loner suddenly imposing himself on a domestic dispute) Yes we are.
Me: Well if you go back to that big square (waving towards Leicester Square) that’s a big, wood-paneled…kiosk. It’s called TKTS and I think they’ll have what your looking for.
Mom: Well, we walked by that, but the guidebook says there’s a clock tower, and we didn’t see a clock (subtext: You’re holding a damn map and all your luggage. You clearly have no idea where you are let alone where we are.)
Me: Oh, well, I know you’ll find half-priced tickets there. Good luck!
If they didn’t want my advice, let them wander through the storm. I toyed with asking what show they were going to see. Probably Grease or We Will Rock You. Yes, I judge people for such things. Let them get soggy. I had a train to catch. Oh, and there was a clock on the roof of the kiosk in the square. It even had a half-crazy homeless man staring up at it trying to get his watch to match the second hand.
One last ride through the underground and into St. Pancras where I blew my final pounds on a meat pie because Sweeney Todd is never far from my mind when I’m thinking about his city. I also made the key decision to grab a pre-packaged sandwich and a package of digestive biscuits (in classic British fashion, these mealy cookies taste better than they sound).
The best part of my return via the Chunnel was the security check before boarding that got me a French passport stamp. One of the tragedies of modern Europe is open borders have largely obliterated passport-stamp collecting. Any excuse to get more ink in my book is welcome.
Three hours and one time zone later, I was back in Brussels and hustling towards the long distance train tracks, hoping I wouldn’t have long to wait before going East towards Cologne. Turns out I did have some time.
Normally I’m on top of my train schedules, but I guess when I scheduled my return from Britain I just assumed there would be German-bound engine waiting for me. While I can’t praise German rail enough, their personal door-to-door service has a ways to go. Apparently the last train to head for Germany left at 7:20. I was somewhere under the English Channel when that thing took off for home. There had to be a way to escape Belgium via night train or regional rail, right? It wasn’t that late.
Maybe Belgians just see Brussels as a place you would never want to leave. The next train leaving for anywhere else in Europe wouldn’t depart until 6AM the next morning. I was stuck in Belgium, information that was presented on a confusing French and Dutch chart in a dark corner of the station. I weighed my options. I could stay in the station. I had friends who had done as much in Munich and Bern and had lived to tell the tale. Then I saw two thugs start to tussle and frantic security guards sprint down the terminal. Hmmm.
Then a gentlemen who hadn’t bathed in three months sat down next to me and hungrily eyed the laptop I had opened to double check train times. Yeah, not staying. It was also a Saturday night. Hostels would likely be booked. I only had a few cents on my cell phone anyway and only a few cents in my pocket. So I made a last-minute decision to get out of the train terminal. I would head for the airport terminal and never tell my mother until I safely survived a potentially stupid decision.
The final express train for the airport was leaving in a minute. Hobble-running up the stairs, I dove onto the last car as the tired ticket-checker gave the engineer the “all clear” whistle. For fifteen minutes we chugged through Brussels and finally pulled under the International Airport. I checked my morning schedule and rode the escalator into the departures terminal with bored business travelers who were catching the Red Eye for parts distant. I was just looking for a bench.
Behind the elevators I found a secluded ring of lightly padded seats for weary fliers. One row was already taken by a young couple who appeared to be backpacking Europe. She was lying across several seats with a sheet pulled up to her neck. He was on the floor in a sleeping bag, already snoring. Perfect.
I found a vacant spot, ate a few necessary digestive biscuits and lashed all my luggage to the bench. My original plan was to be secure in my bed in Bonn by this point but I had to break the oath I had made to myself that morning. I set my alarm for 6AM. I had a train to catch…
Stay tuned for the epic struggle to break across the Belgian/German border and finally return to my much-neglected fossils!
The imposing facade of the Tate Britain. You know you're in London because they're are more columns than they have in Greece.The exhibit moved chronologically through art history, demonstrating how trends on the Continent affected the British Isles. The staples of British art are the portrait and the landscape. Britain had a wealthy middle to upper class and it cherished a good family portrait over the mantle.
The landscapes reveal the deep British love of the natural world. Parks today are maybe cynically seen as a kind of human domination over nature. I think the English garden gets at a deeper British desire not to dominate nature but to interact with it. There’s a reason wealthy gentlemen occupied their lazy days by playing naturalist. Catching butterflies and identifying mosses allowed a gentleman to get outside to explore the countryside. As Americans, lovers of open spaces and natural beauty, I think we own our British cultural ancestors our thanks. Even if it means looking at a lot of landscapes in oil paint.
In the 18th century British nobles, especially young men, started taking jaunts across the European continent. This gave them a taste for Classical and Renaissance art. Over the last couple of years I’ve become a happy advocate for the Grand Tour. It’s been a blast and listen to learn to ramble about art and culture.
A 19th century sculpture outside the Tate Britain that was...
Clearly inspired by this massive sculpture of Dirce on display in Naples. The Brits know how to take notes.
Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. This is Pre-Raphaelite painting at its pre-est Raphaelite-est. Anne of Green Gables was a fan.Then I wandered into the William Blake room. My first encounter with Blake came at the Cincinnati Zoo where they have his poem “The Tyger” on display in the Cat House. In seventh grade we belted an arrangement of this poem. Somehow I missed this man’s biography. I just thought he liked “Tygers.”
He was a painter, poet, and printer who is probably best known for this iconic image of God (or Urizen) as the divine clockmaker:
He was a proto-Romantic in the mid 1700s who held an intense, spiritually infused perspective on the world. He saw contemporary figures like Nelson, Pitt, and Newton as Biblical warriors in combat with chaos and evil, so he illustrated them as such. In a dim room above his print shop he exhibited a series of 17 paintings depicting Biblical scenes, historical scenes, and images from his own rabid imagination. Each image was accompanied by a poem or extended, rambling essay. At the time he was basically considered a nut. Now he’s a genius.
Nelson taking on the Biblican Leviathan (and Napoleon) while whereing his briefs.
My final goal for my day was a trip to the National Portrait Gallery. In my previous trips to the city I heard the name and ran the other way. Who wants to spend their afternoon looking at a bunch of blank faces? Well, either I’ve gotten wiser or just more boring (you don't need to weigh in on that). Now this sounds like a great way to while away some time in London and maybe brush up on my English history.
The walk from the Tate Modern leads along the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and through Trafalgar Square. I passed monuments and hoards of tourists on my walk.
A memorial to the women of world war two who hung up their hats and gave the Nazis the old one, two.
Nelson holding court over the double-decker busses and wandering tourists.Bent over a map I heard an American family debating the merits of a cheap theater ticket kiosk.
Dad: It says ‘official seller’ over the door, Honey.
Mom: Yes, but this place has too much…glitz. It’s supposed to be less…glitzy.
Me: Are you looking for the half-priced ticket booth?
Mom: (A little confused about this American-accented loner suddenly imposing himself on a domestic dispute) Yes we are.
Me: Well if you go back to that big square (waving towards Leicester Square) that’s a big, wood-paneled…kiosk. It’s called TKTS and I think they’ll have what your looking for.
Mom: Well, we walked by that, but the guidebook says there’s a clock tower, and we didn’t see a clock (subtext: You’re holding a damn map and all your luggage. You clearly have no idea where you are let alone where we are.)
Me: Oh, well, I know you’ll find half-priced tickets there. Good luck!
If they didn’t want my advice, let them wander through the storm. I toyed with asking what show they were going to see. Probably Grease or We Will Rock You. Yes, I judge people for such things. Let them get soggy. I had a train to catch. Oh, and there was a clock on the roof of the kiosk in the square. It even had a half-crazy homeless man staring up at it trying to get his watch to match the second hand.
One last ride through the underground and into St. Pancras where I blew my final pounds on a meat pie because Sweeney Todd is never far from my mind when I’m thinking about his city. I also made the key decision to grab a pre-packaged sandwich and a package of digestive biscuits (in classic British fashion, these mealy cookies taste better than they sound).
The best part of my return via the Chunnel was the security check before boarding that got me a French passport stamp. One of the tragedies of modern Europe is open borders have largely obliterated passport-stamp collecting. Any excuse to get more ink in my book is welcome.
Three hours and one time zone later, I was back in Brussels and hustling towards the long distance train tracks, hoping I wouldn’t have long to wait before going East towards Cologne. Turns out I did have some time.
Normally I’m on top of my train schedules, but I guess when I scheduled my return from Britain I just assumed there would be German-bound engine waiting for me. While I can’t praise German rail enough, their personal door-to-door service has a ways to go. Apparently the last train to head for Germany left at 7:20. I was somewhere under the English Channel when that thing took off for home. There had to be a way to escape Belgium via night train or regional rail, right? It wasn’t that late.
Maybe Belgians just see Brussels as a place you would never want to leave. The next train leaving for anywhere else in Europe wouldn’t depart until 6AM the next morning. I was stuck in Belgium, information that was presented on a confusing French and Dutch chart in a dark corner of the station. I weighed my options. I could stay in the station. I had friends who had done as much in Munich and Bern and had lived to tell the tale. Then I saw two thugs start to tussle and frantic security guards sprint down the terminal. Hmmm.
Then a gentlemen who hadn’t bathed in three months sat down next to me and hungrily eyed the laptop I had opened to double check train times. Yeah, not staying. It was also a Saturday night. Hostels would likely be booked. I only had a few cents on my cell phone anyway and only a few cents in my pocket. So I made a last-minute decision to get out of the train terminal. I would head for the airport terminal and never tell my mother until I safely survived a potentially stupid decision.
The final express train for the airport was leaving in a minute. Hobble-running up the stairs, I dove onto the last car as the tired ticket-checker gave the engineer the “all clear” whistle. For fifteen minutes we chugged through Brussels and finally pulled under the International Airport. I checked my morning schedule and rode the escalator into the departures terminal with bored business travelers who were catching the Red Eye for parts distant. I was just looking for a bench.
Behind the elevators I found a secluded ring of lightly padded seats for weary fliers. One row was already taken by a young couple who appeared to be backpacking Europe. She was lying across several seats with a sheet pulled up to her neck. He was on the floor in a sleeping bag, already snoring. Perfect.
I found a vacant spot, ate a few necessary digestive biscuits and lashed all my luggage to the bench. My original plan was to be secure in my bed in Bonn by this point but I had to break the oath I had made to myself that morning. I set my alarm for 6AM. I had a train to catch…
Stay tuned for the epic struggle to break across the Belgian/German border and finally return to my much-neglected fossils!
Friday, July 17, 2009
Capital Wandering
Here's the photo album of London. There are a lot of images and a lot of stories yet to tell!
Mike and Tim’s original itinerary was built around two goals: see me and Germany then go to England to see Jessica in Oxford (she’s a Rhodes Scholar doncha know), crash on her floor, then fly out. So, plane tickets were bought into Munich and out of London. Unfortunately we had really crappy timing and Jessica wasn’t going to be in England. Instead she would be in Brussels for research. No problem, we can go there too.
Well, work ended up taking a little more time than expected. The result was we found ourselves chugging under the English Channel with little to no preparation for our trip through one of the world’s great cities. I have been to London twice in recent memory, each time for more than a week, and both times in 2004. Weird, I know, but it meant I really wasn’t worried about checking off the great sights. This was about what Tim and Michael wanted to see…with one major exception.
I needed to see Waiting for Godot, the Absurdist Samuel Beckett play that was recently revived on the London West End. I would be excited by any production of this play which threatens its audience with confusion for a couple of theatrical hours, but this revival raised the bar. It starred Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the waiters. If I didn’t see this, my brother would probably hop the Atlantic and punch me in the face.
After a nice chat about Cincinnati and paleontology with the customs agent in Belgium (the main perk being a new stamp in my passport) we were cruising along the western coast of Europe. Then for 17 stuffy minutes we rocketed under the channel, the shadow cast by millions of boats through history including William the Conqueror and the D-day invaders.
The best part of taking the Eurostar train was we just stepped off and were suddenly immersed in the city. At the station we were met by Yoonhee, a fellow Buckeye Alumna who’s been living in London for two years on a Marshall Scholarship. She let us crash on her floor, making our stay in the most expensive city in Europe a little easier. She lead a tour of her home: Goodenough College. They really churn out the overachievers at Goodenough, let me tell you. It’s actually named after the founder who may have risen through the ranks of society just to spite his surname.
My first priority was to get to the Theater Royal Haymarket to ask about tickets. We dropped our bags and dove into the West End. I really wasn’t thinking about being a good guide. I just wanted to get to the box office in case a large Albanian family made a last minute decision to attend a cousin’s birthday rather than see that weird play in London with Jean Luc Piccard and Gandalf. If they returned their tickets, I wanted to be there to snap them up.
No such luck. There were cheap seats with obstructed views or we could show up the next morning before 10AM when they sell 11 front row seats. Each person can by two tickets. In other words, if we wanted to see the hottest show in London, at least two of us needed to be among the first six people in line the next day. The guy at the box office suggested we get there between 7 and 7:30. He probably tells that to everyone. It would be an early morning.
We grabbed a picnic lunch at Pret a Manger and pow-wowed in Picadilly Circus. Michael wasn’t too stoked about this theater thing. I resisted the urge to react violently when he said, “Well I saw a big show (Phantom?) in New York. I’ve had the experience. Movies and TV are fine by me.” Sitting on my hands I also resisted the urge to launch into a lecture on the pleasures of live performance. Tim cut in, “I think we should do this. It would be good for us, Mike.” It was decided that the next morning Tim and I would go wait for tickets while Mike did laundry and met us for some museums.
Now it was landmark time. We dropped into the London Underground, the oldest subway system in the world, and rode for Westminster and the houses of parliament. We emerged from the cramped, stuffy tube at the foot of Big Ben. We didn’t notice it at first as we tried to cut through the swarms of tourists. Then we set our watches to Greenwich Mean Time.
I lead us past the prickly Houses of Parliament towards Westminster Abbey. Mike was briefly confused when we crossed the street. “Oh, I thought that (pointing at Parliament) was a church, too!” This wouldn’t be the first time I failed to fill in the details as a guide.
We crossed into St. Margret’s church next to the abbey. Margret’s is the home parish of the MP’s while the Abbey is where royalty is crowned. We walked through the small Gothic church and Tim expressed some disappointment. “I thought it would be a little bigger.” “What, St. Margret’s?” “No, the Abbey.” “Oh, um, that’s right here,” and I pointed up at the looming Gothic nave to our left.
“Oh, got it.”
Unfortunately it is twelve pounds to get into the Abbey and we decided to keep walking. It felt weird to give the tombs of Elizabeth I and Charles Darwin a pass, but we did have a city to explore and limited cash in our pockets. On to St. Paul’s. Christopher Wren’s masterpiece of Renaissance balance is the spiritual symbol of the city. The Nazis targeted the dome as they bombarded the resistant island. They figured a collapsed dome would dent British moral. But the Brits dug in, placing guards on the roof to throw bombs away from the building, and St. Paul’s stood strong with the pugnacious English.
We were ready to go into the cathedral. We were ready to climb the dome and whisper across the abyss thanks to perfect acoustics. We were ready to see Nelson’s gargantuan tomb. We were not ready to shell out another twelve pounds. “The Catholics let you in for free,” observed Michael. And the hike went on.
Using the newest addition to the Thames, we crossed the river on the Millennium Bridge. The pedestrian only structure cost £ 18 million. Then it vibrated weirdly in the wind and another £5 million was dumped into stabilizing it. The jokes near the beginning of the century flew thick and fast. Now it sits solidly over the river connecting St. Paul’s to the Tate Modern Art Gallery.
The Tate got a lot more people excited in 2000 than the bridge that leads to its doors when the converted power plant opened to enthusiasts of 20th and now 21st century art. I was surprised Mike and Tim were game to go in. I think the price of entry – free- was maybe a lure along with many enthusiastic recommendations. It probably did't hurt that fans of modern art tend to be very pretty people.
The museum is organized thematically rather than chronologically with abstractions like “Motion” and “Mood” uniting the galleries. We picked up audio guides since none of us are well versed in contemporary art. The most engaging stuff came from the surrealists and cubists, but a room of Francis Bacon portraits held my attention for a long time.
The artist worked through the middle of the twentieth century where he became famous for his portraits that had an eerie, and often macabre, way of distorting the sitter until they seemed to strain against their bodies in horror or revulsion. He usually painted loved ones, but he used photographs as his reference instead of live sitters so he could mutilate them on canvas without confronting their living faces or bodies. He was not a happy man, but he made some powerful art.
When the museum flushed us out (Please don’t rush me Frustrated Guard, I really wanted to take in all the details of those WWII Soviet propaganda posters), we started to walk along the bank of the Thames towards Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. All of London’s business community seemed to be hanging out bankside. Every pub was bursting with expensive suits and pantsuits. We were thinking about a drink, but didn’t fit the majority dress code.
Tower bridge is often confused with London Bridge, mostly because it strikes a much more impressive profile than it’s sing-song-y neighbor. It opened for crossing in the 1890s and sports a modern suspension design and drawbridge with Neo-Gothic towers so it blends in a little better with the medieval Tower of London next door. The Tower has held famous prisoners such as Anne Boleyn and counts the block where she lost her head and the collection of the Crown Jewels among its artifacts. But we didn’t check these out. Things were shutting down and we had one more iconic exterior to see before dinner.
We hopped underground and popped up in Holloway, a quiet suburb of London and home to Emirates Stadium, where the Arsenal Football Club works its high-profile magic. Michael was particularly enthusiastic about the excursion, saying it would be a great place to try some Indian food. The stadium was beautiful, but it seemed to be situated in a part of town far removed from any kind of food joint and our stomachs were getting impatient.
Michael hopped into a kiosk to ask about our options. We were in luck. On the next block, a Nepalese/Indian place had just opened its door. It was so new they didn’t have napkins yet. They also didn’t have seating. We ordered take-out (continuing to save our pence) and struck up a conversation with a young couple from the university nearby. They were shocked to see tourists so far afield and invited us to their apartment for some real plates and tableware. We politely declined, citing our packed schedule, but they did bring up the interesting question of where we would eat this stuff.
With curry and samosas in hand we returned to the kiosk where we received our tip, picked up English cider (I was almost carded, too. Why does that only seem to happen in London?) and headed back towards the stadium. We would picnic under the reflective gaze of the glass-swathed building and watch the sunset. Perfect.
With night approaching we returned to Westminster to see Big Ben and parliament lit at night. It was very different from the sweaty hubbub we had discovered earlier that morning. Small knots of tourists crossed the bridge and we had plenty of space to gaze over the Thames, glowing with the lights of Parliament and the London Eye.
It was time for an OSU Alumni moment. We arranged ourselves and flagged down a passing family. Michael explained we were trying to spell “Ohio” and the clock tower would make the “I.” The father was maybe a little confused, but took the shot. No good.
We needed another tourist. Again, failure. Okay, we would rearrange and use the London eye as one of our “O”s. The family we had snagged the first time was the only group in sight. Dad took the shot. This time things worked out a little better.
Frustrated Big Ben wasn’t working, we dropped onto the path along the river and patiently waited for a group of teenagers to stroll by. On the second attempt we were able to get this shot:
Now OSU has proof we’re still proud alums and they can’t revoke our diplomas.
But, it was time to call it a night. Tim and I had to get up the next morning to wait for Godot…
Cheerio!
The photo album again. The rest of the stories coming soon.
Mike and Tim’s original itinerary was built around two goals: see me and Germany then go to England to see Jessica in Oxford (she’s a Rhodes Scholar doncha know), crash on her floor, then fly out. So, plane tickets were bought into Munich and out of London. Unfortunately we had really crappy timing and Jessica wasn’t going to be in England. Instead she would be in Brussels for research. No problem, we can go there too.
Well, work ended up taking a little more time than expected. The result was we found ourselves chugging under the English Channel with little to no preparation for our trip through one of the world’s great cities. I have been to London twice in recent memory, each time for more than a week, and both times in 2004. Weird, I know, but it meant I really wasn’t worried about checking off the great sights. This was about what Tim and Michael wanted to see…with one major exception.
I needed to see Waiting for Godot, the Absurdist Samuel Beckett play that was recently revived on the London West End. I would be excited by any production of this play which threatens its audience with confusion for a couple of theatrical hours, but this revival raised the bar. It starred Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the waiters. If I didn’t see this, my brother would probably hop the Atlantic and punch me in the face.
After a nice chat about Cincinnati and paleontology with the customs agent in Belgium (the main perk being a new stamp in my passport) we were cruising along the western coast of Europe. Then for 17 stuffy minutes we rocketed under the channel, the shadow cast by millions of boats through history including William the Conqueror and the D-day invaders.
The best part of taking the Eurostar train was we just stepped off and were suddenly immersed in the city. At the station we were met by Yoonhee, a fellow Buckeye Alumna who’s been living in London for two years on a Marshall Scholarship. She let us crash on her floor, making our stay in the most expensive city in Europe a little easier. She lead a tour of her home: Goodenough College. They really churn out the overachievers at Goodenough, let me tell you. It’s actually named after the founder who may have risen through the ranks of society just to spite his surname.
My first priority was to get to the Theater Royal Haymarket to ask about tickets. We dropped our bags and dove into the West End. I really wasn’t thinking about being a good guide. I just wanted to get to the box office in case a large Albanian family made a last minute decision to attend a cousin’s birthday rather than see that weird play in London with Jean Luc Piccard and Gandalf. If they returned their tickets, I wanted to be there to snap them up.
No such luck. There were cheap seats with obstructed views or we could show up the next morning before 10AM when they sell 11 front row seats. Each person can by two tickets. In other words, if we wanted to see the hottest show in London, at least two of us needed to be among the first six people in line the next day. The guy at the box office suggested we get there between 7 and 7:30. He probably tells that to everyone. It would be an early morning.
We grabbed a picnic lunch at Pret a Manger and pow-wowed in Picadilly Circus. Michael wasn’t too stoked about this theater thing. I resisted the urge to react violently when he said, “Well I saw a big show (Phantom?) in New York. I’ve had the experience. Movies and TV are fine by me.” Sitting on my hands I also resisted the urge to launch into a lecture on the pleasures of live performance. Tim cut in, “I think we should do this. It would be good for us, Mike.” It was decided that the next morning Tim and I would go wait for tickets while Mike did laundry and met us for some museums.
Now it was landmark time. We dropped into the London Underground, the oldest subway system in the world, and rode for Westminster and the houses of parliament. We emerged from the cramped, stuffy tube at the foot of Big Ben. We didn’t notice it at first as we tried to cut through the swarms of tourists. Then we set our watches to Greenwich Mean Time.
I lead us past the prickly Houses of Parliament towards Westminster Abbey. Mike was briefly confused when we crossed the street. “Oh, I thought that (pointing at Parliament) was a church, too!” This wouldn’t be the first time I failed to fill in the details as a guide.
We crossed into St. Margret’s church next to the abbey. Margret’s is the home parish of the MP’s while the Abbey is where royalty is crowned. We walked through the small Gothic church and Tim expressed some disappointment. “I thought it would be a little bigger.” “What, St. Margret’s?” “No, the Abbey.” “Oh, um, that’s right here,” and I pointed up at the looming Gothic nave to our left.
“Oh, got it.”
Unfortunately it is twelve pounds to get into the Abbey and we decided to keep walking. It felt weird to give the tombs of Elizabeth I and Charles Darwin a pass, but we did have a city to explore and limited cash in our pockets. On to St. Paul’s. Christopher Wren’s masterpiece of Renaissance balance is the spiritual symbol of the city. The Nazis targeted the dome as they bombarded the resistant island. They figured a collapsed dome would dent British moral. But the Brits dug in, placing guards on the roof to throw bombs away from the building, and St. Paul’s stood strong with the pugnacious English.
We were ready to go into the cathedral. We were ready to climb the dome and whisper across the abyss thanks to perfect acoustics. We were ready to see Nelson’s gargantuan tomb. We were not ready to shell out another twelve pounds. “The Catholics let you in for free,” observed Michael. And the hike went on.
Using the newest addition to the Thames, we crossed the river on the Millennium Bridge. The pedestrian only structure cost £ 18 million. Then it vibrated weirdly in the wind and another £5 million was dumped into stabilizing it. The jokes near the beginning of the century flew thick and fast. Now it sits solidly over the river connecting St. Paul’s to the Tate Modern Art Gallery.
The Tate got a lot more people excited in 2000 than the bridge that leads to its doors when the converted power plant opened to enthusiasts of 20th and now 21st century art. I was surprised Mike and Tim were game to go in. I think the price of entry – free- was maybe a lure along with many enthusiastic recommendations. It probably did't hurt that fans of modern art tend to be very pretty people.
The museum is organized thematically rather than chronologically with abstractions like “Motion” and “Mood” uniting the galleries. We picked up audio guides since none of us are well versed in contemporary art. The most engaging stuff came from the surrealists and cubists, but a room of Francis Bacon portraits held my attention for a long time.
The artist worked through the middle of the twentieth century where he became famous for his portraits that had an eerie, and often macabre, way of distorting the sitter until they seemed to strain against their bodies in horror or revulsion. He usually painted loved ones, but he used photographs as his reference instead of live sitters so he could mutilate them on canvas without confronting their living faces or bodies. He was not a happy man, but he made some powerful art.
When the museum flushed us out (Please don’t rush me Frustrated Guard, I really wanted to take in all the details of those WWII Soviet propaganda posters), we started to walk along the bank of the Thames towards Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. All of London’s business community seemed to be hanging out bankside. Every pub was bursting with expensive suits and pantsuits. We were thinking about a drink, but didn’t fit the majority dress code.
Tower bridge is often confused with London Bridge, mostly because it strikes a much more impressive profile than it’s sing-song-y neighbor. It opened for crossing in the 1890s and sports a modern suspension design and drawbridge with Neo-Gothic towers so it blends in a little better with the medieval Tower of London next door. The Tower has held famous prisoners such as Anne Boleyn and counts the block where she lost her head and the collection of the Crown Jewels among its artifacts. But we didn’t check these out. Things were shutting down and we had one more iconic exterior to see before dinner.
We hopped underground and popped up in Holloway, a quiet suburb of London and home to Emirates Stadium, where the Arsenal Football Club works its high-profile magic. Michael was particularly enthusiastic about the excursion, saying it would be a great place to try some Indian food. The stadium was beautiful, but it seemed to be situated in a part of town far removed from any kind of food joint and our stomachs were getting impatient.
Michael hopped into a kiosk to ask about our options. We were in luck. On the next block, a Nepalese/Indian place had just opened its door. It was so new they didn’t have napkins yet. They also didn’t have seating. We ordered take-out (continuing to save our pence) and struck up a conversation with a young couple from the university nearby. They were shocked to see tourists so far afield and invited us to their apartment for some real plates and tableware. We politely declined, citing our packed schedule, but they did bring up the interesting question of where we would eat this stuff.
With curry and samosas in hand we returned to the kiosk where we received our tip, picked up English cider (I was almost carded, too. Why does that only seem to happen in London?) and headed back towards the stadium. We would picnic under the reflective gaze of the glass-swathed building and watch the sunset. Perfect.
With night approaching we returned to Westminster to see Big Ben and parliament lit at night. It was very different from the sweaty hubbub we had discovered earlier that morning. Small knots of tourists crossed the bridge and we had plenty of space to gaze over the Thames, glowing with the lights of Parliament and the London Eye.
It was time for an OSU Alumni moment. We arranged ourselves and flagged down a passing family. Michael explained we were trying to spell “Ohio” and the clock tower would make the “I.” The father was maybe a little confused, but took the shot. No good.
We needed another tourist. Again, failure. Okay, we would rearrange and use the London eye as one of our “O”s. The family we had snagged the first time was the only group in sight. Dad took the shot. This time things worked out a little better.
Frustrated Big Ben wasn’t working, we dropped onto the path along the river and patiently waited for a group of teenagers to stroll by. On the second attempt we were able to get this shot:
Now OSU has proof we’re still proud alums and they can’t revoke our diplomas.
But, it was time to call it a night. Tim and I had to get up the next morning to wait for Godot…
Cheerio!
The photo album again. The rest of the stories coming soon.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Buckeyes Arrive
Last year, after learning I would be spending a year in Deutschland, I extended an invitation to visit to just about everyone within ear-shot. Germany really is the perfect base for exploring the rest of European culture and I made sure my listeners knew it.
So, a little more than a year after extending that invite, Michael and Tim, two friends from Ohio State, touched down in Munich for ten days of high-speed wandering across Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, and England. That’s right. Five countries. Ten days. Would we succeed? Our team consisted of a second year medical student from Harvard with a bag of animal crackers at the ready (Michael), a mechanical engineer with a shiny new degree from Ohio State and a hankering for good salami (Tim), and your favorite paleontologist with a propensity for puns (and alliteration). Only one way to find out…
We opted to start the adventure in Munich since they were able to get cheap flights into the city and we were going to be heading southwest to climb a Swiss Alp. It helps that Munich is home to all the stereotypes Americans carry around in their heads about Germany. While waiting for Tim and Michael to arrive I saw at least two men in lederhosen cross the train station. Perfect. Now I just needed to see a some wurst. Oh, there it is, being dropped on the floor by the hungry four year old who couldn't quite handle his lunch.
On the ride from Bonn to Munich I received a desperate call from Michael that Tim’s flight was arriving at Heathrow Airport behind schedule, and he might not be able to make his connecting flight to Germany. I didn’t hear any more news before arriving at the Munich Station, so I hunkered down with my computer and watched the lederhosen go by thinking I might be obstructing traffic to platform 14 for a couple of hours.
Twenty minutes later, Michael and Tim arrived, right on schedule. Tim had sprinted across two terminals to make the connection and a small package containing his toiletries and three cans of Skyline Chili (guess who those were for) were the only casualty. Minor lost baggage and a run through Heathrow. Two rites of passage for the international traveler to check off the list. Mr. Steves would be so proud.
The reconstructed Medieval gate that welcomes you to the Munich shopping district.
They were jet-lagged, but excited to hit the city after a couple hours in transit. For Tim, this was a kind of homecoming. When buying a pretzel at a bakery in the station, he noticed the woman on the other side of the counter had his very German last name, including the umlaut. And thus he was welcomed back to the land of his ancestors. It’s key a pretzel was involved. As you may recall, my welcome involved being compared to an ass. Some kids have all the luck...
There are few things I know about the place I will live someday, but one thing I know, is that I will have window boxes.
With our bags stashed at the station and a new map of the city in hand, we walked into the Altstadt (Old Town) to witness the beautiful, bustling hive of activity that is the European pedestrian shopping district. We wandered by the beautiful city hall and into Pope Benedict’s former Cardinal roost at the Frauenkirche.
This was taken back in October when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest. Tim and Michael's visit was the first time I'd seen Munich with blue skies. I can confirm that a change of color makes the Neo-Gothic facade a little less sinister.
The whole time I tried to keep my mouth shut, allowing a them to experience the city and buildings on their own terms. This was an utter failure. I can’t help but keep the running commentary going, and these two join my brother, Shane, Marty, Kes, Erin, and especially Carolyn as martyrs to my need to burden my travel companions with obscure factoids.
We met Shane on Marienplatz under the sculpture of the putti getting ready to destroy the Protestant heresy. It’s a local hang-out.
He led us to a classic beirgarten, tucked somewhere in urban Munich. He found it by vague memory, leading us through a wrought-iron gate with the Hofbrau logo proudly festooned overhead. Behind the gate was an expanse of hundreds of tables, all shaded by towering chestnut trees. Every table was crowded with happy Müncheners and their Maß (1 Liter) beer steins. As the light dwindled, twinkling Christmas lights illuminated a cross-section of the city: high school students, tourists, girl’s night out, after work drinks, nuclear families. Everyone was enjoying the opportunity to be outside with a cold beer and friends. There was even a swing set to keep the kids occupied while the neighborhood got caught up with itself. We just needed to find a spot.
We eventually elbowed in next to a friendly couple of women who were a little tipsy (you can tell because they engaged total strangers and got out the backgammon board) and tucked in to our steins and Schwein-Haxe (Pig Knuckle) from the cafeteria style restaurant. Sweet bliss.
We were joined by two of Shane’s friends and spent the rest of the evening wandering the town, eventually winding up around a fountain with bottles of Bavarian wheat beer in hand. The whole open container thing really does make for some wonderful exploratory partying and chatting. Soon it was time to go back to Shane’s apartment to get a full night’s sleep (yeah, right) then start our whirlwind tour.
Tomorrow: Concentration camps, Old Masters, and English Gardens, only the most uplifting and engaging topics on the internet.
So, a little more than a year after extending that invite, Michael and Tim, two friends from Ohio State, touched down in Munich for ten days of high-speed wandering across Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, and England. That’s right. Five countries. Ten days. Would we succeed? Our team consisted of a second year medical student from Harvard with a bag of animal crackers at the ready (Michael), a mechanical engineer with a shiny new degree from Ohio State and a hankering for good salami (Tim), and your favorite paleontologist with a propensity for puns (and alliteration). Only one way to find out…
We opted to start the adventure in Munich since they were able to get cheap flights into the city and we were going to be heading southwest to climb a Swiss Alp. It helps that Munich is home to all the stereotypes Americans carry around in their heads about Germany. While waiting for Tim and Michael to arrive I saw at least two men in lederhosen cross the train station. Perfect. Now I just needed to see a some wurst. Oh, there it is, being dropped on the floor by the hungry four year old who couldn't quite handle his lunch.
On the ride from Bonn to Munich I received a desperate call from Michael that Tim’s flight was arriving at Heathrow Airport behind schedule, and he might not be able to make his connecting flight to Germany. I didn’t hear any more news before arriving at the Munich Station, so I hunkered down with my computer and watched the lederhosen go by thinking I might be obstructing traffic to platform 14 for a couple of hours.
Twenty minutes later, Michael and Tim arrived, right on schedule. Tim had sprinted across two terminals to make the connection and a small package containing his toiletries and three cans of Skyline Chili (guess who those were for) were the only casualty. Minor lost baggage and a run through Heathrow. Two rites of passage for the international traveler to check off the list. Mr. Steves would be so proud.
The reconstructed Medieval gate that welcomes you to the Munich shopping district.
There are few things I know about the place I will live someday, but one thing I know, is that I will have window boxes.
This was taken back in October when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest. Tim and Michael's visit was the first time I'd seen Munich with blue skies. I can confirm that a change of color makes the Neo-Gothic facade a little less sinister.We met Shane on Marienplatz under the sculpture of the putti getting ready to destroy the Protestant heresy. It’s a local hang-out.
He led us to a classic beirgarten, tucked somewhere in urban Munich. He found it by vague memory, leading us through a wrought-iron gate with the Hofbrau logo proudly festooned overhead. Behind the gate was an expanse of hundreds of tables, all shaded by towering chestnut trees. Every table was crowded with happy Müncheners and their Maß (1 Liter) beer steins. As the light dwindled, twinkling Christmas lights illuminated a cross-section of the city: high school students, tourists, girl’s night out, after work drinks, nuclear families. Everyone was enjoying the opportunity to be outside with a cold beer and friends. There was even a swing set to keep the kids occupied while the neighborhood got caught up with itself. We just needed to find a spot.
We eventually elbowed in next to a friendly couple of women who were a little tipsy (you can tell because they engaged total strangers and got out the backgammon board) and tucked in to our steins and Schwein-Haxe (Pig Knuckle) from the cafeteria style restaurant. Sweet bliss.
We were joined by two of Shane’s friends and spent the rest of the evening wandering the town, eventually winding up around a fountain with bottles of Bavarian wheat beer in hand. The whole open container thing really does make for some wonderful exploratory partying and chatting. Soon it was time to go back to Shane’s apartment to get a full night’s sleep (yeah, right) then start our whirlwind tour.
Tomorrow: Concentration camps, Old Masters, and English Gardens, only the most uplifting and engaging topics on the internet.
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