Etsy

The Etsy lab is in Brooklyn, a mere hour and fifteen minutes by bus and subway from Hoboken! They offer classes/workshops every Monday night in different crafty things. Yesterday, there was a drawing class, geared especially for people who don't draw. That would definitely be me. So, I took my bus to my subway, and popped up in DUMBO, "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass," a previously-industrial-renovated-gentrified-and-polished-up-for-wealthy-hipsters area. The Etsy lab is on the 7th floor of these cool warehouse buildings.

The drawing class was surprisingly fun. The artist, Carol, started us off with a left-handed portrait of the person sitting across from us, great because it reduced expectations and introduced us to someone. I lucked out that the guy sitting across from me had lots of easy-to-draw facial hair. The second set of exercises was drawing objects without lifting the pen from the paper. That was hard and I refuse to show any of those, ha.

The third involved taking something we'd drawn in the one-liner exercise, redrawing it, and detailing it with thicker/thinner lines and color. She did a demo of this. After 15 minutes of concentrated effort, I had a rather cute pink elephant to show. All-in-all, pretty fun, and I hope to go back for another Monday craft night at Etsy.

Hoboken

Yes, what a silly name for a city, but that's where we live, and it's better than our Northern neighbor, Weehawken. I thought ya'll might like a little info about our new city. (By the way, I'm having a very hard time not saying, "ya'll," but I'll have to stop because I'm getting pretty tired of repeating myself. One "ya'll" in a sentence and everyone acts like they didn't understand a thing I just said.)

Hoboken has about 40,000 people stuffed into one square mile, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The streets are fairly wide, room enough for four cars across, but most of the streets are one-way. So, there are two lanes of parking on the outsides, one lane of double-parking (which can be on either side and sometimes causes problems), and hopefully one lane is left open for moving cars. The major two-way street in town, Washington, can fit six lanes of cars, so each side has parking, double-parking, and hopefully some moving traffic.

Theoretically, Hoboken is easy to navigate. All streets are in a grid, and the numbered streets (1-14) run East-West. Unfortunately, all the one-ways and buildings that take up 2-3 blocks make it a bit of a maze. So, we've started to opt more and more for walking, but we'll see how long we hold out, since the winter weather will probably make the car increasingly tempting.

The first officially recorded game of baseball in US history was in Hoboken in 1846 between the New York Nine and the Knickerbocker Club. (Guys, seriously? You're just asking to get your pansy knickerbockers knocked off. I don't know who won, though.)

Frank Sinatra is from Hoboken, and every year, there is a sound-a-like competition in Sinatra Park.

Carlo's Bakery of the Cake Boss TV show is in Hoboken, and on the weekends, there's a line 2 blocks long to get into the tiny shop.

In the Northern part of town, I've even seen a warehouse full of giant plaster animals and vegetation, which I assume will either be part of the Macy's Day parade or a giant's lawn decoration collection. --In fact, I just looked up Hoboken in Wikipedia, and yes, Hoboken is home to the Macy's Day Parade Studio! Because why would Manhattan waste space on plaster sculptures bigger than a $800,000 condo? Send those things to New Jersey.--

As late as the 1960s, though, Hoboken was actually a cruddy industrial port with slum-like housing. In the 1970s, NJ built a new port in Newark and an Interstate that connected NJ to NY, bypassing Hoboken and leaving the little town obsolete. It wasn't really until the 1990s that NJ started to reclaim the waterfront, build open park spaces facing the NYC skyline, and encourage commercial real estate. Now, Hoboken is considered a "bedroom community" of Manhattan, since most of its residents sleep here but basically live in Manhattan. You can get to Manhattan by subway (called the PATH train), ferry, or bus in 25-45 minutes.

I will say that Hoboken is growing a bit of its own downtown entertainment, though. It has a cute main street, lined with small shops, Italian restaurants, and a few Starbucks. There are even a couple bars that do live music and such. And there is a brand new movie theater! Five screens, that's right.

I hope you all (ugh, takes too long to type) enjoyed getting to know more about Hoboken.

Moving, Goin' to a Wedding, and Pumpkin Hunting

We've moved to New Jersey! We're 30 minutes from Chad's job in Manhattan but in a less dense urban area, so it's a good compromise. Cora has enjoyed the moving process much more than we have. Boxes, books, clothes, shoes, and all sorts of grown-up things have been scattered across the floor (first the Nashville floor, now the NJ floor) for weeks, giving her a make-shift playground. She's crawling, pulling herself up to standing, gnawing the bindings off books, and grabbing every sharp-looking object she can reach.
Since we'd sold much of our furniture in Nashville, we first made a stop to Ikea up here. Actually, we made several stops to Ikea and ate a delicious meal every time. After probably 15 hours of driving to, shopping at, and eating in Ikea, we built a table, a desk, and a wall of bookshelf/cabinets. Before and after:
We're not quite finished. We'll mount the TV to the wall and put two glass shelves above it to make the height even across. Of course, Cora was quite helpful in the building phase.

 

 After we'd been at our new place for all of 10 days, we jetted off off to Texas for the wedding! It was awesome to see family and to not have to worry about unpacking and such. Cora was, unfortunately, a little grump right before and during the wedding. I suppose it's my fault, since I've trained her so well to take naps throughout the day, and her screams echoing off the church walls was just her way of saying, "I didn't get my nap today!" Well, she was only loud for about 10 seconds, but to the mom of a screaming baby, it always sounds louder and lasts longer. Really, everyone said she was quite cute and content. And she loves it when you blow in her face!

We went from 80 degree Texas heat to 55 degree New Jersey fall weather with an icy breeze. Nothing makes you want apple cider and pumpkin pie more than gray, chilly air. So, we found a farm further into NJ that lets you pick your own pumpkins, and off we went! We let Cora crawl around in the pumpkin patch to find her own. Well, we actually rolled one to her, and she grabbed on to it with a smile. It sure seemed like that was the one she wanted.

Now we have three pumpkins on our balcony, awaiting the carving knife!

Prague

So, then there was Prague!
Prague was beautiful. I'd heard that before, but I was still surprised. There weren't really any areas of town that didn't have gorgeous 4-6 story gothic or renaissance-style buildings on the sides of the comfortably wide streets. (Well, there was the one sketch dark alley way that Kathy led us down, but we'll overlook that moment.) It was, however, amazing that there were no crazy tiny streets, all were plenty wide enough for pedestrians and traffic! The main square was, of course, pedestrian only.
The first day, we did a city tour with our favorite tour group, Free Europe. They have native English speaking guides that do free tours of major cities throughout Europe every day. It was a good introduction to the city in 4 hours.
The three next days, we tried to plan our own activities. For our time at the city castle and cathedral, we rented one audioguide for the four of us and had Kathy's super informative guidebook photocopies, so we passed along information and Cora between us. We went to the lovely Strahov Monastery on a hill, overlooking the city. It had a library, famous for it's floor-to-ceiling shelves of ancient texts. As a nice surprise, the monastery also has had a brewery since the 1400s, and they still brew an excellent dunkel! So, we just had to partake...
Lest you think all we did on this trip was drink beer, we did take a day trip to the nearby Karlstejn Castle, which was lovely and even authentic enough to have defended itself against two sieges! At this point, we discovered that Cora really did not like tours, since the tour guide lady basically asked me to keep our kid quite or leave. Heh...

--> Baby travel note: Even when Cora was only a little grumpy, she was too loud for most indoor tours. City walking tours we could do just fine with her in her Kelty backpack, but if we wanted any chance of being in a museum, castle, etc, we had to bring the baby bjorn and plan on being able to leave the room if she squirmed too much.

We also spent a day in the Jewish quarter and visited a synagogue given to the Jewish residents by the Andalusians in Spain, so it had beautiful, geometric, hand-painted designs covering the interior. (Sadly, no pictures allowed.) We generally did a fair amount of just wandering the streets, which were really scenic everywhere we went.

The only negatives to Prague were that it was not as cheap as we had hoped, and restaurants stop serving dinner around 10pm. We typically tried to go back to the hostel for a late afternoon nap, but that meant we'd nap from like 5-7, then feed Cora, then try to find a place to eat. By 9 or 9:30, restaurants stopped accepting new customers, so several times we found ourselves begging the waiter to take pity on a poor pregnant lady and get the cook to make us a pizza. It generally worked, but we must have looked pretty desperate. Oh, and these conversations took place in English, since obviously I know zero Czech. Prague was touristy enough that English was prevalent.

So, all-in-all, a fabulous destination, and even after 5 nights there, we felt like we'd just barely seen most of the city. But, it was time to move on to Krakow!
The Charles Bridge and Prague Castle at twilight.

Estancia (1st weekend of October)

Family, holidays, and preparing for the baby have occupied most of my time for a bit, but everything's on track now, so onward with the Argentina stories!

The asado lunch described in the October 9th post was at an estancia just outside of Buenos Aires. Estancias are traditionally cattle ranches with large houses that have been passed on from generation to generation in the same family. These days, though, they serve as bed and breakfasts for tourists who want to see the rural side of Argentina. Often, they're still working ranches, but much of their business becomes maintaining guest rooms, serving meals, and offering some sort of "authentic" entertainment (like horse-back riding).

Chad and I went to a family-owned estancia. The hour-long bus ride to the nearest town (Lujan) and the cab ride out to the property were less than thrilling, but they were worth it when we stepped out onto the grounds.
The main house was original construction from the 1800s, with stucco walls and vaulted ceilings inside. There they had the kitchen, the dining room, a bedroom for guests, and a room with a long conference table for guests who needed a meeting space. If you peaked into the green doors at the corner there, you could almost always find the owners, the cook, the cook's toddler daughter, and the four dogs relaxing.

Right across from the main building was a guest building that was added later, but it was still from the late 1800s - early 1900s. It had the same stucco walls, even higher vaulted ceilings, and it was decorated with all sorts of family heirloom nicknacks everywhere.

Antique mate mugs, crucifixes, lace needlepoint, silver bowls, dried flowers, and black and white photos were in every corner, so you almost felt like you were sleeping in some family member's bedroom. They kept a fire going in the fireplace the whole time we were there. Even though it was late spring in Argentina, the big stucco rooms were actually a little cold, so the fireplace was a great place for reading and warming our feet.
But the coolest room in the whole place? The library! The main library room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that held antique Spanish classics, and there was a beautiful wooden rolling ladder - that they don't allow guests to play on... The entire library wing held over 40,000 books, most of them extremely valuable editions. The owner said the books were worth more than the rest of the estancia put together.

After the tour of the property, they served us asado (we were the only guests staying that weekend, so we had our own private lunch, as you saw in the October 9th post), and then we wandered the grounds a bit. The craziest thing - you know the calla lilies that we pay like $8-12 a piece for? They grow wild in Argentina! The estancia's sheep grazed on grass and calla lilies. Well, I think they were sheep. They kind of moved like a cross between a sheep and a dog...

Then we rode horses - yes, imagine a 6 month pregnant girl on a horse. Well, you'll have to imagine because we don't have any pictures, but Chad and I did indeed ride horses. It took a little convincing for them to hand the reigns over to me, but we described our experience with horses, that we had both ridden from young ages and such, and they let us out onto the ranch property by ourselves. We rode (mostly walking) through the cattle, and the dogs tagged along with us. The only bad part was that Argentine pastures have shallow ponds of standing water in them, which means they're giant breeding grounds for mosquitos. So, you had us, arms exposed, around dusk, walking our horses through mosquito land. There were definitely times we had to trot just to try to outrun the mosquitos, but in the end, we probably had 4-5 dozen bites each. It's a good thing we didn't get malaria or something. But it was fun. =)

Sadly, it turns out that Chad was massively allergic to something in those fields. By the time we were back in our room, he was pretty much dying, except not from the deliciousness of homemade dulce de leche this time, from blocked sinuses and a thumping headache. I gave him sudafed and allegra, but it was too late, and he was down and out for the rest of the evening. So, I ate dinner in the main house with the kindle. The owners and cook pretty much left me to myself because they didn't speak much English, and I didn't speak much Spanish. Then, the kindle and I spent a few hours by the fire and went to bed.

We left mid-morning the next day, so we had a little time to eat breakfast (tea, coffee, little toasts, and homemade jelly) and walk through the woods behind the house before heading back into town.

La Boca

At 'the mouth' ('la boca') of the Riacheulo River, is a brightly colored neighborhood, whose history began in the 16th century. Juan de Garay, from the Basque Country of Spain, sailed to the South American continent on a number of exploratory expeditions and founded cities along the way, including the 'second' foundation of Buenos Aires in 1580. (I'm not entirely clear how you can found a city for a 'second' time, but so the history websites say...)
The area of this second founding was primarily a port that sustained a neighborhood of humble houses and grocery stores. When ship trade increased in the 1800s, the neighborhood expanded with immigrants, who asked the shipyards for leftover paint to color the exterior walls of their houses and businesses.

The colorful neighborhood became famous, and, as with all interesting poor areas of town, it soon attracted artists and bohemians. By the end of the 1900s, La Boca had shifted to a tourist attraction with a rich history, although the hints of poverty are still visible, and the locals still recommend only visiting La Boca during daylight hours.

If the building had a fresh coat of paint and served cafe con leche or sold souveniers, we assumed it was part of the tourism industry. If the building was older with chipping paint and was only accessible through the narrow alleyways, we assumed it was a remnant of the immigrant/bohemian neighborhood.

The buildings with creepy plaster figures hanging out the window we avoided. This particular creeper is a prostitue, commemorating the brothels that used to be (perhaps still are?) a part of La Boca.

La Recoleta Cemetery

Rather than a field of grass with tombstones, La Recoleta cemetery is filled with rows side-by-side small stone houses, each with a door and a name plate of the family, an altar, decorations, coffins for one or two of the family members, and a basement to hold the rest of the family members. Apparently there's no rule or tradition about who gets to be in the top floor coffins and who gets sent down to the basement.

Most of the altars had crucifixes, vases (some with flowers, some without), and candle holders, but a few had little toys and memorabilia. It seemed like the living family was supposed to come by (with their keys to the tomb-houses) to put in flowers, dust, and clear out the cobwebs. Obviously, some were better kept up than others.

Now, there were plenty of odd people like me who would wander around just to see what people put in their tomb-houses (that's my word for the funny looking graves), but the real tourism draw is Evita's tomb-house.

Evita was the wife of President Peron, who was both elected three times as president and took control of the government through military coup. Since Eva was his third wife, she only remained in the lime light from 1946 till her death in 1952. She was loved by the Argentine people for her charity works, feminist philosophy, and support of women's suffrage. No surprise that hers was definitely the most decorated tomb-house.

Here are more pictures of La Recoleta Cemetery.

Mexico City Spring Break 2009

The long-awaited pictures from Mexico City! Chad and I were there for a week in early March - before the news about the drug gang violence broke in American news - and we would definitely go back again. We felt totally safe, ate delicious food, saw a bull fight, and visited ancient ruins. Plus, the dollar vs. the peso? Awesome.




Check out the slide show (I recommend 4 seconds per slide):

http://picasaweb.google.com/MorganGMac/MexicoCitySpringBreak2009?feat=directlink

Bits and pieces of our time in Berlin:

[I published 4 posts at once, so plenty to read for those looking for an afternoon's worth of entertainment.]


The Tiergarten is the city’s largest park, filled with trees and lakes. Right by one of the lakes is a biergarten, where you can sit at picnic tables and drink Berlin beer while people rent boats on the lake. We only went there once, mostly because they only serve pilsner beer, which we aren’t particularly fond of, but it was a beautiful place.

There are still sections of the wall from Soviet rule throughout the city. We lived in East Berlin, and just a few blocks down from us was a 100 meter long section of the wall. Usually the bricks are covered with graffiti and spray-painted murals, and sometimes the iron reinforcement bars show through. It’s a forceful reminder of how recently the wall fell. Throughout the city, even when the wall has been taken down, they mark where the wall was with inlaid cobblestones. There is usually only one line of cobblestones, but it lies right between where the inner wall and outer wall would have been. In between was the dead zone where you were likely to get shot by a soldier in a nearby guard tower. This is the only way the Soviet communist government could keep its people from escaping into West Berlin.

Germans don’t like to talk about Hitler or the war or anything related. We went to Nuremburg partly because it was where the war crimes trials were held, and we wanted to learn more about WWII in general. We couldn’t find any tours along those lines, and when we went to the town’s museum to watch a 50 minutes film on the town’s history, approximately 45 seconds were spent on WWII-related things. 45 seconds is about how long it took them to say, “Jews suffered exile and persecution for the third time in Nuremberg’s history during the 1930’s. [Skip to 1945 aaannnd] The Nuremberg Trials were held in such-and-such building. All 23 party leaders pleaded not-guilty.” Not even a mention of the backdrop, which was, you know, WWII. The film just assumed you knew. In Berlin, there were reminders of the war. Buildings still had bullet holes. The war memorial built by the Soviets still stood. The bookstores had an English section on the history of Germany with books on Hitler and such. There is a large memorial near the city-center called “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” but the memorial is an abstract design. A concrete field of several hundred rectangular columns jut out of the ground at varying heights. As you walk deeper into the concrete field, the columns become higher until you feel like you’re in a darkening maze. Below is a small museum commemorating some of the people who died in concentration camps and some who lived. The entrance has a timeline that details the growth and expansion of concentration camps, but the rest of the audio guide makes almost mention to Hitler or the war itself. The only real information we could find of Hitler, the Nazis, and the war came in a tour organized by a non-German company. The tour guides who were hired to talk about Hitler and the Nazis were from England, Ireland, Australia, and the US. Other than the two tours we took, we could find little verbal or written mention of the war. It just sits in the city like a fog that’s waiting for some sunlight to clear it.

They still use the Olympic Stadium built by Hitler for the 1936 Olympics. The Berlin Bears soccer team play there, and our group went to watch them play Liverpool. The game ended at 0-0, lame, but the season’s in down-time since the World Cup’s over. Apparently, Germans can get really boisterous at soccer games when it counts. There was still a loud student section, but everyone was just sort of hanging out and drinking beer.

Modern Berlin is very much trying to exert itself as a cultural cornerstone, and it seems to be succeeding. They were holding Fashion Week while we were there, and all the big-name designers and models were there. The mayor was able to bring Barack Obama in for his only European address (more on this in a bit). The film industry holds its annual film festival in Berlin. Still, Berlin is the poorest city in Germany, practically bankrupt, from what I understand.

On every single block, there was a stand you could walk up to and get bratwurst or currywurst and a beer. They hand the bratwurst to you in a roll. Seriously, a long bratwurst on a little bitty roll. Currywurst is a delicious Berlin favorite. In a paper box without a lid, they cut up a bratwurst, smother it with a sauce that tastes like tomato-ketchup-BBQ goodness and sprinkly on curry powder, pile on a side of French fries, and smother the French fries with ketchup (unless you catch them beforehand and say, “Ohne ketchup, bitte!” which of course I didn’t do because I love ketchup, but Chad had to shout every time). Then you can top off your meal with a Berlin pilsner and walk down your merry way in the street, open container and all. I had way more meals on the go in Berlin than in the states. I guess main difference was that I walked up to the stand instead of driving, and I never knew quite how their bratwurst or currywurst would taste, less predictable.

It was much easier to find non-German food than German food. Berlin is full of Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Italian restaurants. I saw one Burger King, two Subways, one McDonald’s, and one Starbucks. When we wanted German food, we found it best to duck into a dark bar (dark because electricity is apparently Very expensive) where German men were drinking their lunch-time beers and try our luck there. Or we could always head to a brat/currywurst stand on the corner, but even then, there was always a Turkish gyro (“duner”) shop right next door.

Going back to the pilsner beer, Northern Germans love light beer, and often sweet-flavored or fruity light beers. We thought we’d be able to get thick, dark beers wherever we went. Oh, no, definitely not. And some of the cheap pilsners (like Jever) taste worse than Coors Light, maybe even worse than Natty Light. We were not fans. For the stereotypical malty beers, you have to go down South. Chad and I just must be Southerners at heart.

Well, we must be Southerners of the rebellious sort. We love Bavaria, and Bavaria is the German version of Texas. They were their own Republic for a while and are still annoyingly proud of it (according to Berliners). They’ll say they’re Bavarian before they’ll say their German. Just like Texans.

The autobahn has a reputation in the States of being a place where only crazy people would drive. I pictured it like a specially designed cross between a highway and a high-speed racetrack. It’s exactly like a US highway, except there were often three lanes instead of just two. At least half the people were going around 80 mph or less, a quarter were passing them at around 90 or 100 mph, and a quarter were flying by everybody at 120-150 mph. But it works really well with three lanes. If anyone is behind you and moving faster, you get over immediately. If everyone abides by that rule, traffic moves along just fine. And, really, you get used to driving at 120 mph after an hour or so.

The walk/don’t walk signs are very unique to Berlin. Under communism, the walk signs in East Berlin were walking little green men with hats on. The don’t walk signs were little red men with hats on and both stubby arms stretched out to the sides. He’s very cute. When the wall came down and East and West Berlin merged, West Berlin adopted the East’s walk/don’t walk signs. In fact, that’s the only part of East Berlin culture that was adopted by West Berlin.

There are still beggars in Berlin. I don’t totally understand how beggars exist in a socialist society, but they do. There aren’t nearly as many in Berlin as there are in Italy (by about a hundred fold!), but I couldn’t decide whether it was a con job or a flaw in the socialist system.

Speaking of socialists, let’s go back to Barack Obama. I don’t know if it made headlines in the States, but at first, Obama wanted to speak at Brandenburg Gate. Big mistake. Only presidents have spoken there, never candidates. It made Obama look obnoxiously cocky. Chacellor Merkel immediately said she thought Brandenburg Gate would be an inappropriate location, but surprisingly, the mayor of Berlin said Obama was welcome to speak at the Gate if he wanted. (It’s the mayor’s decision in the end, not the Chancellor’s.) After a couple weeks of uncertainty (like July 7-19), the city government was getting nervous. Obama was scheduled to speak on the 24th, and the Obama campaign hadn’t picked a location. One official said it would normally be impossible to set up such a large event in such notice. On the 19th, it came out that he would speak at the Victory Column. Interestingly, although the Victory Column was built to commemorate Prussian war victory, Hitler had moved the column to its present location, so it has the stain of Hitler in Berliner’s eyes. Anyway, they started prepping for the 200,000 attendees right away. We got there a few hours early and snagged a spot 60 feet away from the podium. People in Germany love Obama, 80% of them would vote him for president of the US. I gotta say that even though Obama and I have our differences on policy issues, I still was excited to see his charisma in action. After his 30-minute speech, though, I felt a little let down. Almost everything he said was predictable, not fresh or especially insightful. The US and Berlin have been partners ever since the airlift during WWII. Berlin is a city that knows the value of freedom and how to persevere in pursuit of freedom. (That was 10 minutes.) Europe is the US’ best partner, and we must work toward increased multi-lateral relations. (Another 10 minutes.) The US needs Germany’s help to stabilize Afghanistan, but the US should get out of Iraq immediately. We need to get rid of all nukes, including Iran’s. The US should be as concerned about energy consumption as Europe is so we can preserve the ice caps and save the polar bears. (Don’t even get me started on the polar bears! Knut is very cute, but the polar bear population is the largest it’s been in decades! They aren’t dying off. Besides, they love swimming. Don’t pull them into political/moral agendas, please, especially when it’s unjustified.) We shouldn’t allow an economic system that benefits the few over the many. We all have to remember that we’re all citizens of the world. (Last 10 minutes, and I was left with an image of Obama and John Nash as fellow citizens of the world.) He didn’t even attempt one word in German, which especially disappointed the Berliners. They wanted to be a part of a historical moment as memorable as Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

Okay, I’ll make a separate paragraph for this one. In case you haven’t heard the story, when Kennedy came to Berlin, he began his speech with, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which translated to, “I am a donut.” He was very close to correct sentence, though. “Ich bin Berliner,” would have been, “I am a Berliner,” so he wasn’t really that far off. I don’t think the Berliners minded at all, they all seem to have good memories of Kennedy.

Most people, or at least most people in cafes and retail, spoke between a few English words and enough to help us out with what we needed. Only a few were fluent. In the smaller cities, though, we definitely ran into people that didn’t know a single word of English. So, for the most part, we didn’t have problems, but there were some situations that called for extended charades. (See trip to Steinau.)

Right next door to our apartment was a little café. I went there pretty frequently for a morning milchkaffee. They must use fattier milk because it was always creamy and delicious. It was probably also infected with disease because they used the same container to steam milk for everyone’s drinks over and over again, but maybe that just added to the flavor. I think most places we went to did that, so they must not have rigid health inspection codes. Sandwiches with meat and cheese also tended to stay out in the display case all day, and I sometimes suspected cafes of reusing yesterday’s sandwiches. Well, anyway the owner was very nice and made it her mission to teach us a new German phrase every time we went in. I think she got a kick out of us.

I always hear people say disparaging things about Starbucks because they use a machine that automates espresso shots, but I saw that several times in Germany too. In fact, some cafes had machines that automated the whole process. You put down a cup, push the “milchkaffee” button, and out comes frothy milk and espresso. So, I guess it’s not just a Starbucks thing. Next the US will get the vending machines where you just put in a dollar and it dispenses a paper cup and spits our coffee and the amount of milk and sugar you specify.

Okay, well, that’s enough for now. If I think of anything that I skipped, I’ll post it later, but for now I’m back in the States and still on Berlin time. My presentation yesterday went just fine, and Darcy and I are going to take advantage of a relaxing week Boston while Chad finishes up finals in Berlin.

Weekend #3: Friday July 25 – Monday July 28

I planned this weekend’s trip, so all of the shenanigans soon to follow are my fault, lol. First off, getting information was difficult. Many hotels didn’t speak English and didn’t respond well to email. I wanted to head down to the Rhineland and do a tour and tastings in a winery. I thought this would be easy, I mean, in California, you can do tours and tastings in a hundred wineries. I was limited in a couple ways: I can’t read German websites, and a lot of the family owned wineries didn’t translate their sites. Family-owned wineries in Germany, which is most of them, don’t really do tours. If they do tours, they’re in German and available for private parties that have to reserve before-hand. I ended up finding a tour of some sparkling wine (“Zext”) cellars in Mainz that are famous because they’re the deepest in the world. The tour was in German, but they offered English cards to follow along. I’d already wanted to go to Mainz, so that worked out. Okay so here was the fun-filled weekend:

We rented a car that was not a Smart Car because we really wanted to break 100 mph. We drove down through Frankfurt and into Mainz, just 20km or so outside the city limits. We got in around 9:00 and went to the bed and breakfast. Often in Europe (or at least in Italy, Spain, and Germany), people who have an extra bed and bath upstairs or downstairs put their name and address in a bed and breakfast directory. You send an inquiry to the bed and breakfast directory, saying which city you’d like to stay in and when, and they connect you to someone’s home. A lady in her 60’s owned our bed and breakfast, and in this little town of Mainz, she had the second-best English we heard the whole trip. She also had a cozy room for us downstairs, but I guess the breakfast part didn’t translate.

We drove into town to find a late dinner and after wandering around the city and by the Rhine River, getting thoroughly lost, fighting about where we should go, then finally asking for directions, we ate dinner at a brewhouse. Our waitress had the best English we heard the whole trip because she’d grown up by an army base and played with American children. They had fabulous beer and a meal that is now one of Chad’s all-time favorite meals: turkey cutlet with dark beer sauce. Just ask him, he’ll tell you aalll about it. We wrote down the name and address for the next time we go to Mainz because we’re definitely going back. The next day, we visited one of the churches, wandered through a produce and flower market, explored the Gutenberg museum, saw a live demonstration of Gutenberg’s printing press (so cool!), and took a tour of the sparkling wine cellars. I think the Gutenberg printing press was my favorite moment of the day, though. Ask me for a demonstration the next time you see me. =)

Around 3pm, we decided to ditch our Google instructions and drive along the Rhine down to our next stop, Worms. We drove through a couple of private-property-no-trespassers vineyards and through several small towns before we realized we’d headed the wrong direction. We stop and asked directions, and the man who helped us was so nice that he gave us his cell phone number in case we got lost again. We found our way back to the autobahn, though, and made in into Worms.

Worms is the sight of the Protestant Reformation, where Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door, preached to congregations, and faced off with the council of bishops. The Catholic Dom still stands and is quite beautiful, one of my favorite churches that I saw on the trip, but the church where Luther preached was destroyed by (I believe) French troops around 1689. They’ve rebuilt a church with a modern interior where it stood. There are also several museums in the town, including a small art gallery, but nothing too exciting. We loved our hotel because the man who owned it was so nice, fixed us breakfast when we were late getting up, and told us all about the stain glass windows that had taken him years to do by hand, but Worms was boring, so we left Sunday afternoon for Steinau.

The Grimm brothers spent their early childhood in Steinau, and their home has been made into a museum, so I really wanted to stay in the town. I’d book a room online, but when we got into town and looked at a map, we couldn’t find the hotel’s street anywhere. I called, but the lady only spoke German. Here’s where things got interesting. I struggled for 7 or 8 minutes with my terrible, terrible German to have a conversation that went something like this: (I’ll just give you the English equivalent for what I said.)

Guten tag (blah blah blah German)

Guten tag. Do you speak English?

Nien.

Uhhh, I MacDonald. You hotel?

Ja. (Something like can I help you?)

I have room. Where is you? I Steinau train station.

(Blah blah blah German, but I knew she wasn’t giving directions.)

I to come you. I Steinau train station.

(Blah blah blah, but I heard the word “strasse,” which means “street.”)

Street in Steinau? Near Brother Grimm Museum?

Nien. Nien Steinau. (Garble, garble “bach”)

No Stienau? Hotel no Steinau?

Nien. Nien Steinau. (Garble, garble “bach”)

Oh. I Steinau. I Stienau train station.

Nien. Nien Steinau.

Okay. I no to pay room.

Vass?

(Shoot, Chad, look up “cancel”! He looks it up, I try word #1 in painfully slow German. She doesn’t understand. I try word #2. I say it twice. The second time, she repeats it back, then repeats it again, and it’s the same word.) Yes, yes, I no to pay room, okay?

(Blah blah blah German) okay.

Okay? I no to come. I no to pay.

(Blah blah blah German) okay.

Okay, thank you.

We were worried that since I booked online it would charge anyway, but since the hotel wasn’t in Steinau, we had no way to find it. We headed into old town to find a hotel, but they were all booked. Well, all two of them. We resorted to asking a couple people where our first hotel was, and eventually we figured out it was in Ulbach 8 km away, so we decided to try to find it. We found Ulmbach just by following signs, and luck was one our side. We drove down the main street until almost the end of town and the heavens shine an angelic light upon the sign that bore our hotel’s name. We showed up, I pointed to myself and said, “MacDonald.” She laughed in that confused but amused, and took us to our room. We ate dinner at a restaurant on a hill in the forest and went through a short walk until it got dark. In Europe, you spend all your time surrounding by stones and concrete, so it was great to spend some time with trees and grass.

We got up early enough on Monday (the next day) that we could go to the Grimm Museum on the way out of town, but we ran into troubles paying. The man (her husband?) said they couldn’t take Visa credit cards. Almost no one took Visa, they all wanted Master Card. I eventually explained that I’d book online with booking.com. He pulled out the faxed reservation, I pointed and said the equivalent of, “I pay credit card. I pay cash. I pay twice.” I think he got that I didn’t want to pay cash then get charged on my credit card. He got his English-speaking daughter on the phone to explain that booking.com doesn’t charge the card, just gets the credit card information in case the guest doesn’t pay. So, we paid cash and headed to the Grimm Museum, which ended up being closed until noon anyway, so we just went back to Berlin, and Chad was in class by 5pm. Another successful weekend trip.

Weekend #2: Friday July 18 –Sunday July 20

We spent this weekend in Berlin. The highlights were the Third Reich Tour and the Sacchsenhausen Concentration Camp Tour. I’ve posted notes and pictures from the Third Reich Tour, and Sacchsenhausen will be coming soon. It was an all-day tour, though, so it’ll take me a while to compile my notes and type them up. Since it was such a fascinating (and gruesome) tour, I think some of ya’ll will be interested to read about it.

Weekend #1: Friday July 11 – Monday July 14

Chad had planned an anniversary trip down in southern Germany. We rented a Smart Car and set out on the autobahn. We unhappily realized that Smart Cars max out at 157 kph, just under 100mph. We still got some good speed and passed a number of cars, but how can you drive on the German autobahn and never break 100? Shameless. We drove to a little town north of Munich and stayed in a large castle on a hill top. It was beautiful countryside, friendly people, and delicious food. Not to mention, it was a real (/historical) castle, not something built for tourism. The wooden stairs creaked quite appropriately, and they still used some of the original furniture. The next day, we had lunch in the town and drove up to Nuremburg. We had Google maps to the hotel, but we wanted to catch part of the German National Museum before it closed, so we tried to wing it, figuring we’d just head toward the city center. Hah. We exited way to far south, tried to guess which direction the city was, circled, back-tracked, circled some more, and finally stumbled on it. Always head toward the church, that’s what we learned. We arrived in time to spend a few hours at the German National Museum, one of the largest museums I’ve ever encountered. It sprawls across several blocks worth of buildings. There are exhibits on everything from archeological finds from the Roman period in Germany to typical household goods and children’s toys to secular and religious art. A full day’s guided tour would really be the only way to do the place justice, but we took our audio guides and covered as much ground as we could.

When we left to find our hotel, we got pretty hopelessly lost –again. We tried to follow signs to the autobahn, how hard can it be? We’re convinced the German sign system needs to be updated. You’d follow a sign to the autobahn and not see another sign for 5 or 6 kilometers and then convince yourself you’d just missed a sign, so you pull a U-turn, and try to find some sign. When you do find one, it takes you in a completely different direction and drops you signless again. Turns out you have to be patient and willing to drive 8 kilometers before seeing another sign sometimes. Anyway, and hour and a half later, we checked into our hotel, took a “disco nap,” and headed out to the city center at 11pm. We passed a lot of “gesschlossen” signs before we found a place that would serve dinner. Then we headed to a Mexican cantina for drinks, but we had to finish them quickly since the place closed at 1:30, and the town with it. So the night life was a little sleepy, but we just went home for a good night’s sleep. The next morning we went to a Protestant church and listened to a very eloquent sermon in German, sat near one of the most unruly kids ever (he was running around the altar during service!), and witnessed a baby’s baptism. The service was much like a Protestant service in the US, with a few hymns, prayers, a scripture reading, and a sermon. The congregation was quite small, maybe 50 people in the first 20 pews of a very large, Gothic church. We spent the afternoon wandering Nuremburg. It’s very pretty, with a river running through the middle, cobblestone streets, a large church every few blocks, and groups of café tables curving into the squares. The center is mostly pedestrians and bicycles only, which is great for strolling and less great for finding hotels in a rental car.

We left that afternoon for Leipzig so that we’d only have a short drive into Berlin on Monday morning. Leaving Nuremburg was another autobahn-finding mess, but after an hour, we were finally on our way. We got into Leipzig around 7 pm and drove into town to explore and have dinner. We found what they call “pub mile,” which is an alley way stuffed with rows of tables. There are probably 8 restaurants in the alley way, but you can hardly tell the tables of one restaurant from another because they’re so close to each other. We circled and looked at menus and examined other peoples’ dinners until we found one we liked, but since our waitress was so slow, we had time to look at our guidebook and discover that Europe’s oldest café was in Leipzig, from the 1500’s. And they serve dinner. So we paid our drink tab and left for Café Baum, where Bach, Strauss, Goethe, and Mendelssohn had all been regulars or visitors.

The next day we had just enough time to take quick tours through the church where Bach had served as music minister during his day and Mendelssohn’s house before we had to get back to Berlin. The drive was uneventful, and we were ready for a few days of downtime.

News from Germany

Hallo! So it's finally time to hear about Germany. I'm sad to say that at the moment I am packing to leave Berlin, but I don't want to be State-side before I even have one post in about German adventures. Here are some highlights (though stories and accompanying pictures will follow in a few days):
July 4th: We left Hong Kong at 11:30 pm and landed in Berlin at 10 am the next day. We'd been awake all day in Hong Kong, got on our overnight flight, and had to spend the whole day awake in Berlin. Flying to and from Asia is killer, but we adjusted okay after a few days. (Well, I was kind of a wimp, but Chad was good.) That day, we went to Brandenburg gate, and to our surprise they were having a party to celebrate the relocation of the American embassy. It is now right beside the Brandenburg Gate, where it was before the Cold War.

July 5th: We went to the Pergamon Museum to see their exhibit on Babylon - fabulous. Although they had a "Truth" section and a "Myth" section. The "Myth" section was very Berlin-like. I think it was basically a way to compare myths of Babylon to artsy-like movements today. Ie: It was a myth that Babylon was full of whores and orgies, so they took the opportunity to show porn clips. Sigh, I don't know. The "Truth" stuff, with your more typical archaeological finds was way cool, though. They re-created the massive temple with some tiles they'd found and some they'd made to match.

July 6th - 10th: In the mornings, Chad would go to class, I would read or fiddle with pictures, we'd go somewhere nearby for lunch, the afternoons would be more class and more reading, then we'd do something in the evening. This was our typical routine. One evening, we went to a beer garden in the middle of the city's largest park. We sat on a dock and watched people rent canoes. July 7th was also our one-year anniversary. Chad found a restaurant in West Berlin that has fantastic weinerschnitzel and his new favorite beer, King Ludwig's.

July 11th - 14th: Friday evening, we rented a Smart Car drove down to a small town North of Munich and stayed in a castle. It was so cool! We spent the next two days in Nuremberg and Leipzig. Chad's class started Monday evening.

July 15th - 17th: More classes, reading, and picture-fiddling. We went to some more museums, art, history, and such. Berlin has so many fabulous museums. We've been here a month, and there are still some I'd planned to see but haven't.

July 18th - 20th: We stayed in Berlin this weekend to see some of the local sights. We took a tour of the Third Reich sights in Berlin (see two posts previous for details) on Friday. That night, we celebrated the birthday of one of the guys in the program at a local Irish pub. They love Irish pubs. Italy loved Irish pubs too, must be a world-wide phenomenon, or at least Europe-wide. Saturday we took a tour of Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp just outside Berlin. I have detailed notes of that excursion. It was fascinating, creepy, and gruesome melted together. I'll post notes and pictures of the tour later. On Sunday we went to the Alte Nationalgalerie, an enormous art gallery. An entire floor was just German painters.

July 21st: I went with the law program group to the Ministry of Justice to hear how the law works in Germany. It's quite different, in some unexpected ways. Ie: For some cases, they have "lay judges," who are not trained in the law but are professionals of the field in question who serve on the bench with other "lay judges" and "professional judges." So, if the area in question is business-related, a businessman will sit on a judges bench and have all the power and responsibility that a professional judge does.

July 22nd - 24th: Normal classes and reading and such. The evenings of these weeks, though, were fairly eventful. On the 22nd, we went to a soccer game, Berlin vs. Liverpool. Since the World Cup is over, it was a "friendly game." The game ended 0-0, but it was still fun to watch. Apparently, when the games are competitively/un-friendly, the Germans can get quite riotous. Behind our apartment is the Natural History Museum, one of the largest in the world, so we spent the afternoon of the 23rd there and saw the largest dinosaur skeleton in the world. A brontosaurus, btw. On July 24th, we went to see Barack Obama speak at the Victory Column in Berlin. It was packed, an estimated 200,000, and we were maybe 60 feet away. It was pretty darn cool to be there, but I was slightly disappointed in his speech, and I wasn't the only one. He was fine, just not the hugely charismatic speaker the US press has hyped him up to be. Or maybe he was jet-lagged, who knows. I'll post more about this later, including pictures.

July 25th - 28th: We rented something better than a Smart Car because we wanted to break 100 mph. We got up to about 120 in this car as we headed down by Frankfurt. We spent a night in Mainz (saw the Gutenberg museum, toured a zext/champagne winery, and Chad had the best meal of his life and a liter stein of dark beer), a night in Worms (saw where Luther started the Protestant Reformation, not much else to see there), and a night near a small town where the Grimm brothers grew up (saw their childhood home and roamed the nearby woods). Very fun weekend, and we loved Mainz, definitely going back there someday.

July 29th: We're headed to Hamburg. Our train leaves in an hour. We'll hopefully meet up with Louisa, Curtis' girlfriend and long-time family friend. She's from Germany, and it's been a few years since Chad's seen her, so it should be good fun. Hopefully all trains run on-time because...

July 30th: We leave Hamburg at 9am, get back just before 11 am, and my international flight leaves Berlin at 3pm. I'm a little worried because 52,000 of Lufthansa's employees are striking right now. The biggest strike is in Frankfurt, and I connect in Frankfurt and fly Lufthansa all the way back to Boston. Assuming all trains and planes go well, I will present some research I've done in the sociology of religion in Boston on Thursday. Yikes, very busy, and I have to prep this talk. Well, the time in Germany has been fantastic, and we're already planning how to get back here. More posts and photos soon to come.

Final China Post

(There are two new posts. This one finishes China adventures. The one before this has a virtual Third Reich tour of Berlin.)

(And for accomapnying pictures of the China posts, see my China slideshow here: )

Day 5:
After breakfast at the hotel, we loaded into our giant van and met our guide, Peter, who would be taking us to the Ming Tombs, a jade factory, and the Great Wall. During the 1 ½ hour drive, Peter gave us a quick rundown of China’s history. He probably skipped a lot, but it was more information than I could retain. We went through the list of emperors and bunch of Chinese inventions. Peter insists that the Chinese invented pretty much everything. Except 0. Marco Polo brought a group of Europeans over to China during the 12th century, and that’s when the Chinese started using 0 and other geometry. Everything else, though, is Chinese. He was a history teacher for much of his life, so he’s read a decent amount and was a great tour guide. He took us through the Ming Tombs, the burial place for all emperors from the Ming Dynasty. There were a series of archways leading to a main temple building. At the top is a large column, with the name of the emperor buried, but it does not mark the location of the tomb itself. The entrance to every emperor’s tomb was hidden. The only people who knew the location were the construction workers, and most of those were killed. For one emperor’s tomb, 30,000 workers were killed. Current researchers have found the tombs of many emperors, but some are still hidden. And even if found, they don’t always want to open them, since once exposed to oxygen, many ancient artifacts crumble. So, we didn’t see inside any tombs, but the archways and temples around them are worth the trip. There are dozens of dynastic tombs in the foothills of the mountains near Beijing.

Next up was the jade factory, where they gave us a short tour of the various types of jade. Hard jade is typically used for jewelry, but soft jade is needed to do some of the amazingly intricate sculptures. Jade naturally comes in green, white, black, red, pink, yellow, and pretty much every shade in between. Some of the most valuable pieces were one piece of jade that had several colors and was sculpted to use those colors aesthetically. For instance, they had some white and dark green jade pieces that were sculpted so that white Chinese monks and the moon stood out in the foreground, but dark green mountains and trees hovered in the background. Very cool. Then they gave us plenty of time to buy things from their massive store. Chad and I got a fabulous dark green boat.

And last on the list for the day was the Great Wall. Peter filled us in on more fascinating things that I can’t remember anymore on the way to the wall. Traffic was fairly heavy because it was the last day deliver trucks and 18 wheelers could be in Beijing before the August Olympics. (Bear in mind this was July 1.) So every single company, store, and shop was having its last delivery made, and we were in the middle of it all. Luckily, we got through alright, and made our way to the wall. This thing is absolutely huge. And it’s built on the top of a mountain range. So imaging hiking up to the top of a mountain and then putting a brick down on the highest point. That’s where you’d build the wall. At first, the wall was only 3 meters high, but as the dynasties added to and added to, most of the wall reached 8 meters. Bear in mind that construction began in the 6th century BC… BC! It’s not one continuous wall because it branches off a couple times like streams alongside a river. Including all its veins, the wall is 6,700 km (4,160 miles) long in total. I had two main questions: 1) Aren’t the freaking mountains enough protection? Those things were steep! 2) If it took such a long time to building, was it really a necessity? If you had pressing enemies, wouldn’t they have barge in somewhere between the 6th and 4th century BC? And if you didn’t have pressing enemies, why even bother? These may never be answered. Anyway, the wall is phenomenally impressive. We went to a section that has been restored so that the walkway from one guard tower to another is smooth, but I was surprised at what a steep incline the walkway reaches sometimes. Occasionally we were walking at a 30 degree incline, and once it got steeper, there were dozens and dozens of steps all the way up to the next guard tower. We did make it up to the hero’s point, though, so I guess that means we’re pretty great people.

We did a little bargain shopping the town by the Great Wall, and then we were so tuckered out that we just went back to the hotel for dinner.


Day 6:
Since the van worked out so well the day before, we just asked the driver if he could take us around Beijing the next day, and he agreed. So the next morning we had him drop us off at the Hutongs, which are alleyways filled with houses and shops. In that same area is a ceramics factory/shop, where we got a brief tour and, of course, were given plenty of time to shop. Chad and I actually found a beautiful painting there, which we will have to post of picture of when we get back to Nashville. After shopping, we wandered around the alleyways of the Hutong. Literally, there’s a tiny doorway into a long, winding alley that has entrances on either side, and that’s someone’s front door to their home. We did see a couple leather couches, but many of the homes were more like shanties than anything else. When you’ve spent so many days in the heights of Chinese architecture and history, the Hutongs are a glaring reminder of people’s less-than-imperial daily lives in China.

And with these images fresh in our minds, we set off to the lively city of Hong Kong.

Day 7:
Since Whitney and Patti would be leaving that afternoon, we decided to stay around the hotel for the morning, and if there ever was a hotel to just hang out at, the InterConinental would be it. After a ridiculously huge breakfast buffet with everything down to organic honey dripping off the honeycomb onto your bread, we walked around the harbor. The hotel sits right on Victoria Harbor, facing the shore of Hong Kong Island. The previous night we’d seen the lights of hundreds of buildings, but these weren’t normal lights. Giant walls of neon changed color, flashed, and moved right/left/up/down/diagonal/in a circle or just, you know, displayed the moving letters of the company name. Multiply that by like 30 buildings on the edge of the harbor. It’s one crazy light show at night. So now we were out during the day, and we could finally see just how tall those buildings were. Many of them looked between 80 and 100 stories tall, and they just stretched on forever down both sides of the habor. Miles of 80 to 100 story buildings. We headed up to the hotel pool for a better view. The InterContinental has a three-tier hot tub that looks like it pours into the harbor. We got some silly pictures out there, if you haven’t seen the Picasa slideshow already. (See post below.)

And when it came for 1/3 of our group to leave, the remaining 4 went down the street to yet another luxurious hotel way out of mine and Chad’s price range. Chad had asked a friend from Hong Kong (who is now Vandy Law student) for the name of a good tailor, so me, Chad, Rod, and Curtis roamed the streets of Hong Kong to find him. They got measured for suits/slacks/shirts. It really is amazing. You walk into a tailor store, which is the size of our living room in Nashville, they quickly find out what material your looking for in a suit (warm, cool, in the middle), you pick out a fabric color, they measure you 40 diferent ways up down and all around, then they tell you to come back the next day. You come back like 18 ours later, you try on your half-made suit, they not some adjustments, and they tell you to come back in a few hours. You come back like 6 or 7 hours later, you try on the suit, it fits great, and they bag it up for you. They say if you ever want another suit, just email them, they have your measurements, and they can ship it right to you. AND it’s cheaper than buying a suit at Men’s Warehouse. I know! Crazy. So that’s exactly what Chad did, and now he has a snazzy hand-tailored suit from Hong Kong. Pretty cool. We celebrated with high tea at the Peninsula Hotel (since Hong Kong still has remnants of the British influence). For dinner and desert, Chad and I met the friend from Hong Kong who had recommended the tailor – Veronica. We ate at a Japanese restaurant, where she ordered beef tongue and chicken skin and other actually quite delicious things for us. Then we met one of her college friends (they both went to college in the States) for a very American-esque dessert. In fact, many things in Hong Kong felt somewhat familiar. For one thing, most people spoke very good English.

Day 8:
Curtis and Rod left the next morning, leaving Chad and I by ourselves in Hong Kong. We decided to find a tailor for me. Their tailor only did women’s suits, and their pattern book was from a number of years ago, so we decided to wander around some of the main shopping areas. After a few stop ins at random tailors, we found one that had been in business for three generations. What really caught our eye was that no one was standing outside, handing out pamphlets. We’ve decided this is the key to finding a tailor in Hong Kong. If they’re handing our pamphlets, do not go. If they’re waiting patiently in the shop, do go. This guy was very helpful, did dresses all the time, and was very willing to let me go through catalogues of patterns and clothes. Having clothes made to your specification could definitely be a terribly addicting habit. We asked him to make a traditional Chinese dress, with a few tweaks here and there, and he said to come back in 5 hours, he’d be ready for the first fitting. So we walked around a bit, had some delicious Japanese noodle bowls for lunch, and came back for another fitting. The tailor said he’d have it done the next day. Amazing!

Day 9:
On the recommendation of Veronica and her friend, we went to the Flower, Bird, and Fish streets, and they sell exactly what they say. The Flower street is really five or six streets, some running East-West others North-South, with indoor stalls/stores selling orchids, bamboo, palm trees, and a dozen other exotic plants. The Bird street is much smaller and has outdoor stalls selling exotic birds that squawk when you walk by them. The Fish street is not very exciting because it’s a bunch of fish tanks, although some have really Huge goldfish or little topical fish. Still, you’d never see anything like the Flower, Bird, and Fish streets in US, at least not in the parts of the US where we’ve lived. We spent the rest of the day really just wandering the city because our flight didn’t leave until 11:30 pm.

Hong Kong is an amazing place. I don’t know that I could live there because it’s so crowded, but it’s fun in a way too. For one, there are double-decker pedestrian sidewalks. The typical ground-level sidewalks are packed with people moving every which direction all the time, so downtown Hong Kong has a layer of sidewalks that are on the equivalent of the second story, and there are pedestrian bridges that connect blocks of second story sidewalks. For two, there are masseuses and tailors everywhere. Tailors we’ve talked about, but the masseuses should not be overlooked. Chad and I just randomly stopped into a masseuse and had a fabulous massage for half the price in the US. Plus they gave us ear candles, which are little rolled up pieces of paper they stick in your ear and light on fire. Some how the heat pulls the wax out of your ear, and believe me, there’s way more wax in there than you would Ever imagine. It’s scary, but you can hear so well afterward! They can do a belly button candle too, but there are just some things I NEVER want to imagine, let alone know about. Ick. For three, there subway systems are fantastic. They connect everywhere, the maps on the inside show the whole system and have little lighted dots to show you where you are, and the connecting trains are time perfectly. For four, they have the best Japanese bowls of noodles everywhere. Except maybe in Japan. I should try real Japanese ones first. For five, the US Dollar is really strong there, so like everything’s half off. Chad and I made it in plenty of time for our 11:30 pm flight to London, then on to Berlin. And in the upcoming segments, I will finally fill you in on the highlights of our time in Berlin.

Third Reich Tour of Berlin

I'm interrupting the China posts to bring you the Third Reich Tour. Chad and I took this tour over the weekend, and I immediately came home to type up the notes. Then I thought that my faithful blog readers should share in the educational experience. Then I thought pictures would be nice too. Then I thought I'd just make a powerpoint presentation, which I ended up doing through Google tools, so please excuse the terrible formatting.

If you want to re-live my tour of the rise and fall of Nazism in Berlin, click here:

A few photos

For (many) more photos go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/MorganGMac/ChinaPhotobookSummer2008?authkey=h1uBQgYwnWk

View of Kunming from our hotel window

Chad, Curtis, and Morgan exploring downtown Kunming

A typical sight in Kunming

Whitney's solo performance of the Brooke concerto with the Kunming Orchestra
(Dr. Lui is conducting)

And celebrating afterward

Traditional Chinese lunch with Dr. Lui, Mrs. Chang, and Ina

Our very funny baggage helper at the Kunming airport

China - Kunming

Day 2:
We arrived in Kunming around 2:00, 6 hours before Whitney’s solo violin performance with the Kunming orchestra– the reason for the MacDonalds’ visit to China. The husband of Whitney and Chad’s former violin teacher was invited to conduct the Kunming orchestra, he used the opportunity to invite Whitney to play a concerto, and the rest of us used both of them as an excuse to vacation in China. We said hi to Whitney and Patti at the hotel – the only five-start hotel in the province – and set off to explore the city. We’d spent 36 hours either on a plane, in a terminal, or in a hotel, and we were eager to start the trip. Curtis, Chad, and I had asked the hotel receptionist to write our downtown destination in Chinese characters on a business card, which made the taxi driver happy, and we were dropped off in a pedestrian shopping area. The main attraction was a long brick street with a median of trees and window-shopping on both sides, but you would have thought we were the sight to see. Everyone around us was swiveling their heads and practically walking backwards to stare at us. We didn’t know it then, but we’d need to get used to that reaction. Chad and Curtis went straight to the blind masseuses, who had set up a whole line of folding chairs down one side of the road. Just pick your blind masseuse and sit down for a bone-crushing rub. Well, half of them were blind, and it was the blind ones that made the spot famous as a good place for a massage. I opted out on the excuse of wussy shoulder muscles, but Chad and Curtis loved all twenty minutes of it. Then we walked around a bit, and the wide street turned into a wide alleyway, and the merchandise changed from handbags and clothes to dried eel and strangely-shaped produce. We weren’t tempted to buy anything.

We came to a street and turned a couple of times until we smelled spicy, delicious things and decided to get some dinner before the concert. There was a man with a cart selling some kind of meat on a stick, three for 10 yuan (about $1.50). Well, heck, sounds like an authentic Chinese experience. And on both sides were I guess what you could call cafes with outdoor only seating, and the customers all looked healthy enough. We asked for only a little spicy, so the guy spread on about 8 layers of a cayenne/chili/super spicy pepper sauce while the sticks of meat roasted over a propane flame. It only took one bite of those spicy mystery meat sticks to get us sucking in air and looking for a drink. We were definitely getting stares. The owner of the restaurant next door (well, five feet to the right at a separate fold up table) was more than happy to sell us coke bottles. We had walked a few yards down the street before we figured out the Chinese yelling behind us was actually yelling at us. The coke bottles were glass, and they definitely wanted them back when we’d finished, so we sat down at a picnic table on the sidewalk. When the meat sticks didn’t fill us up, we went down to another “next door” restaurant (another propane-cook top area with tables) and order some bowls of meat with kung-pao-like sauce and rice. Feeling like we’d gotten a fill of a real Kunming experience, we caught a cab back to our five-star hotel to get ready for Whitney’s concert.

The taxi rides in this town took probably about as long as walking would since every major street had a metal median dividing the two directions of traffic, the kind of curved metal fences we see during road construction. These little blockades meant the cars had to drive half a mile farther than they needed to until they reached a light that allowed U-turns. We made it to the concert hall on time, and we knew we were in the right spot when we saw a 4-story poster, with a 10ft x 10ft picture of the night’s soloist, hanging on the front of the building. Whitney played her Brooke concerto during the first half, and she sounded absolutely fantastic. She looked every bit the confident, adept soloist in her black A-line dress with dramatic white satin flares falling down the back, and audience called her back for several rounds of bows when she’d finished. Truth be told, they might have wanted to see Whitney’s glowing blonde hair one more time as much as show their appreciation for her violin performance (although both were beautiful). Incidentally, since we sat next to Mrs. Chang (Whitney and Chad’s old violin teacher and wife of the conductor), we showed her pictures of the things we’d ordered that afternoon, and she informed us it had been a very bad idea to eat food from street vendors. Even she never did that. Well, we never did get sick – but we never ordered from street vendors again either. The MacDonald family went back to the hotel lounge for champagne and finally got a chance to relax, relay adventures from the past week (since Whitney and Patti had been there for 6 nights or so), and congratulate Whitney on her fabulous performance.

Day 3:
Mrs. Cheng and Dr. Lui (it’s traditional for the wife to keep her last name, so yes, this is the teacher and conductor married couple) and their 15-year-old daughter, Ina, took us to a traditional Chinese restaurant for lunch. We had a private room with a sitting area for enjoying green tea before lunch and a huge circular table for a Chinese feast. The seating arrangement is quite important for a Chinese meal, and Dr. Lui put Whitney at the place of honor, farthest from and facing the door. For over an hour, waiters brought huge plates of food to put on the lazy susan, and we spun the food around while picking pieces off plates with our chopsticks. It’s a wonder we don’t use lazy susans more often in the States – they are so efficient! Our chopstick skills were a little slippery at first, but we improved as we went along. There were platters of round corn puffs, pumpkin slices, whole spicy shrimp, chicken pieces, sautéed broccoli, roasted crispy duck, green vegetables of some sort, and several more plates I can’t identify. Most of them were absolutely delicious. One plate I tried only once turned out to be a stew of eel and frog, but all the others were mostly recognizable or only a little odd to our American tongues. With stomachs full, we said our goodbyes and went to pack for our next city of adventure: Beijing.