Halfway Somewhere

I am slightly past the halfway point of my 43-day Europe sojourn.  Somehow, the feeling of being on the downward slope is palpable even though I know it's ridiculous to think in terms of having "only" three weeks left or "only" five countries to go. Part of it is probably having the rest of the time mostly planned out as opposed to the yawning gulf of time I had when I set out; I find that time compresses when it has to conform to a schedule. Other than that, I suppose human psychology just loves milestones.

Tonight is my last night in Oslo. Tomorrow I'm off to Gotherburg, then Copenhagen etc. The Upcoming Tour Dates have been updated to reflect the latest plans.

I am excited to have booked a daylight night scuba dive for my time in Iceland. It is between two continental plates in some of the clearest water in the world. Being able to see a hundred meters or more will be a far cry from my 0-1m visibility training dives in Seattle, and all far water that's only slightly colder!

Oslo: 27 - 30 July

I arrived in Oslo Sunday evening and was met by my friend Sarah at the train station.  Sarah is a friend from Grinnell; she and her Norwegian husband Nikolai have been kind enough to have me on their couch. They also started my Nordic culinary journey by feeding me Wasa hard bread topped salmon caviar (from a tube) and cheese. It was delicious

Oslo Fjord from Sarah & Nikolai's

Oslo Fjord from the Opera House

On Monday, Sarah and I went sightseeing in downtown Oslo: the palace and the changing of the guard, the National Theatre, and the Parliament Building are all along a main pedestrian thoroughfare. Plenty of buskers were at hand, with my favorite being a few Roma men playing authentic gypsy jazz. Then, we climbed up the Opera House to see the view.

Oslo Opera  House from the fjord

Completing the tourist checklist we visited Frogner Park, famous for its Vigeland sculptures. One could easily spend hours picking out all of the details on so many sculptures.  Several of my favorites didn't photograph well at all; no angle captured enough of the sculpture for it to make much impact. Perhaps that's the mark of a good sculpture--if 3D artwork is adequately captured in a 2D medium, then perhaps the art is not taking full advantage of its medium.

A rare moment in front of the camera.

Each gate was a unique work.

Poor attempt at capturing my favorite

A small dinner party with friends and games completed my first day in Oslo.

Brunost

Tuesday was a day of rest and planning the next leg of my journey. In the evening we took a five minute ferry ride and  barbecued on the island of Hovedøya. The island is forested, rural, and even has sheep. Having it so accessible from downtown--the ferry uses the same passes as the metro--provides an easy contrast to urban life. We got to grill amongst canons overlooking the harbor and take full advantage of having warm sunshine until 9pm. My food explorations continued with brown cheese. I'm told it's a polarizing topic, but I adored it.

Sarah and her friend Matt

Wednesday was largely a visit to the Norwegian Folkmuseum. Buildings of different ages have been relocated there from all over Norway. There were farmhouses and a church over 600 years old, a whole traditional 17th century village square, an 18th century merchant house, some schoolhouses that would be at home in the American pioneer days, and bits of Oslo's urban center including an apartment building and a pharmacy.  In our afternoon there we saw maybe half of the buildings on site. Some days the place is swarming with people in traditional dress populating the buildings, much like an authentic Disneyland. We did get to see some folk dancing, but the place was quiet for our visit.

The church made interesting use of space. Not as tall or as grand as even a modest younger church, it nevertheless managed to inspire a sense of awe.  Stepping through the doors--tall and narrow, framed by intricate carvings--was almost an act of faith because nothing could be seen past them after the bright daylight.  The church has no windows, so it is slowly revealed as the pupils adjust, but it still seems to continue up forever with the ceiling shrouded in darkness.

I continued my food exploration with lefse and a smørbrød (open sandwich) covered in butter, scrambled eggs, and salmon. Notably, the cafe gave me free refills of coffee. That's the first time I've had free refills of anything in Europe. The coffee was terrible, but I had two cups on principle.

Folk dancing in the 17th century square

14th Century Stave Church

View of a traditional farm

My favorite powder horns from the indoor exhibits

Another barbecue in the sun with my kind hosts and a game of Agricola provided a delightful end to my Oslo visit.

Upcoming Tour Dates

I've been investing a lot of time for the past few days platting out the rest of my journey. Several flights have been booked, and I now offer this itinerary.

• Vienna 12-15 July (housed)
• Budapest 15-18 July (housed)
• Berlin 18-23 July (housing needed)
• Cyprus 23-27 July (housed)
• Oslo 27-31 July (housed)
• Gothenburg 31 July - 1 August (housed)
• Stockholm Copenhagen 1-4 August (housed)
• Brussels and/or Bruge 4-7 August (housing needed)
• The Hague 7-9 August (housed)
• Amsterdam 9-13 August (housing needed)
• Reykjavik 13-16 August (housed)
• Seattle 16-20 August (housing needed)
• Black Rock City 22 August - 1 September (housed-ish, need to find a tent)
• Seattle 2 September - ?? (housing needed)

If you're someone or knows someone that wants me to visit your couch/spare room/floor for a few days on a "housing needed" stop I would like to hear about it!

Die bayerische Lebens

Today I write from Munich.  I should be out exploring the Englischer Garten, one of the largest city parks in existence, but I'm somewhat reluctant to go out into the grey weather.  July is Bavaria's rainiest month, who knew?

Thing have been quieter since my first whirlwind day in Frankfurt, and that's just fine.

Friday, 4 July

As one might guess after seeing the sunrise, my proper 4th of July got off to a rather late start. I left the hostel around 3pm and went off to engage in one of my favorite hobbies: randomly wandering around a city.  Frankfurt is very walkable; as far as I can tell all points of interest are within a 30 minute walk of the train station.  Some highlights of my wanderings: 

The Euro sculpture at European Central Bank

• The European Central Bank gift shop, where one could buy bricks of shredded Deutschemarks (promised to be a million!), shredded Euros, Euro cuff links and tie pins, and many collectible gold and silver coins of several eras and origins. It was basically a free mini numismatic museum.
• Pedestrian streets. Everywhere. Frankfurt seems to be very happy to run a few major arterials around several-block-square pedestrian areas.  This always makes me happy.



Nifty shopping mall design.

• A shopping mall with really cool architecture. It did a great job of drawing me into the space and inviting exploration. It also brought natural light really far into the space. That's kind of a big deal here.



Rathaus door. Germans know how to make doors.

• The old city (Altstadt) and historic city hall.  I try not to laugh at foreign languages, but the German term for city hall-Rathaus-always makes me chuckle.  There are certainly times when I feel like political institutions in the States could be best described as rat houses too. (Sadly, "Rat" is German for "council", not "rat".)
• Wandering through the extensive riverfront park and napping on a bench, only to be awoken by the MASSIVE CHEERING that broke out when Germany scored a goal. (Oh yeah, everyone in the city was parked in front of a TV for the Germany Quarterfinals during my wanderings.) I also got to check out the setup for Iron Man that was happening on Sunday.

Saturday, 5 July

Behind us you can see the hostel.

View over Altstadt (old city).

On my last day in Frankfurt, I still managed to see quite a bit.  First, I ventured out to the Main Tower observation deck with some folks from the hostel. 

Then, I went to check out the architecture museum. Sadly, that was a bit of a disappointment. Most of the exhibit space was occupied with self-congratulatory material idolizing the founder and the museum's construction, and then an entire floor was filled with some of the founder's favorite artifacts arranged with no rhyme or reason that I could find.  

The highlight was a small permanent exhibit detailing the history of architecture in models from lean-to huts to modern Frankfurt buildings such as the Commerzbank tower which has some very exciting progressive design features.

Sky gardens!

Every office in the building receives natural light due to the tubular design. Ventilation is also handled naturally by exploiting the airflow through the building, aided by the gardens that fill atria periodically placed on each side of the building. The gardens are even themed based on the direction they face, e.g. Asian gardens face east. Sustainable doesn't have to be Spartan!

Meanwhile, back at the architecture museum...someone did not think through the interaction of mirrors and urinals.

Maybe they should've hired an architect?

Then a quick dash back to the Hauptbahnhoff to catch my train for Erlangen (near Nuremburg) to meet Jochen.  Jochen is dating my friend Tracey, and graciously agreed to host a foreign stranger.  We drove out, past many a hop yard, and once at nearly 200km/h on the autobahn, to pick up Tracey from the village where she is an au pair. We took some time to fill a large tub of cherries from her family's backyard tree.  Well, mostly I ate cherries while Tracey sat on my shoulders and picked them.

Sunday, 6 July

Erlangen Schlossgarten

Sunday was a day for taking in the real Bavarian lifestyle. Jochen, Tracey and I biked to a local festival with a live band, some family activities, and of course a biergarten. Jochen and I proceeded to swap acrobatic knowledge, tossing Tracey between us as a mostly-willing accomplice. We attracted the attention of a young man who was fascinated, and later invited us to join his friends playing a game called Jugger (from Juggernaut).  Many of my college friends will find the setup familiar...

One of the brief times I'm not out

I did terribly, but our host later revealed he played at international championships so I didn't feel too badly.

We then retired to the shade to drink some well-earned beer and play Settlers of Catan.

Ice cream on the way home, a delicious roast chicken al fresco, and more Settlers rounded out the day quite nicely.

Thanks to Tracey and Jochen, I'm now also addicted to a new phone game: Quiz Clash. It's competitive trivia, and I think they regret getting me started because I'm now undefeated against both of them for dozens of games.

Monday, 7 July

Work day for Jochen, but Tracey and I met him for lunch and said our farewells before heading off to Munich, which was a couple of hours by train. An easy undeground connection got us to our Airbnb for the night took just a few more minutes. (Great transit everywhere is a recurring theme.)

Our host, Benjamin, yielded to gentle persuasion to show us a good local biergarten. We ended up at Augustiner-Keller, and proceeded to enjoy beer from a wooden barrel and sausages & kraut.

Right from the source.

Prost!

Big garden full of happy people.

A couple of liters later we took the tram home. Tracey and I had been talking about blues dancing to Benjamin, so we decided to demonstrate on the tram. Using the momentum of the starting and stopping vehicle added a fun new dynamic to the dance.

Benjamin provided us with more beer and several hours of entertaining conversation when we got back to his flat. This is what I like to do when I travel: talk to the locals and see how they live.

As a side note, if you haven't tried Airbnb, I think you should. It's ordinary folks renting out rooms in their house as a part-time thing. Many of them do it as a way to meet people, and like Benjamin are delighted to show you around and take good care of you if you're friendly.  You can use this link to get $25 off your first stay while giving me $25 towards my next.

Tuesday, 8 July

Tracey had to get back to work by taking a train to the town of Freising and then a bus from there.  She'd previously mentioned that there was a brewery in Freising, which Google quickly told us to be the world's oldest.  Naturally, I selflessly offered to keep Tracey company on her train ride.

View from Freising Dömberg.

Friesing is a compact town with several hills that give great panoramas. I explored the old central area and the cathedral hill before heading to the brewery.

The shipping yard was easy to spot though.

The brewery, Weihenstephan, or more formally Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan (Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan. Yes, it's a government brewery), began brewing in 1040. It's now part of Munich's Technical University, whose campus has been built around the brewery. The location made it tricky to find out where I should inquire about a tour; though I could smell the brewing all I could see were students and other academic buildings.

Worried that I'd miss the 1:30 tour, I finally found some students who could show me which door was the brewery's. Sadly, reception said there were no tours today, despite what the website said.  On my way down to the beer garden I saw some similarly lost tour-seeking Americans and broke the bad news to them. We were all forced to drown our sorrows in the biergarten.

Biergarten: another hill, another great view.

Instruction manual?

Brother Brewbear, is that you?

During the meal I kept being distracted by a guy a few tables over that looked very familiar.  After his meal I introduced myself, and discovered that we'd been vaguely recalling each other's faces from Grinnell!

I'm told that each German state designates several basic foodstuffs for price control and stabilization, with the idea being that staples are affordable to everyone.  In Bavaria, one designated staple is beer.

My evening was getting back to Munich and having a quiet night at the hostel. It was too rainy to make exploring an attractive prospect. I meant to stay up and watch Germany in the semifinals at 10pm, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open so I got an early night.  Luckily, my bed was against a wall with the hostel bar on the other side, so I followed the game quite well by being awoken every time a goal was scored.

Wednesday, 9 July

Pretty quiet through most of the day, staying in the hostel and hammering out logistics for the next few days. I booked a couple more nights in Munich, then a day trip to Schongau on Saturday followed by a train to Vienna and three nights accommodations there. 

I began investigating the possibility of flying to Cyprus and/or Oslo to visit family and friends in those places.

Munich has not been kind to my desire to do things spontaneously. Hostels are annoyingly booked full, forcing me to change locations more often than I would like to and spend a lot of time just doing logistics.

My new home for the night was a giant tent. 

Great place to sleep, only 12 euro/night

I went out for a wander in a very large park: The Hirschegarten.  Inside it had a huge biergarten (8000 seats I'm told). That night, it was quiet, but for the Germany game the night before it had been full-to-bursting and showing the game on a 20 foot screen.

On my way back to the tent I ran into a trio of Brits and invited myself along on their quest to see that night's football game (Netherlands vs. Argentina semifinals).  We ended up at the Augustiner beer hall and had a grand time with pretzels, beer, and World Cup emotions running high.  If I get to see only one game, this was a good one to see: lots of near misses, running into extra time, and decided by penalty.  Worth watching to the bitter end.

I thought this kind of beerhall was a stereotype!

I'm off for now. Until next time!

Frankfurt: The 38 Hour Day

I think it's fair to say that I hit the ground running in Germany.

After a smooth flight in a bulkhead row chatting with two Americans also backpacking in Germany that also didn't pay for the upgraded seats we were all in, we landed in Frankfurt at about 9am local time.  Leaving Seattle at 2pm the day before, we never went through a period of night on the flight.

Once logistics were taken care of, I arrived at my hostel somewhat before noon with one of my new flight friends in tow. Despite check-in not being until 4pm, the hostel was nice enough to let me store my baggage and help myself to the free breakfast they put out every morning. (Breakfast is until noon....my kinda place.)

I'm a sucker for spiral staircases.

Thus unburdened, my new friend and I walked the kilometer and a half to the Naturmuseum Senckenberg. So far, I have found Frankfurt to be architecturally diverse and incredibly walkable, and impression that started heading to the Naturmuseum on tree-lined streets with beautiful but dense housing--5 and 6 story apartment building with great stone facades and architectural details. Also, stupidly good bicycle treatment: separated tracks, traffic calming, and drivers that are conscientious.

For me, the most standout part of the museum was the bird collection. Cases and cases of stuffed birds filled an entire wing and it took probably an hour to get through them. (Wikipedia says there are over 2000 specimens.) I certainly expanded my knowledge of the diversity of birds on earth.

There museum also houses some impressive fossils, exhibits on geology and biodiversity, a live bee hive, and specimens of crabs and butterflies, and a somewhat creepy room filled with things pickled in jars with an eye towards educating on the history of scientific inquiry.  Seriously though, filled with lots and lots of things. Overall, a great way to spend an afternoon; my thanks to my friend that recommended it.

The museum was also strikingly pretty.  It is made out of some kind of brown stone with lighter colors swirled through it that I quickly dubbed "latte-stone".

Latte!

Back to the hostel for some backyard grilling, a debate with an American about linguistics, friendly chatting over some beers, and....a pub crawl.  The crawl went about like one would expect: good German beer was had, everyone gets friendlier and warmer until by the fourth bar I'm having a soul-baring conversation with my new German friend Stephan. (We originally bonded because he recognized my Pebble watch and wanted to know more about it. Nerds unite!)  This kind man spoke with me for about an hour after everyone else had left.  We meander home just as dawn is coming into the sky, at which point I stopped us to notice the colors. I don't know that I've ever seen a green dawn before, but as the sky first lightened the silhoettes of old churches and modern skyscrapers were back-lit with a unique emerald glow.

That would have been a good end to my 36 hour (and counting) day. The universe, however, has a sense of humor.  On the latter half of our walk Stephan and I began chatting with a friendly bicyclist laden with groceries.  I have no more idea why he was biking home with groceries at 4:30am than I do why he decided to talk with us, but once he started talking there was no getting rid of him.  He shared his homemade chocolate-peppermint schnapps from his biking water bottle, and after he tipped over his bike and spilled his groceries he tried to send us off with some of them. I'm mostly smiling and nodding while Stephan talks with the guy.  After some time friendly is becoming tedious and cold...then alarming.  We try to say our farewells and walk off, but the cyclist follows us instead of continuing in his original direction, once again dumping his groceries out in his excitement to talk with us. (Stephan cannot convince him to take back his loaf of bread.)

With more insistence we try to continue on our way while the man is, absolutely literally, asking us to declare ourselves as his Nazi brothers.  At this point I feign illness and drag Stephan off while he makes apologies to the interloper that seem to satisfy him.  However, just a few minutes later he's biked up to us again.  At this point the city is beginning to wake, and crucially we're about 20 yards from a police officer standing at a road closure.  Unable to deter the cyclist and not wanting him to know where I was headed, I walked determinedly off while he and Stephan still spoke trusting that the police were in range if Stephan needed them.  After walking several blocks in the wrong direction to deter stalking, I circled back and through dead reckoning and some amount of luck arrived back at the hostel shortly after 6am, begging the reception to text Stephan and tell him I was safe.  Shaken, I sat in the lobby for half an hour to decompress, when finally Stephan arrives....still carrying the loaf of bread from the Nazi cyclist. Now that we're all safe and sound, it is my long overdue bedtime.

I hope to run into Stephan again before I leave Frankfurt tomorrow to get his side of the story, and at least some idea of what the several hours of German conversation I stood by for were about.

A Pivot

Since last writing I've been to the UK, Iowa, Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver B.C.  I've conspicuously not been in San Diego working on the boat.

However, I am leaving for Europe tomorrow, July 2nd, and will be gone until August 13th.  I'm starting in Frankfurt, Germany.  My hope is to visit cities that I have a cultural affinity for and see if I could see myself living there.

Since I want to live like a local, please put me in touch with any locals you know! Particularly people in my subcultures.

Cities I definitely want to hit:

• Berlin
• Munich
• Amsterdam

I'm considering:

• Vienna
• Prague
• Copenhagen
• Stockholm

If there's anywhere you really think I should check out, please let me know that too.