Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Loyal Readers,

I turned 24 years old this February 12th, 2010, time unknown (hereafter referred to as The Big Day or just TBD). One way of explaining the last 96 hours of my life is that I'm having a 24-year (quarter-life?) crisis. A second way to explain it is that I'm random and spontaneous and just generally love exploring and new places. The jury is out.

In the weeks leading up to The Big Day I found myself pretty apathetic to the idea of a birthday party or any other kind of celebration. One reason was that my birthday weekend felt a bit crowded: it coincided with 1) The opening ceremonies of the winter olympics; 2) Valentine's day; and 3) A President's day 3-day weekend when many people would likely be traveling. But a birthday is still a birthday, and I wanted to do something.

So on the day before my birthday, this past Thursday, I was wondering what to do with myself. I ended up on the phone with my roommate Sammy, a sweet girl with the enviable job of helping set airline route prices (known as revenue management) which means that she gets a lot of free travel, cheap tickets, and other similar goodies. She also (Sammy you're amazing) has a certain number of Companion Passes that she can give out each year. A companion pass is basically a ticket to somewhere for which you only have to pay the tax and airport fees and so forth. You're known as a "non-revenue" ticket to the airline, because they're not making any money off of you - they're literally charging you whatever it costs them in airport fees and international fees to get you to your destination. The tricky part is that you can only use the ticket as a Standby passenger, and so if the plane is full you're out of luck. I guess the airlines figure that if the seat is going empty anyway they may as well take you on with the companion pass.

So on a total whim, Thursday mid-afternoon the day before TBD, I messaged my roommate and asked her if I could use one of the companion passes.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked. "I'm not sure... where can I go?" "Well why don't you name a few places and I'll tell you if you can fly there?"

I mentally ran down the list of places I've thought of going recently. My friend Andrea has told me that Mexico City is a lot of fun, relatively close (4 hours) and cheap. But Sammy's airline wasn't flying there that day. Vancouver - crowded because of the Winter Olympics. Brazil - you need a tourist visa just to get into the country. And I can't tell you why, but Amsterdam suddenly popped into my mind. I'd traveled around Europe for a couple weeks in the summer, but due to time constraints hadn't made it to Amsterdam. So why not go?

It turned out the flights going there and back on my birthday weekend were relatively empty, and so it was a strong possibility I'd get a seat, and perhaps even fly business class, which would be fun. But could I go to Amsterdam on a day's notice? As my coworker Clayton told me that Thursday, "Carpe Diem!" And the rest is history.

I bought my ticket on Thursday night through my roommate (cheap!), booked a hostel on Hostelworld.com, and frantically started looking up things to do. My travel plans ended up being:

Friday night 6pm - takeoff from Chicago to Amsterdam;

Saturday morning 9am - arrive in Amsterdam;

Saturday through Monday night - adventures!;

Tuesday morning 10am - takeoff from Amsterdam to Chicago;

Tuesday 12pm - arrive in Chicago!

So for my entire adventure, I packed one bag (which turned out to be far too much stuff):

And went on my way!

Post-Palatial Shock (Wien Round 2)

Wien, Austria
July 2nd, 2009 - 2:30am (GMT + 1 hour)


Loyal readers,

I'm here to report that the Austrian Empire must have kicked some ass and taken some names in the last couple hundred years. I went for a run this morning down from our hostel and to the park surrounding the Schonnbrunner Palace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6nbrunn_Palace). In a few words: awe-inspiring, majestic, stunning.

Its the kind of place that, if you ever saw it in a movie, you'd laugh and think that the director was overdoing it and being cheesy. The individual buildings are grand, with dozens of windows equally spaced on each floor, detailed ornamentation on everything from the doorknobs to the top floor gargoyles, and lots of imperial statues designed to strike fear in the hearts of peasants such as myself. And the scale is something I've never seen in a city in America. The palace grounds are endless, and every time I ran out of an enclosed garden or inner park the landscape would open up into a 6-car lane wide gravel road that extended straight away for what seemed like miles. I got lost just running from inner park and sub-garden to the adjacent inner-park or sub-garden (it turns out I was in what a sign identified as the "labyrinthe.") But for those of us who know my history of getting lost while running in strange cities, you'll be happy to know that I made it back to the hostel safe and sound :).

The rest of today has been a walking day, and Mark and I saw a beautiful cathedral, the Danube river, the Augarten park, miscellaneous city roads and squares, and lots and lots of graffiti. Everything is so classic and beautfiul, but often so old, worn out, and empty. Mark and I were the only customers at a bar by the river. With the exception of the Inner Area tourist center, Mark and I were the only ones walking the streets. And while graffiti in a city can be artful and political, this was more like urban scrawl that gave off a defiled vibe.

We also went to a performance of the Wiener Hofburg-Orchester (The Vienna Orchestra). They played a number of waltzes, a polka or two, and primarily work by W.A. Mozart and J. Strauss. It was wonderful to see music I've heard previously come alive through the magic of a 40 piece orchestra and a number of opera singers. I definitely have a new appreciation for the history and tradition of what I've thought of before as old and stodgy music.

After the show, Mark and I retired to the bar in our hostel, where we preceded to wipe the pool table with any riffraff who stepped up (this included a group of 16 year old German girls, their male friends who tragically failed in their effort to show off, some other Americans and a group of Canadians). Another great night of meeting people and chatting, topped off by a solid hour of surfing the net and blogging.

In about 7 hours Mark and I will board a train going to Praha (Prague). The ride is between 4 and 5 hours, so hopefully I'll be able to get some sleep and recharge.

I hope everyone is doing well, thanks for the comments and good wishes!

Wien!

July 1st, 00:53 am
Wien, Austria (Vienna)

Hello from Vienna! Mark and I are officially in our first country as tourists. A big thank you to Matt Richardson and Amanda Wolfson, fellow NU grads and great people who volunteered their time and connections to suggest places to go while we are here, people to stay with, and food to eat. Thanks!

We took an EasyJet plane ride from London to (more or less) the capital of Austria, Vienna. Its always fun walking out of the airport and onto the tarmac to board a plane, and many of the things I´ve heard about EasyJet are not complimentary (they supposedly look for excuses to deny you entry to the plane, such as if you arrive too late, or with overweight luggage, or didn´t know the secret handshake, etc) but despite that the flight was quick, painless, and cheap. Thanks EasyJet!

Getting into the city, finding a place to stay, not getting mugged, etc., was initially a bit of a worry, since as part of our Evil Knievel travel strategy we have neglected to do any pre-planning, booking, or making of reservations. Fortunately we got a hold of a couple different hostel names, and more or less fought our way into the city and found one. Rather painless really... taking a look at the subway map here: http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/vie/wien.htm, Mark and I are staying at the intersection of the Green and Yellow lines, numbered as U3 and U6, the Westbanhof stop.

Mark and I started off by dropping our stuff off at the first hostel we found, called "The Wombat": http://www.wombats-hostels.com/vienna/the-lounge/. Relatively cheap rooms (€21 for each of us) that consist of a bunk bed we split in a room of 4 total bunk beds, plus free sheets, a bathroom, and a locker to store our stuff. They also were happy to take my Iphone behind the desk and charge it for me, since I didn't want to leave it unguarded in my room. I think a lot of people, at this point, would say something like "Zach, you idiot, don't leave your Iphone at the front desk, with someone you don't know, and without any real form of security." But one of the great things about traveling, I think, is that I've become a lost less anal about things like that. I've left everything in my possession except for my passport with hostel owners in Thailand, secured by nothing more than the promise "I will return to get this in a couple days," and of course it was there when I got back. So, loyal readers, you won't be surprised to hear the IPhone was fully charged and safe when Mark and I returned after our night's adventures.

Thought I should mention that as I'm sitting here blogging this in the communal computer area of our hostel, two very inebriated English (Canadian) people have begun to engage, next to the communal computer area on a couch-type thing, in sexual acts of a nature and a volume that might be very distracting to someone less focused. But A) they are not incredibly attractive and B) I am focused to a razor's edge right now. So fear not readers... just know what I'm going through to produce this material for you. And this only increases my love of the hostel/backpacking life.

Vienna, by the way, is spelled Wien locally, which means that just like someone is a "New York"-er, here they are "Wien"-ers, or more graphically, "Wieners". So Mark and I have decided to spend a couple days in a city of Wieners.

So getting back to the main narrative, Mark and I dropped off our stuff, and headed to a restaurant called "The Centimeter," which has 6 or so locations around the city and basically serves the student clientele cheap and plentiful beer, brats, and other goodies. Mark and I ordered up a beer known as OttaKringer, which was pretty decent, and then proceeded to order up more artery-clogging, cholesterol-inducing sausage than I have ever seen. I don't have a way to add pictures to this blog right now, but trust me when I say it was intense. Since we were ordering sausage by the meter, Mark ordered up 2 meters worth of a thin sausage (6 feet!), and I ordered what turned out to be 3 hot dogs filled with cheese, and in turn wrapped with bacon. For any Wisconsin-ers reading this who are proud of having the most unhealthy cuisine around, eat your heart (no pun intended) out.

After our meal of sausage and sausage (delivered with a side of french fries), Mark and I journeyed over to the Museum Quarter, which ended up being the best decision we've made all day. The Museum Quarter is basically a number of museums (The Leopold Museum, the Modern Musem, etc.) which sit together to enclose a sort of public square with an outdoor beer garden and populated liberally with sitting/hanging out structures and students and other young persons sitting/hanging out. Mark and I ended up having a great conversation with three young Austrian students, talking about everything from where to go tomorrow, Austrian vs American music, the relative physical merits (in terms of attractiveness) of Austrian vs German vs Czech citizens (best girls - Czech, best guys - Sweden), Arnold Schwartzenegger, the Austrian economy and educational system, and what kind of beer we should try. I've come to believe that the best part of any traveling is talking to the people, and tonight was a great example of that.

Tomorrow morning I am going to try to get in a solid run through the parks in the south side of Vienna, running down Mariahilfer street, through the Vienna zoo, around the Schonbrunn Palace and then back to the hostel. This route will be mostly in a park that is a popular jogging spot for local Austrians. Based on what I've seen of the locals walking around the city, I'm prepared to get my ass kicked on the road.

We have some fun things planned for tomorrow, but those will have to wait until then! And no matter what happens on our trip, we now have a new phrase to help us bear it all - "Das ist mir wurst", as they say: "Its all sausage (the same) to me".

Thanks for reading this incredibly long post, thank you to everyone for the emails and blog posts thus far, and I promise to pick people up chocolate etc if they can request something specific :).

Night all!

P.S. We may see a guest blog post from Mark P. if I can wrangle him into it.

The Continent

June 30, 11:30am (GMT)
Luton Airport, England

Its been a couple days since I've updated, due to a bit of spotty internet service at Mark's aunts house (where I've been staying).

Where to begin... this trip is teaching me a lot about the trade-offs between the mystique and adventure of unplanned travel and the security and convenience of planned travel. Getting the Eurail passes turned out to be a bit of a chore, and then figuring out the costs of everything, plane tickets, where to actually go, etc, means that instead of flying out yesterday Mark and I are flying out today. But no matter, we fly!

Also worth mentioning: my last blog post declaring that we were on our way to Paris was premature. After hashing out what our two weeks would actually look like, Mark and I have realized that it is going to be far better to start our trip farther east, and then work our way back towards the Channel and London.

So, without further delay, our itinerary for the next 10 days:

June 30th - Fly to Vienna, Austria
July 1st - Vienna
July 2nd - Arrive in Prague (early morning)
July 3rd - Prague
July 4th - Leave for Berlin early morning, stop in Dresden for part of the day
July 5th - Berlin
July 6th - Berlin (leave for Brussels on overnight train)
July 7th - Brussels
July 7th - Leave for Paris late at night (I really want to get to Paris)
July 8th - Paris
July 9th - Paris
July 10th - Paris
July 10th - Leave for London (night)
July 11th - Fly to the United States (morning)

So there you have it, loyal readers. Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Brussels, Paris. Add in the 3.5 days in London, and I'm feeling pretty good about how everything is looking.

A couple quick notes about the time I've spent in London thus far, because our plane to Vienna leaves in about an hour or so.

Mark and I have spent the better part of Sunday and Monday on long, all-day walking tours of London. Its been great. The most interesting things for me are the age and history behind almost every building and structure. Coming from New England, I'm used to something being quite old if it was built in the 1700s. And for other people in the United States, it is quite old. But here, something isn't "old" unless it was built circa 1300. This means that there are all kinds of wonderful nooks and crannies to the city that I don't know you would find in something more modern.

For example, more than once in London I've walked down a "street," marked with a street sign and named on a map, that is little more than a very narrow corridor between two buildings, a corridor that two people couldn't walk shoulder to shoulder down. Halfway down the "street" there will be a small door to some kind of very convivial looking pub, which gives me the sense that these out of the way pubs are de-facto community centers and meeting places, because I don't think they would be casually walked into.

Another great thing about the city is the amount of green space and parkland built into the very center and seemingly around every corner. Fenced in but public, these parks are full (in good weather) of sunbathers, little kids, soccer balls, laughter, and picnic baskets. It really gives an amazing air of peace and happiness to a city that I don't think of in many other places.

Lastly (Mark is tugging at my shirtsleeves), I've gone on a couple early morning runs in England thus far. I've been lucky with good weather and little rain, and the runs have been fantastic in terms of the wide wide open rolling hills and green space I've had the pleasure of running through. I feel as though I've entered into a P.G. Wodehouse novel.

Anyways, hopefully futher updates from Vienna. Tally Ho!