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!

The Land of Mary Poppins

Sunday June 28th, 12:21AM (GMT)

I've made it to my first destination! After a nerve-wracking two and a half hour delay, during which we were kicked off one plane and put on another totally different one, I'm currently sitting about a 5 minute walk from the Chalk Farm tube station, next door to Primrose Hill.

Initial thoughts on my next two weeks: Mark and I have no idea what we're doing or what we're in for. My friend Mark Patterson, who graduated Northwestern with me and is finishing up a masters program here, is my host while in England and my co-traveler through deepest darkest Europe. He picked me up at the airport (note to self: figure out an address to use as a "home" for my custom's form - passport control doesn't like the rather ambiguous "London" as a destination), and after a couple minutes mutual catching up and joking, we took the tube to the north west section of London near Camden Town.

I'm crashing at Mark's aunts for the next two nights, wonderful people that they are. It was Mark's aunt's birthday, and so Mark and I, the aunt, her husband, and their two daughters all went to the Duke of York's theatre to see a production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Riveting stuff, and Mark's extended family are huge fans of the theatre, which makes it a lot more fun.

A couple quick notes on England, and then on our itinerary: Beer here flows like water. I've had two or three separate beer servings in the 8 hours I've been in this city, as well as the opportunity to have wine and port. I love it. Also, people seem to stay out and eat a lot later than I'm used to: rolling around the city with Mark after the play, it was 11:30pm and people were still just sitting down to eat dinner. Also, everyone plays soccer, which is awesome. Mark and I went out for a quick toss of the frisbee and the entire park was filled with kids and adults of all ages and skill levels kicking the ball around. There were 5 year old kids who would dribble circles around me. No wonder the US always sucks at soccer.

Tomorrow's plan: Long run in the morning through Regent's Park, then Indian food at some point and a long day of planning stuff. Also, the US is playing Brazil in the finals of the Confederation's Cup, so we have to head to a bar and watch that.

ITINERARY UPDATE: It seems as though Mark and I will be taking the ~90 minute EuroStar train over the channel to Paris on Monday morning! Anyone with Parisian advice, please let us know! We currently have one friend who graduated with us in MMSS in 2008 working there, so we're going to hit her up as well.

We'll probably spend a couple days in Paris, and then are currently thinking of Brussels as our next stop.

I hope everyone is doing well. Good night!

Across The Pond

***Writer's Note: For those who are very bored at the moment, are interested in Asia, or who find my writing mildly entertaining, there is a decent amount of writing on the blog from the month I spent in Southeast Asia. Just take a look at most of the 2008 entries.

Friday, June 26th, 1:19 CST

My bags are as packed as they are ever going to be. In the last few hours I've thrown various clothing, toiletries and other miscellanea into my ackward blue suitcase. At 6pm CST, approximately 17 hours from now, I start on another journey through (for me) parts of the world unknown.

Like the trip one year ago through Southeast Asia that gave my blog its name, this trip is equally unscouted and unplanned. Unlike my travels through Southeast Asia, this time I have a companion with me: Mark Patterson, wholesome midwestern boy from Minnesota, Northwestern student, and soon to be Ph.D. In terms of the ability to successfully plan ahead, put both of us together and we can just about read at a 5th grade level.

What I do know is that my first stop is England. Mark has been living there for the past year with some family while doing a masters, and he'll be showing me around London for the first two days, June 27th and June 28th, of my vacation. I'm not really sure what to expect - the only time I was there I must not have been much older than 10. For the moment I'm looking forward to drinking shandys (1/2 lemonade, 1/2 beer), relaxing in the famously pleasent English summer, and catching up with my friend. On tap for England at the moment is a play on Saturday night (Tom Stoppard's Arcadia), and hopefully a night out on the town. The day after that the United States plays Brazil for the finals of the Confederations Coup, a soccer/football tournament, and that should be a lot of fun to watch in England.

Since I anticipate the readership of this blog to be comprised mainly of A) my mother and B) friends checking this out to see if I'm actually updating, I have two messages. Mom - I love you, thanks for the support and good feeling throughout my life. The same goes for my father and brother. Friends - I'm going to get into my proposed travel itinerary in a second, but if you see on this blog that I'm in close proximity to your favorite bakery in a random corner of France or something, please make the suggestion on this blog or to me at zfreeman.nu@gmail.com. Also to my friends reading this - if you've always been a huge fan of belgian chocolate, and you see I'm in Belgium, please let me know! I'll do my best to bring some back for you. Ditto to anywhere else I go.

Back to our travel itinerary: After leaving England, things get pretty hazy. From a 2 sentence-conversation with Mark last week, it looks like we agree on the following potential destinations: Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Paris. Who knows if we'll actually keep to that, but thats the situation at the moment.

Hopefully you people out there in reality can expect a post every other day, we'll see.

I thought as a primer for you and to pysch myself up, I'd throw in a few pictures here from last years trip to SE Asia. Enjoy! And best of luck for you and yours to whomever is reading this.


Eating some kind of chicken dish as a prelude to cockroaches and crickets in a random Cambodian market.

Tokyo, Japan - I stumbled upon an anime/cartoon costume convention. Really??

Wading my way ashore the Thai island of Railay.

Growing

Episode 1: New Beginnings
Air Date: 11.17.1995

"The idea of this new little show is stories..."

So begins the first episode of the radio show This American Life, which at the moment helps me get through the Sunday night hours when I'm feeling restless and bored. I've listened to enough episodes at this point to know that the show works as follows: Each one hour (approximately) show has a theme, and the show is split into several parts as contributors from all walks of life tell about their experience broadly relating to the theme. If you're at all interested in the human experience, its a wonderfully entertaining show. I wish there was a This Egyptian Life, or a This Brazilian Life, because I've loved traveling around the world to the limited extent I have, and a show like this about life in those countries would be amazing.

In any case, National Public Radio (NPR) posts the latest episode of the show in podcast form on Sunday afternoon / evening, which means I have something to entertain me on those long Sunday nights when all other hope is lost. I'm thinking around 4 or 5 in the evening, when there doesn't seem like quite enough time to do anything very productive, and the next week is stretching out before you, and I find that I tend to get somewhat restless. Douglas Adams called it "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul."

What I didn't realize until last night is that the entire series history of the show is available for free to play streaming from your computer. If you want to download a specific episode and put it onto an Ipod it'll cost you a dollar an episode, but for my purposes streaming it live is fine. So my goal in the long term is to try to work my way through the series episode by episode, starting from its beginning in 1995 as Your Radio Playhouse and catching up to today as much as possible.

As I post more about this wonderful show, I'll try communicate why it is I like it so much, and what the show does in terms of helping me understand myself and my love for stories. I'll also talk about how much time it will take to listen to all of these episodes, and whether or not I think its worth it. This is a surprisingly big deal for me because I'm worried that I have a history of starting things that I can't finish, and of generally not being good about valuing my time, and if I do want to finish this I have to figure some things out.

This writing will be as much for myself today and in the future as it will be for anyone else, but if someone else does end up reading these words, and derives something positive from them, it would make me happy.

Quick note: As I'm listening to the first episode, I find out that Ira Glass (the host), is a tall Jewish guy who has a parent working as a therapist. I'm relatively short, but the other two things check out. Except both of my parents are working in social services, not just one. So am I more like Ira Glass than Ira Glass himself, right?