Germany….The Promised Land

After the miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable train ride from Florence to Munich, Blake and I arrived in the Munich train station, which was comparable to a space station after the complete disorganization that was the Florence train station.  One step in, and we knew we had arrived in heaven.  It was about 15 degrees cooler than the sweltering heat of Italy and there were giant pretzels everywhere.  Being 6 in the morning, the station was relatively empty, so Blake and I (following my brother’s advice) waited in the slowest ticket line known to man to purchase our reservations for Berlin.  Our line was so slow, that after about 15 minutes of standing there, we separated, and I was able to actually get through my line in the time the slow ticket lady was still talking with one couple.  As soon as we made it through, we were advised that we didn’t need reservations to Berlin and our love for Germany increased (despite having purchased a Eurorail pass, it turns out you must also purchase reservations for destinations in France and Italy…This is an annoying expense.  Why can’t they just add that to the ticket cost?  Argh.  I guess its actually lucky though.  There were people who didn’t purchase reservations in advance on the sleeper train chilling in the hallway, sitting on their luggage the whole time.)

Exhausted, we quickly found our hostel – Euro Youth Hostel, where we were informed that we could not check in until 2:00 in the afternoon.  Considering that we had gotten a combined maybe 4 hours of sleep on the train, we stumbled around the main section of Munich and found the best market known to man.

Yum!

Note – if you find yourself waking up before 8:00 (or being forced to be awake before 8:00) in foreign countries, it is actually the best time to be awake in all these cities.  Being the summer, there are massive HERDS of people everywhere during the afternoon, but you can count on it being virtually empty at 7:00 AM.  The market was just opening, so we found someone crushing up fruit for juices and bought two tiny cups (I am making us have at least one fruit serving a day.  I don’t want us to get scurvy!) and something called a “Philadelphiaring” which awesomely turned out to be a bagel and cream cheese.  We debated joining a walking tour of the city or a walking tour of “Hitler’s Germany” at 10:00, but decided we were way to tired, and instead walked to the English Gardens, which was the best decision we have made on this entire trip.  I can’t even describe to you how intensely happy we were walking up to a shaded area of green grass we had decided to nap on.

Our approach to the glorious napping spot

We laid down, and thus began my favorite activity of the entire trip – the best 3 hour co-nap anyone has ever had.

We were asleep approximately 10 seconds after this picture was taken.

The view

After three great hours, we woke up and headed over the nearby beer garden, where Blake decided that Germany was the greatest country in the world (apparently he is moved by sites of giant beers, sausages, and pretzels).

The biggest smile Blake has had all week.

We ate and drank and headed back to the hostel to finally check in, shower, and figure out our next few days.  We wondered around the city using my buddy, Rick Steves, as a personal reference guide for the city’s sites.  Eventually, we found our way to the Hofbrauhaus, which while extremely touristy, was just one of those things we thought we had to do in Munich.  After 2 liters of beer a piece, ridiculing the table of teenage American tourists next to us acting like complete drunken idiots, a giant plate of gravy soaked pork and sausages, and about 4 pretzels, we stumbled back to the hostel for the night.

All in all – a great day.  We are now Germany fans for life.  Future plans include traveling to see some castles, Dachau, the glochenspeil (I have no idea if I spelled that right), and the Germany/Spain World Cup game.

Now, I must wake up Blake.  It’s 8:30!

BYE!

Museums, Street Performers and Awfulness

So currently I  am on an overnight train from Florence to Munich. Unfortunately, due to a stupid error in our Eurail time table schedule, we had to take the overnight train which we did not take into consideration in our budget, so we are in coach and not a sleeper car. But fortunately, our car is pretty happening, with an Italian/German 18-year old going into flight school, an Indian Monk who is going to study German, an English college grad who is going into graduate school for Librarian-ism, and a mom from Winter Park, Colorado who is joining her daughter and her boyfriend on a leg of their trip through Europe. And, not to mention, Kristi and I just finished a full bottle of wine by ourselves (we offered, but apparently the monk and the 18-year-old flight student don’t drink), so we are feeling good to sleep on the way to Germany. UPDATE: NIGHT TRAINS ARE HORRIBLE. Contrary to my feelings written above, this was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. Nothing to do with the company, but the seats were like old solitary confinement spaces where it is just too short to stand up, and too short to lay down. It was just too small to be comfortable.  (KRISTI INTERJECTION:  Also, the air conditioning wasn’t working, there was a baby stranded in a stroller in the hallway near our car – crying its little eyes out, and at some point, I decided that I would be more comfortable laying on the dirty, dirty floor.  This lasted until I remembered trying to find a bathroom to use earlier, only to find the closest one filled to the brim with pee and poop.  While laying on the floor attempting to sleep, all I could imagine was that toilet overflowing and pee and poop making its way over to me, laying there on the nasty floor.  Needless to say, I quickly stood back up and rearranged myself uncomfortably in my tiny chair.) So our advice would be to avoid the night train at all costs, or at least spring for a sleeper car.

But we need to get back to our last days in Florence…

Our last two days have been comparitively relaxing, being our Florence museum days. However Kristi is still waking up at 6:30 am and rearing to go, so they are starting out early. Yesterday, we woke up and found a little local cafe for breakfast, which turned out to be a lot like the Italian Cheers where everybody yelled the guys’ name who walked in, only subsitute cappucino for barley pops, and insert two American tourists who have no idea what the hell is going on. The highlight of the day was going to the Galleria Accademia to view the David, by Michealangelo. It was 100% worth the hype. Then we walked around Florence, which turns out to be much more beautiful and amazing than the area around our hotel would make it out to be. We found ourselves at a wine bar and then a great pizza joint across the river for dinner, partaking in many a vino and bierre before treaking back to the hotel – only to be sidetracked by what I can call the greatest street performance known to man. We caught a few words of English and figured they had to be from the U.S., so I went and talked to the camera man (who was documenting their travels) and it turns out they are a 19-piece brass band from Providence, Rhode Island, some go to Brown and others just used their vacation from work to do a 2-week mini-tour through Italy. Check out the greatess of the What Cheer? Brigade:

The next day began with a MacGyver-like adventure involving a camera charger. I accidentally brought a charger from Kristi’s old cameara and the battery wouldn’t fit; running through my options of buying a new camera, using disposables/iPhone for the rest of the trip, or smashing apart the old charger with a chair in hopes I could piece it together to fit the new battery, I went for the latter and here’s the result:

Yes, those are band aids holding it together.

We then packed up and headed for the Uffizi gallery, which, along with rows and rows of baby Jesus and Mary paintings, main acts include Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Spring.

And later that night, we packed up for our overnight trip to Munich and leads us to now. We will see what Germany has in store, but I can tell you it will include many pretzels, beer and sausage. I can’t wait.

4 Hours of Waiting, 3 Minutes of Horse Racing

I can sum up our first full day in Europe with about 4 words:

1) Hot
2) Crowded
3) Exciting
4) McDonald’s

Thanks to my 9:00 pm bedtime, I was all bright and shiny by 5:30 in the morning.  Luckily for Blake, I am nothing but considerate, so I let him sleep until 6:15 am, before waking him up with a thoughtful poke to the cheek.  In the 45 minutes that I was awake, I had googled “best cappuccino in Florence” and had a list of cafes for us to try in the next few days.

Of course, we were some of the only people on the street, but we drank our cappuccino and ate our pastries and started off towards the train station, where we needed to reserve our tickets to Munich for the next day.  There, we met my nemesis, Rude Italian Train Ticketer.  He rudely informed us that there was only one overnight train to Munich, despite our liar of a Eurorail Train Guide.  He had no patience for us, so I, of course, had no patience for him.  Either way, he won, and it looks like we have to head to Munich on a train during a time in which we should be laying down instead of sitting upright.  Hopefully we have improved our sleeping while sitting skills on the trip over here, because from 9:30 PM – 6:30 AM on July 4 we will be on a train in route to Munich.

After all that excitement, we boarded our bus to Siena.  I had big plans of watching the scenery, but ended up napping the entire trip.  Upon arriving in Siena, we immediately headed up the giant hill to get a look at the main cathedral.  Worried (for no reason, it turns out) that we would not have enough time to both tour it AND wait in the heat to see the Palio, we admired it from the outside, and I got this amazing shot of both Blake AND the cathedral.

Look! I got on a knee to take this picture because I am such a good photographer.

After exploring the city for a while and walking approximately 8 miles entirely up hill ( seriously, I feel it today.  Italians should have amazing butts with all that hill walking they do), we bought some pizza for lunch and ate it in the nearest doorway we could find.

Our favorite place to be, out of the sun.

After a while, we decided that we better hurry up and sit out in the sun and wait for the race or we might not get a good spot.  This proved to be a mistake.  First of all, it was one million trillion degrees outside.  Second of all, only the young people (of which I am not) waited in the sun for 4 hours for the race to start.  Everyone else piled in right before, and seemed to be just fine.  However, Blake and I are dumb, so we sat out in 100 degree weather on some cobble stone ground, sweating and waiting for the race to begin.

The water truck, which kept the dirt down and cooled down those of us who were sitting in the sun for hours.

Finally, at around 5:00, there was some activity occurring around the track.  Assuming the race was about to begin, Blake and I got ready picking our favorite mascots (side note:  the race pits the 17 neighborhoods of Siena against one another.  Each neighborhood is absolutely covered with flags displaying their colors and mascots.  These mascots are sub par.  I mean, there is a porcupine, a clam shell, a caterpillar, wood, and a fish, amongst others), the porcupine – me and the duck – Blake.  However, unbeknown to us,  we still had a 2.5 hour procession to sit through.  Thanks to our new friends, Francesco and Lizbeth, who had been sitting next to us the entire time and wanted to work on their English, we learned the meaning of each of the different groups who walked slowly by, throwing flags and wearing velvet.  I won’t bore you with all the facts, but I will show you this picture of a man in a mask with a hand coming out of his hat because it is awesome.

Weird!

Finally, after the longest most boring parade ever known to man, the horses lined up for the race.  And then there was about 10 faults, which caused the audience to yell out in anger.  Finally (seriously, FINALLY), the race began – and man, people were EXCITED!  You can hear my screaming in this video (I actually think it might be someone else, but who know.)

In about 3 minutes, the race was over.  I am pretty sure that Wood won, but there was no real way to tell.  Horses were running without riders, people were shouting obscenities, and men began crying.  And then violence began.  The man next to us began SOBBING with despair that his neighborhood’s horse did not win.  Other men joined him.  Still others began pushing us around, looking to fight someone.  Our new friend Francesco told us in a worried voice that we needed to exit the area quickly (we were right near the track, thanks to our awesome waiting abilities and therefore, a little too close to the action), so Blake and I worriedly started walking quickly to the bus station.  We then entered, what I can only describe as pandemonium.  There was blood on the ground and men running around punching people.  It was intense.  You can see all the blood on the ground and hear my bad-ass-ness in this video -

Needless to say, we made it out safe and passed out on our bus for the hour long trip back to Florence.

Oh yeah, and McDonald’s?  It was way too late, and we were way too tired, so we made the cultured decision to eat a quick dinner of McDonald’s near our hotel room.  It was the best big mac I have ever tasted.

Planes, Trains and Pizza Fables

Waiting for McDonald's to open at 4:30 AM in DFW

Well, after a grand total of 3 hours and 38 minutes of sleep, Blake and I blearily packed up my car (with the assistance of my parents) and headed to the airport.  We arrived before even McDonald’s opened up….that’s insanity!  We stalked McDonald’s for a while until they finally lifted their cage screen, and Blake and I purchased the two most delicious egg mcmuffins ever created (one sans cheese, gross).  Who knows when we are going to have another egg for breakfast?!  It might be an ENTIRE month from now!

Well folks, we are off to Europe.  In theory of course.  At the moment we are on a grand tour of middle sized airports throughout the US (I guess that’s what happens when you use your mileage points for a “free” ticket).  Note to everyone – the Raleigh, NC airport is superb.

Just to let everyone know, we will officially be posting to my site (Sugar and Caffeine) and linking from Blake’s site.  We even brought my mom’s little flip camera, so I am sure there will be some riveting videos for you to enjoy as well.

Wish us luck – we will soon (relative term) be in Zurich, hoping to find a train that will whisk us off to Italy, land of the horse races.  Talk to you then….

Kristi

UPDATE: Ok, so this is Blake. And we are in Florence!

Train to Milan

It took us a grand total of 30 hours to get here, but we made it. The transportation list: 3 planes, 3 trains, multiple escalators (both vertical and horizontal) and our feet. I love the fact that we used miles to get here and back, and definitely think it was worth it, but good lord, that was a long trek.

(It also helped that AA was showing The Tooth Fairy and Bride Wars on the way over. Let me tell you, both are Oscar worthy.)

Loggia Fiorentina

We timed our sleeping just about right and were actually able to get in a semi-useful day here. Disclaimer: It is 9:15 pm and Kristi is asleep next to me, so not a crazy day, but much more than I thought we would after all that travel.

Our place is a GREAT little hotel. It was a) cheaper than a hostel, 2) exceptionally clean, IV) private room, b) great location, and 5) cool staff. (The guy at the desk was about our age and said the phrase “You can not tell me a fable about pizza” to tell us how good a pizza joint down the street is.)

We basically just walked around, got the lay of the land, purchased our train tickets to Siena for Palio tomorrow, and, of course, ate gelato.

I have a feeling there will be many, many more pics like this

Tomorrow promises to be packed full of action at the Palio horse races. The race dates back to the year 1260 and apparently not much has changed. I will leave the details for the next blog post, but to get an idea of what it is, check out the action from last year… awesome.

And, yes, two of the jockeys fell off but according to tradition, their horses can still win the race for them. That one turn is nuts!

Ciao,

Blake