Č is for Čech

Travel date: May 23, 2014
Author: Nick John
Inclement weather prior to today: 0
Inclement weather today: 1

First, a language lesson:

Czech, or as the locals know it, Čech, is one fucked up language. You don't have to take my word for it. Just try to translate any of these signs: 

I know, right?

The Czech people want to be as snooty as the French and make you feel bad for not knowing their language, but they also get it - they're small, they're isolated, they've got one fucked up language, and they're not France. So, at first they act marginally indignant, but they come around. They're actually a charming and history-rich people. Turns out, living in a small country bordered by countries that have been at war for centuries makes for a rich heritage of political turnovers, thereby leading to nice statues and monuments built, partially destroyed, then rebuilt to favor the new kingdom. As a result, Czech has embraced their cultural heritage. Dvořák, for example, was Czech (and you wondered where all those crazy accents came from!). 

Today we wandered the grand city of Prague. We gazed at the astronomical clock and attempted to discern what the various symbols meant. Then a friendly kiwi approached us and offered to explain. Skeptical as we were, we're sponges for information, so we obliged. Turns out the clock depicts a great deal of information: the time of day (on a 24 hour clock, in both Roman and Bohemian numbers), the astronomical sign of the zodiac in the (night's) sky at this moment, the name days of properly named Czech boys and girls (like Barbara, or our tour guide whose name was Jiří, which he translated to "George"). 

Regardless, more meteorological data to add to our repository of information, but still pretty interesting. We took a tour of the city, saw the famous bridge and Jewish quarter and some stuff about Kafka. Here's a depiction of one of his works (which work and what it means is left as an exercise for the reader). 

We encountered a storm which cut the tour short but allowed us to have a few drinks with some Texans and some Irish which were fun people, so all was well. We also saw this, one of Prague's many hidden gems. And in case anyone was wondering, yes you can climb inside [not pictured].

As it was raining, we took the opportunity to explore something I'd noticed earlier, an exhibit on the works of Tim Burton. Turns out he's a pretty interesting character. They had a ton of sketches he'd made while in art school and working for Disney, underappreciated as an artist but with so much creative output that the margins of his notes are a wealth of content for his future work on things like Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie, Mars Attacks, and everything else. There were water colors and even sculptures of his artistic concepts of many of the characters in his later works. They had screenings of his feature-length films as well as some of this lesser-known shorts like Vincent (about a boy that aspires to be like Vincent Price, narrated by Vincent Price--and brilliant). Oh, and there was a sculpture installation made of sugar cubes, and eating the sugar cubes is strictly forbidden.

The night wrapped up with a thunderstorm, goulash, some delicious lagers. All told, another day in paradise.

Z is for Zoning Out on the Bus

We started the day with coffee at Mariensplatz to catch the "show". The tower glockenspiel (not to be confused with the concert percussion instrument) animates twice daily, drawing hundreds to the square. The chimes ring an atonal rendition of presumably traditional German tunes, and two rows of figures on tracks spin slowly around the center column. All told, it's pretty underwhelming, but don't tell the hoards of tourists - you would have thought it was a celebrity appearance the way they crowded, gasped, took photos, and cheered.

From there we went to catch our bus to Prague. We bought our tickets online and printed evidence that we'd purchased them, but didn't have the actual tickets in hand. James being the problem solver that he is enabled international data roaming and after several stressful minutes acquired the necessary information to board the bus. Well played, though the lesson here is that while this was precisely what we needed to do to ensure our transit, it was not a cheap solution. The remainder of the travel was smooth and peaceful, allowing us to play games, jam out to music, and generally just zone out. Travel was a welcome break from excitement.

We make it to our Airbnb apartment in the late afternoon and got settled in. We're staying a little outside of the city center so we see lots of real Czech people doing real Czech things (hint, it's just like everyone else, but in Czech). That's awesome, though it means that the stores are less tourist friendly. Luckily "two beers, please" seems to be universal throughout Europe, so we managed to avoid complete starvation. 

Note: Czech knows beer. Say what you will, but James and I agree that German lager is good, but Czech lager is better. We've conducted extensive research, trust us.

We're staying beside what is called the TV Tower, which is part hotel, part radio tower, part art museum installation. Prague really embraces its quirky, edgy art styling. The artistic interpretation, as we're led to believe, is that the babies climbing the tower represent Gypsies stealing cable. They light it up at night and it looks pretty cool.

Y is for You Wish You Were Here...

Travel Date: 20 May 2014
Cities: Munich, Fussen
Asian Tourists Seen: 2,965,295
Author: James Lloyd

Today we toured Neuschwanstein Castle and the surrounding area. We started by taking a 1 hour train ride to the city of Fussen in the German Alps. After getting off the train, it's a short bus ride, then a 20 minute walk up the foothills. The first castle you see is one called Hohenschwangau.

 A little further up the path, after passing numerous out-of-shape Americans, we came to the  famous Neuschwanstein castle.

 We were also temped to start rock climbing, but then we saw the signs... Damn the man!

 We took a guided tour through the castle. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures, but the gist of the castle was that it was Crazy King Ludwig II of Bavaria's dedication to his massive obsession with the compose Richard Wagner. Each room was decked out with illustrations from the famous Wagner operas, including a large "room" that was a mock cave from the opera Siegfried.

After the tour we took a walk around the Maurienbrucke - a bridge over a nearby waterfall with a sweet view of the castle.

X is for things the absence of the thing

Travel date: May 20, 2014
Location: Munich and Garmish Germany
Dumplings doused in vanilla pudding and filled with something brown eaten by James: more than 0, less than 1.

Today we took another beautiful Alpine train ride, this time to Garmish, which rests at the foot of Germany's largest mountain Zugspitze. Once there I learned about the AlpspiX, a scenic overlook made of metal grating and shaped like a giant X, offering great views of Zugspitze and the rest of the valley. Perfect - that will be today's X. Upon reaching the visitor's center, we learn that the cable car to the AlpspiX is undergoing repairs and is closed today, so X is for the AlpspiX, which we didn't visit, and the giant mountain that we didn't climb.

Instead we went to another nearby mountain, Wank. X is also for the wank we didn't have on this charming little sister mountain. It wasn't excessively tall, but that is ok because it has a perfect view of all the other, taller mountains. We watched a paraglider take off, catch an updraft, and then sail high into the sky. We watched him circle the mountain for at least half an hour before he disappeared behind another mountain. I flew a miniature kite. We snacked at a restaurant at the peak and James had the first non-alcoholic beer I've ever seen him drink, so X is for the alcohol James didn't have with his lunch. He assures me it was purely accidental.

We hiked down the mountain and soaked in the view. Our laundry still being tied up at the cleaners, today was also the day I realized that the deodorant I thought I'd bought in Spain seems to instead just be an armpit massager. Oh, Spaniards. So X is for the deodorant I didn't wear, the pleasant aroma I didn't have.

We learned that there's some digital design convention in Munich this week which is causing all the lodging to be at capacity, so despite our efforts we spent the day not knowing where we would be staying. So X is also for the lodging we didn't secure. We got back to our hotel we'd already checked out of and did some online research to come up with a sub-par place a little out of town. It could've been worse, but it could've been better. When we arrived, the check-in guy had just left to address something at another property, so we suggested we go have a bit to eat. We hung out at a Chinese restaurant around the corner which, all told, was pretty good.

We eventually got checked in and made a friend with a Swede from above the arctic circle to share some wine with. We learned about a fifth season the Swedes have called "winter-spring". You know, when you've gone months without seeing the sun and then when it eventually begins to rise again, you're reminded how bright the perfectly-white snow is, and you are reinvigorated to go and do stuff in it? Yeah, me neither. I took a shower which, in contrast to everywhere else we've stayed, had plenty of scalding-hot water but seemed to be short on cold. So lastly, X is for the appropriately-termperatured shower we didn't have.

W is for Weather-measurement devices have lost their novelty

Travel date: May 19, 2014
Location: Munich
Author: Nick John
Price paid for a load of laundry: I'm too embarrassed to even answer

James and I wandered the city this morning. We ran across a fantastic vegetarian restaurant for, well they were serving lunch by the time we got there. We then meandered through the city, strolled through an couple markets where I picked up some delicate souvenirs which have basically no chance of surviving the trek home.

Our destination for the day was the Deutsches Museum. This massive six-story complex covers all major branches of science, along with a vast array of collections like planes, ships, and ancient human artifacts. They had a large exhibit on modern uses of carbon, like building light-weight car frames, kick-ass racing bikes, and artificial limbs.

The museum's exhibits are largely just in German, which was nice because it absolved me of the obligation to read every word. Instead, we looked at ancient cave paintings and early computers and simple gear machines without learning their real names or the context they play in our world.

All the major descriptions had full translations, so we did learn quite a bit about early humans, nanotechnology and principles of lift. They had an interesting display depicting the evolution of various musical instruments, like the 7-belled trumpet and a trombone with a dragon for a bell (sackbuts FTW!) and a number of instruments that I would have thought were invented by Dr Seuss himself.

Oh, and we saw even more sundials, astrolabes, compasses, quadrants, sextants, and octants. They have arguably the largest hygrometer and barometer (the size of a bell tower, see fig. 4). I am confident that I can now calculate the circumference of the earth, predict the weather and the next eclipse, and navigate a sea vessel, all using tools invented before 1400. Go science! We stayed at the museum until they kicked us out, and we could have easily stayed for hours longer.

From there we wandered toward our hotel and found a cute fairytale-themed gourmet burger restaurant on a busy pedestrian street. We people-watched and enjoyed several half liters of helles Bier before returning to the hotel to wind down and plan our next adventure.

V is for Visiting Memory Lane

Travel Date: May 18, 2014
Reminiscent tears shed: 1
City: Munich
Author: James Lloyd

Today was a very a typical, and for me, nostalgic Munich day. Having lived here for a over a year in 2005-2006, I developed some fond memories of places and experiences in Munich, and luckily Nick was happy to indulge my nostalgia seeking.

We started out our day for lunch at a brew house at the steps of the Frauenkirche, the tallest building in the city center and also the main building. Nick naively asked for a beer smaller than a half liter - our waitress nailed it. She brought him a "Schnitt" which is a beer with around half the glass full of head.

Afterwards we took the U6 north to Universität so I could show Nick where I went to class while I was here. From there, we walked into the English Garden (which is unanimously agreed to be the best city park in the world) to the Chinesischer Turm ("Chinese Tower" in English). A pagoda in the middle of the park with a Polka band playing inside it and great beer served and enjoyed all around it.

After a few beers at the Chinesischer Turm we walked through the park to Mūnchner Freiheit. A favorite spot of mine when I lived here to play chess along the sidewalk with a life-sized chess set. We weren't able to play a game (it's become way more popular in the intervening 8 years) but it was still great to see people playing with the same sets I used to...

After observing the chess players for a few minutes we took the U6 further north to my past home, Studentenstadt (or "student city" for you non-German speakers). This was my home fore a large part of 2005-2006 and was my first time back since then. It's a student dorm area located in the center between the 2 major universities in Munich. Such great times... It was fantastic to be back.

I even got a chance to play Kicker (the German word for fussball) in the Potschlamperl ("Das Pot" as the locals call it). This is how I learned German. Days and nights for months at the Kicker table making friends and learned bar-slang German. Didn't help me in class, but changed my life in the experiences I had outside of class. So grateful to have a chance to revisit such an influential place for me.

After my emotional trip down memory lane at my old home, I decided to expose Nick to yet further nostalgia by taking him to my former favorite hangout, Unionsbräu. Unfortunately, they are closed on Mondays... A fact I must have forgotten in the intervening years...

We closed the night strong though - we went to old trusty, the Hofbräuhaus, and met a German guy name Philip at our table. He was interviewing for a job the next day at Siemens, but still couldn't turn down the beer and festivities. He was a super nice guy. We wished him well on his interview and parted ways.

Chalk this up to yet another perfect day Munich. I'm married to Madison now, but you never forget your first love, and Munich, you're mine... #HomeAwayFromHome

U is for Unbelievable Landscapes

Travel Date: May 17, 2014
Locations: Geneva, Train through Switzerland and southern Bavaria
Hours in a Train: 8
Author: James Lloyd


Today was a relatively calm day, we started by touring CERN in Geneva - this is home to the Large Hadron Collider and the place where the internet was invented. Needless to say, it's a science nerd's Mecca. 

I geeked out pretty hard about seeing the original diagram and device for the first world wide web server...

From there Nick and I then (sadly) parted ways out intrepid co-travellers Luke and Kelsey. It was an absolutely fantastic time with them, which was not only a whole lot of fun, but also grew our friendship exponentially. #Feelings


Nick and I then boarded a train from Geneva to Munich (with a transfer in Zurich). An eight hour total trip, but it was absolutely worth every minute. The view for pretty much the entire ride was like a Bob Ross painting. Amazing.

We also learned that in Zurich, you can buy a pregnancy test in the train platform vending machine, for those times you accidentally get impregnated will getting off the train.. Also, the brand name is perfect: MaybeBaby