From Berlin to Frankfurt

We had a lot of fun during the rest of our time in Berlin. We found an absolutely INCREDIBLE bookstore called Dussmann. It was 5 floors filled with every genre of book you can imagine (mostly in German, but they did have a small English Sci-Fi/Fantasy section). They’re music collection was really impressive. They had a whole floor dedicated to classical music that even had a wide selection of opera on DVD. I wanted to buy all sorts of stuff but it was pretty expensive and of course DVDs would be in the wrong format for American players.

We decided to finally do some tourist stuff on our last day and we headed to the Reichstag building. My camera was broken and I hadn’t yet found a disposable camera so I couldn’t take any pictures. There happened to be a protest going on so we stopped to check it out. They were protesting nuclear power. They had signs that said, “Atomkraft? Neine Danke” which means, “Nuclear power? No thank you!” Strangely, we did see a nuclear power plant on our way to Wurtzburg (the next day). It was an eerie sight. We saw the smoke from kilometers away, long before we saw the plant itself. I’d never seen one in real life but it looked just like it does in movies.

To get to Frankfurt we decided to rent a car. We perhaps bit off more than we could chew because it was only after making the decision that we realized that automatic transmissions are somewhat rare here and they cost a lot more to rent. So… stick shift it is. The thing is…neither of us really drive stick. Keith didn’t bring his license so he couldn’t drive anyway. My boyfriend, Ryan, has been teaching me to drive manual on his car, but I’m still not very good at it. I knew it would be an in

We had a lot of fun during the rest of our time in Berlin. We found an absolutely INCREDIBLE bookstore called Dussmann. It was 5 floors filled with every genre of book you can imagine (mostly in German, but they did have a small English Sci-Fi/Fantasy section). They’re music collection was really impressive. They had a whole floor dedicated to classical music that even had a wide selection of opera on DVD. I wanted to buy all sorts of stuff but it was pretty expensive and of course DVDs would be in the wrong format for American players.

We decided to finally do some tourist stuff on our last day and we headed to the Reichstag building. My camera was broken and I hadn’t yet found a disposable camera so I couldn’t take any pictures. There happened to be a protest going on so we stopped to check it out. They were protesting nuclear power. They had signs that said, “Atomkraft? Neine Danke” which means, “Nuclear power? No thank you!” Strangely, we did see a nuclear power plant on our way to Wurtzburg (the next day). It was an eerie sight. We saw the smoke from kilometers away, long before we saw the plant itself. I’d never seen one in real life but it looked just like it does in movies.

To get to Frankfurt we decided to rent a car. We perhaps bit off more than we could chew because it was only after making the decision that we realized that automatic transmissions are somewhat rare here and they cost a lot more to rent. So… stick shift it is. The thing is…neither of us really drive stick. Keith didn’t bring his license so he couldn’t drive anyway. My boyfriend, Ryan, has been teaching me to drive manual on his car, but I’m still not very good at it. I knew it would be an interesting drive.

We picked up the car in the morning and I managed to peel out of the parking lot instead of stalling. Good. But we had neglected to figure out how to get to the freeway from the rental place. We had a road atlas, but it was really for going between cities and didn’t have enough detail to help us find our way within Berlin. So we drove around looking for it for a couple of hours. In the process I managed to stall quite a few times (you know it’s always 1st gear).

After a few truly frustrating experiences, we were in sight of the freeway. The car stalled really badly and we had to push it over to the side and wait. After a half hour or so we were ready to try again. We made it the last 20 meters onto the freeway and from there it was smooth sailing all the wait to Wurtzburg. We had more trouble with the car in Wurtzburg and pushed it to the side of the road. We were planning to sleep in Wurtzburg anyway so we reclined the seats and tried to sleep. Neither of us slept particularly well and we left again after about 3.5 hours. We went into Frankfurt and found the hauptbahnhof (where we would return the car in the morning). Then we went back out of town to a truck stop and slept until 7.
At 7 we drove back into Frankfurt and ended up hitting a little of the local commute traffic. We had a very frustrating experience trying to return the car. I recommend against renting with Europcar. They have never heard the term “customer service”. We ended up having to fork over three euros for parking because Europcar can’t mark their parking lot to save their souls. After cursing them profusely, we finally got the car dropped off and paid for and we headed to the hostel. The hostel is right across the street from the hauptbahnhof. We left our bags at the hostel but we couldn’t check in until 2pm (it was only 10am).
We wandered around town and took some pictures of the cool skyscrapers and found a nice park and some cool shops. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the statue of Beethoven in the nude that my friends saw when they were in Frankfurt. Oh well. At 2:00 we checked into the hostel and went to sleep! We slept for probably 4 hours and then went out again. We took our instruments to a nearby park and played a little. We played a piece that I wrote for us. Admittedly, it’s still a work in progress, but hey, I call that a European premier! We’re really excited to go home tomorrow. We’re looking forward to sleeping in bedrooms that don’t have several other people in them. In the morning we’ll go to the hauptbahnhof (after our free breakfast) and catch the next train over to the airport. We’ve had a lot of great experiences here but we’re ready to come home now. California, here we come!
teresting drive.

We picked up the car in the morning and I managed to peel out of the parking lot instead of stalling. Good. But we had neglected to figure out how to get to the freeway from the rental place. We had a road atlas, but it was really for going between cities and didn’t have enough detail to help us find our way within Berlin. So we drove around looking for it for a couple of hours. In the process I managed to stall quite a few times (you know it’s always 1st gear).

From Cesky Krumlov to Berlin

We had a great time in Prague and want to say a big “thank you!!!” to Grant, Chase and Vicky for being wonderful hosts.  Chase even gave us a pro-tip and told us to go visit Cesky Krumlov, which is a little town south of Prague.  We took the train to Cesky Krumlov and stayed in a hostel in the historical town center.  It was a lot like Rothenburg – crawling with tourists by day, sleepy and peaceful at night.  The difference was that all the tourists in Cesky Krumlov seemed to be, well…old.  Apparently that’s the official town to visit in your golden years.  Or perhaps even in your post-golden years.  We spent most of our time there visiting the hundreds of art galleries.  They’re all over in that town.  We didn’t go to any of the tourist sights in town.  I guess we’re just over that at this point.  The main attraction in town is a castle.  It’s an odd little castle because the outside is covered with faux brick.  The brickwork pattern is painted on.  I’m sure a tour guide would have explained why that was but Keith and I just figured they’re cheap.  Keith said, “it took us $600 and a whole 3-day weekend to build this castle!”  I thought that was a very Yackov Smirnoff sounding joke.  The other thing we noticed about Cesky Krumlov is that the town mascot seems to be the dauschund.  I think everyone in town has at least one.  They were everywhere!  Our hostel had a bar downstairs and the bar tender brought his dog.  The dog was a super sweet yellow lab.  He excitedly greeted everyone who came into the bar.  He seemed to like Keith and I a lot.  Probably because we petted him at lot.  We named him Bela BarDog and took a picture with him.

The next night a tragedy occurred in Cesky Krumlov.  My camera was dropped by a drunk man and is no longer working.  Drunk man was trying to take a picture of me with his dog.  His dog is a Moochie dog!  It’s a boy dog and it was a lot bigger than Mooch but he had the same muscular hips and beard.  He made me miss Moochie.  The dog’s owner spent the rest of the night apologizing profusely in Czech.  I’m not mad at him for dropping the camera, but I am really bummed that it’s not working.  I’m going to try to get it fixed here in Berlin, but if it’s going to be expensive I’ll just pick up a disposable camera for the rest of the trip.

After 2 nights in Cesky Krumlov we headed to Berlin!  Berlin is a HUGE city and it has the most extensive and complicated public transportation system we’ve seen so far.  Last night we went into the hip part of town that is supposed to be like Europe’s Berkeley.  It was like Berkeley!  A LOT like Berkeley.  It had all sorts of hip restaurants and hippy shops, the air was scented with marijuana, and the sidewalks were alive with drunks and bicyclists.  There were definatly colorful locals around just like you’d expect in Berkeley.  On the metro on the way there we sat near an old man wearing a round hat with a long white braid hanging down the back of it.  He had small round glasses that looked like they were built in 1820.  He was flinching and blinking and making odd faces.  I wondered if he was high.  He had a big ring on at least 8 of his 10 fingers, each one with a big (like nickel sized) rock in it.  Not diamonds or any other precious stone, but big fat rocks.  He got off at the same stop as us and we knew we were in the right place.  We explored but didn’t really go anywhere because Keith is super broke.  His vacation pay got messed up at work and now he won’t be getting it until we get home.  On the way back we shared a train car with a dirty sleeping man.  We didn’t mind him until he let out a long, loud, dirty fart.  We moved to another car.  We wondered how these fart stories keep happening to us and we decided that our new stereotype for Germans is that they fart a lot.  We found an Ikea in Berlin and we’re going to go see it today.  We’re also hoping to get a tour today.  And some sort of working camera.

From Fϋssen to Prague

From Rothenburg we took a late train to Fϋssen, the town closest to the Neuschwanstein castle.  We had reserved dorm beds for the night at LA House, the cheapest (and I think only)  hostel in town.   We got into town around 11pm and soon discovered two other people from our train were searching for the same place.  Mary Anne and Kirsten are mother and daughter respectively and are from New Mexico.  Fellow Rick Steves readers, they had been at Burg Eltz on the same day as us (just earlier).  We chatted with them while we walked.

Funny story:  when we reached LA House, they said they were completely full and didn’t have room for Keith and I (despite the fact that I had made us a reservation online earlier that day).  The guy who worked at the hostel seemed to have no idea what to do and was flustered and frustrated.  We were so worried – what would be do if he turned us away?  It’s raining.  We have a reservation!  He suggested another place in town but it would have cost us 14 euros more!  That’s no good, we had agreed on the price that was on the website.  We fretted while he got Mary Anne and Kirsten squared away (their reservation had come through just fine).  When he returned he asked us to follow him…to the boiler room.  He was putting a mattress down on the floor and sweeping up.  When we saw our bed, Keith whispered, “your camera has batteries, right?”  We had been so worried that we’d be out on the street in Fussen and our humble little bedroom was just a comic relief!

The room was small, probably 10×10 feet.  The hot water heater took up one corner and pipes ran all over the walls (and dripped periodically).  The floor was cement and covered with dust (although the hostel worker did do his best to sweep a little).  The mattress he had given us was a twin.  There were two blankets but only one pillow.  It would be interesting to try to fit both of us.  But hey, we did have our own room!

The next day we took the bus up to the ticket area for Neuschwanstein castle (which is actually a fair hike away from the castle itself).  After waiting in line for a while we got our tickets with a scheduled tour time of 4:55 pm.  It wasn’t yet 2pm so we decided to walk back to town.  The trail we took was beautiful but indirect.  It took us an hour to get back to Fussen.  But we did get to see a lovely clear lake and got some great views of the mountains along the way.

In town we got food and train tickets to Prague.  We were hoping to leave that night but the cheapest train was the next morning at 9am.  We worried that, given our boiler room stay, we would have trouble finding a place to stay that is within our budget.  The obvious solution – stay up all night!  It would take 10 hours to get to Prague; plenty of time to sleep!

Then we caught a bus back up to the ticket area.  Mary Anne and Kirsten were on our bus and we assured them that everything had turned out OK for us the previous night (they were worried).  They had already been up to the castle and told us that it was great and after the tour we should look for stairs leading down to a creek.=

The castle was great.  It was amazing how much younger Neuschwanstein is than Burg Eltz.  Neuschwanstein was built between 1869 and 1886.  For comparison, the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889.  Neuschwanstein was never completed and they stopped in 1886 because “mad” King Ludwig II turned up dead.  Suicide, or maybe murder.  He wasn’t a smart politician.  He spent a ton of money building castles (I think he had planned 4 of which Neuschwanstein is the grandest) which served no real purpose.  King Ludwig II was basically the world’s richest nerd and was hardcore into the Romantic/neo-Gothic movement which romanticized the middle ages.

Neuschwanstein’s finished rooms are covered with murals that depict various legends portrayed in Wagner’s operas.  The throne room is particularly impressive (no cameras allowed on the tour unfortunately).  The murals there depict religious motifs or lore surrounding other kings (one depicted a dragon being slayed by some brave king/saint who I think actually lived – but probably didn’t actually kill a dragon).  There was a MASSIVE chandelier hanging from the high ceiling made of gilded bronze and composed of several rings that sort of looked like crowns.  The King’s bedroom had running water and one of the first private line telephones in Germany.  Off of the bedroom was a very strange room meant to look like a cave.  It did look like a cave!  Very convincing.  But why would you want a cave in your house?  Nerd.

Neuschwanstein was far more opulent than Burg Eltz.  You can tell that Neuschwanstein was never actually used for defense because the arrow slits are too wide and covered with paned windows.  The brickwork of Neuschwanstein looks modern too.  King Ludwig II never lived in his castle, but now days a few of the Neuschwanstein’s staff do.  They rent rooms for cheap from the state of Bavaria.

After our tour we found the stairway that Mary Anne and Kirsten had told us about only about 20 meters from the castle.  It lead down to a waterfall!  The water was amazingly clear and the area was a gorgeous unspoiled natural setting.  We followed a trail along the creek that the water fell into and enjoyed the scenery.  The trail led back to the ticket area which was deserted since the castle was closed by that time.  We took a more direct route back to Fussen this time which didn’t involve all the hiking up and down hills that the first trail did.

When we got to Fussen we had about 12 hours to kill until our train in the morning.  We got spaghetti and pizza for dinner at a take out restaurant.  It was GOOD!  The man working there had bragged that his grandmother was from St. Louis (and that’s why he made excellent pizza).  Fussen is a small town and we worried that nothing would be open late.  We asked him about it and he directed us to a bar called Relax open until 1am and a disco called The Big Apple open until 3:30am.

We locked our bags up at the train station and headed to Relax.  We had a few drinks and hung out until 1.  Then it was time to go find The Big Apple (which was so far from the town center that it wasn’t on our map).  We wondered if anyone at all would be at a small town disco on a Wednesday night.  We killed about a half hour walking and lo and behold there was The Big Apple and it was hoppin’!  The club was tiny but it was PACKED!

We headed in and danced our little hinies off.  The music was mostly in English and mostly songs we knew, but they did play a couple German songs and it was really cool to hear the whole crowd sign along.  I think we were the only ones there who didn’t speak German.  One cultural different stuck out dramatically here.  The club was 18+ but I’m pretty sure some kids under 18 snuck in.  It was REALLY weird to see these baby faced youngsters holding beers and cocktails like it was nothing.  We had a great time dancing and were excited to hear “I Gotta Feelin’” by the Black Eyed Peas which has come to define our trip (we hear it everywhere we go).  We were perplexed when the DJ stopped the music to read off bingo numbers.  I have no idea what that was about but everyone in the room was looking at their little bingo cards.  I always thought that bingo was for geriatrics.  Go figure.

The club closed a 3:30 and we headed back into town.  By the time we got to town we had probably walked over 8 kilometers since we woke up.  We were VERY tired but we still had 5 hours before our train!  We hoped that the train station would open at 4 so we could take bird baths in the bathroom sink.  It didn’t open at 4… or 4:30.  The first train of the day left around 5am and so did we.  We found a pastry shop that was just opening up and hung out there until 6.  It was very cold and I wanted some tea to warm me up so we found a cafe that had just opened.  We sat there until the grocery store opened and 7.  At the grocery store we got breakfast and headed back to the train station that was finally open.  We couldn’t bring ourselves to bird bathe there though because the bathrooms stunk so badly.

Our first train took us to the Munich Hauptbahnhof (main station) where we found public restrooms that actually had showers!  Although we desperately needed showers they cost SEVEN EUROS!!  Total rip-off.  We weren’t about to pay that so we washed our hair in the sinks and cleaned ourselves the best we could with we paper towels.  But that was only half a bird bath.  I’m proud to announce that I shaved both my legs and my armpits in the WC on our next train WHILE IT WAS MOVING (without cutting myself)!

When we got to Prague, Grant (a friend of mine who teaches English here) met us at the train station.  We’re staying at Grant’s apartment.  He has two roommates (Vicky and Chase) who are also English teachers from the U.S.

Today we went to Wenceslaus square.  Grant knows a ton about the city so he’s like our own private guide!  We saw the national museum (from a distance), the municipal building and the powder tower (which used to be part of the city wall).  Then we went to another square near the Charles bridge.  We watched the giant clock do it’s thing at the hour and it was far less boring than the one in Rothenburg.  The best part was a  skeleton ringing a bell of to one side.

Then we crossed the Charles bridge.  The views of the city from the bridge are INCREDIBLE!  Prague is gorgeous.  Far more beautiful than London or Paris.  The cityscape is very colorful and I was temped to buy one of the artsy photos sold but a TON of various venders  along the bridge.  I ended up buying a little painting in a nearby art shop that is a colorful and abstracted version of the cityscape.  We’re having a great time in Prague and Grant is trying to convince us that we should live here too!

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

We made it out of that creepy Limburg casino and all the way to Rothenburg.  The trip was interesting and involved us getting on the wrong train once, getting separated as a result, almost missing connections, and Krista being an idiot and forgetting to take the battery charger (and adapters) out of the wall when leaving Limburg.  So now I need to buy more AAs for my camera.  I think we can live without the voltage adapter and Keith has another plug adapter.  I’m still mad I left that stuff behind though.  Those rechargable batteries aren’t cheap!

Rothenburg has been awesome.  We stayed at the hostel (which was recommended by Rick Steves).  Rick Steves was absolutely right about this town.  By day, it’s crawling with obnoxious American and Japanese tourists shopping for leiderhosen and sampling schneeballs.  But at night it’s much more quite and interesting.

Scheeballs are available on every street in this town.  They are a long strip of pastry that’s been deep fried.  It has a semi-crunchy texture similar to a fried won ton.  It’s curled into a ball shape and coated with sugar, powdered sugar, chocolate, glaze, or just about anything else you can think of.  Rick Steves thinks scheeballs are a penance food meant to remind the young generation of how hard their ancestors had it.   Keith and I had a sugar coated one and we thought it was pretty tasty!

Last night we explored the town after dark, when most of the tourists were gone.  We looked in shop windows (many of which sell lame souvenirs and/or an epic array of swords, knives, daggers and Swiss army knives).  We found one shop that sells honest-to-God antiques!  In their window was a bunch of old jewelry, locks with skeleton keys, kaiser hats, and mementos from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. While looking in one of these windows, some jerk upstairs decided to water their window box and didn’t feel a need to worry about whether there were people standing under the window.  We got dirty plant water dripped on our heads!  Keith wondered how to say “jerk” in German.  We probably should have been warned by the next plant box over that suddenly began dripping only moments before we got wet.

We went to a park outside of the city walls (by the way, this is a walled city established in the 10th century).  At the park we watched the stars (and the bats, there seem to be a lot of them here) while listening to German teenagers being loud and silly nearby.

Americans have an international reputation for being loud, which is bad for me because I’m loud even by American standards.  But we’ve heard some pretty loud Germans around here so it’s not just us!  One German man we passed on the road even farted real loud.  He was chastised by women who were nearby (well about 15 feet away from him where they still heard the fart clear as a bell).  Although we couldn’t understand the conversation, Keith and I were cracking up laughing as the women and the man yelled back and forth.

Today, we’re planning to head to Fussen, which is the closest town to the Neuschwanstein castle.

Stuck in Limburg

So I guess this is probably where Limburger cheese comes from.  We’re stuck here on our way to Rothenburg.  We got a ticket for what we thought was a 10 hour train ride from Koblenz to Rothenburg.  It turned out to be 5 trains (meaning we have to change trains 4 times).  We were planning to sleep on the 10 hour ride (leaving just after 11pm and arriving around 9:30am).  Instead we have to deal with a 4 hour layover in Limburg.  Worse, when we got to Limburg the station was closed and locked up tight so we couldn’t go sleep inside the station which was plan B.  On to plan C, we found a gross smoky casino across the street from the train station that doubles as an internet cafe and is open all night.  We’re waiting here for the station to open up again and let us onto our train.

But it’s not all bad.  Our day started out fantastic.  We took the train from Koblenz to Münden which is the closest town to Burg Eltz (which for all you non-Rick Steves fans, is Rick Steves’ favorite castle in all of Europe).  From Münden we had quite a hike to get to the castle.  It was over 2 kilometers, mostly uphill.  It took us about an hour and a half to get there.  Along the way we got some great views of the surrounding area which is covered with vineyards and forest covered hills.

Burg Eltz was really cool – I mean come on, it’s a real life castle!  It was really built hundreds of years ago (completed in the 1500s), it was really defended by knights in suits of armor and it really housed nobility.  How cool is that?  We weren’t allowed to take pictures on the tour but we could (and did) take pictures in the treasury.  On the tour we got to see rooms with ornately painted walls and ceilings, art from several different artistic periods, and real weapons from the castle’s armory (swords, guns, battle axes, morning stars and cannons).  In the treasury there were all sorts of artistic pieces in gold, jewelry, religious objects and more weapons.

The castle is in a really beautiful area surrounded by forest and big hills that aren’t quite big enough to be mountains.  It was a great place to see from high up on the hill where Burg Eltz sits and a great place to hike through.  We got our exercise today!  We figure that we walked at least 7 kilometers total today.

If there are z’s where there should be y’s for vice versa, forgive me.  I am using a German keyboard which has the y in the spot the z should be and vice versa.

From Reims to Koblenz

The rest of our stay in Reims was great.  Our second night brought in over 60 euros.  Unfortunately, we spent the vast majority of our last day in that charming little town trying to figure out how to get out of it.  The bus stop proved quite elusive and even buying the bus tickets to Frankfurt involved Keith having a long frustrating conversation in FrEnglish with a Eurolines representative on the phone.  We were starting to doubt that this Eurolines even existed at all.  Lo and behold, the Eurolines bus did come (a half hour late) and we were off to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is a yucky city.  At least the part of it near the train station is.  After we left Nahum at the airport to go home we went in search of someone who would buy the guitar we bought in London.  We walked through a gross part of Frankfurt with all sorts of strip joints and sex shops around.  We weren’t able to sell the guitar and we were fed up with Frankfurt so we took a train to Koblenz because we hear it’s easy to get to Burg Eltz from here.

Koblenz turned out to be a GREAT town.  I want to move here.  People take their dogs absolutely everywhere.  You can hardly go into any sort of store without seeing at least one dog.  I even saw a dog in a restaurant.  IN the restaurant, not in the al fresco dining area outside.  Koblenz is really beautiful.  It’s right on the Rhine and has lots of cool looking old buildings.  It’s set in a hilly forested area and the weather feels like Monterey.  I’ll try to get pictures onto facebook soon.  Our hotel is adorable.  Even the toilet is cute.  It has a picture of dolphins on the lid.  The toilet paper even has dolphins on it.

Lots of people speak English here – almost everybody.  We’re rapidly learning more German words, but we’re not nearly as good as we are in French.  We figure if they don’t speak English, we can ask if they speak French or Japanese instead.  Ha ha!  We love it here and hopefully we’ll get to see Burg Eltz tomorrow!

Paris and Reims

Paris was quite an experience.  Our first night was spent at the YMCA which in France is UCJG.  It’s the world’s oldest YMCA and it shows.  The building was under construction over the summer because it serves as student housing during the school year.  It was a quirky quirky building.  It looked like it was build without a floor plan in mind one room at a time.  The floor was everywhere uneven, the floor plan was odd, and the stairs were so old and worn that they actually sloped downward.  I took pictures of the doors that were curved to fit curved walls.  We only stayed one night there because we found a cheaper place to stay after that.

The cheaper hotel was cheap for a reason.  We booked a double room and pretended that only Keith and I were staying there.  It was a tiny room with a double bed and a sink.  The bathroom down the hall was just a hole in the floor with a place to put your feet.  I figured I racked up some serious Rick Steves points by using that thing – not once, but twice!  Showers there cost two euros so we bathed in our sink.  It’s neither easy nor efficient to wash your hair in a sink.

We got to do some fun touristy stuff in Paris.  We went to the Arc de Triomphe but we didn’t climb to the top because you had to pay for that.  After that we walked down the Champs-Elysee which really wasn’t that exciting.  I think that would be a lot more fun if you could afford to stop and have lunch at one of those very chic (and very expensive) cafes.  We did however stop at Laduree for some macaroons.  In French “macaroon” doesn’t mean that delicious pile of coconut that I was expecting.  The French macaroon is a sandwich cookie with a gooey filling.  Laduree had a huge variety of flavors.  We tried chocolate flavor and pistachio flavor.  They were delicious and you could still taste a hint of coconut in the pistachio flavor.

At the end of the Champs-Elysees we kept walking right through the Place de la Concorde and through the park until we reached the Louvre.  We didn’t get to go in that day (it was almost closing time) but we came back the next day to go inside.  Keith and I went in for the last hour before closing.  We got to see the Venus di Milo and the Mona Lisa along with a nice variety of paintings, sculptures and artifacts.  There are pictures on facebook.  We couldn’t really read the informational plaques about the art because there were a lot of French words that we didn’t know.  But that was probably just as well since we didn’t have a lot of time.

Later we went to the Eiffel Tower.  The 15th of August is a holiday in France (the Assumption).  That was the day we went to the Eiffel Tower so the place was a zoo!  We busked for a couple of hours and made 36 euros.  Not too bad.  We had a good time and got some cool pictures of the tower too.  A cute little girl complimented us in French and when I didn’t understand her she said “you’re super!”  : )  Her dad took a picture of her with us.  It made us smile.  The next day we returned to the Eiffel Tower and Keith and I paid a few euros to climb up to the second platform.  The view was more spectacular than I had imagined and climbing up was sort of fun (almost 800 steps).

The night before the Assumption we were busking at Notre Dame.  There was quite a crowd there and we were doing alright.  Suddenly all the bells started ringing and we realized there was a procession crossing the courtyard in front of the cathedral.  All we could see over the crowd were white banners and a gold statue (I’m not sure what the statue was of).  The church was celebrating the Assumption!  The sign said free entry so we went inside.  They were having a very canned church service with no one actually leading worship.  There was a video screen playing a montage of religious images (mostly of Notre Dame) and recorded voices speaking French.  There was also some really awesome music being played (through speakers, not live).  We quietly explored the cathedral and marveled at the huge high ceilings and the intricate stained glass.

After that we found the area called Saint Michael.  It has a ton of night life so Keith and Nahum busked there and we returned on multiple occasions for cheap food.  There are a lot of doner kebab shops in France that serve really cheap meals.

The night before we left for Reims we stayed up all night because we didn’t want to pay for another night at the hotel.  Paris is really expensive (worse than London!) and we weren’t doing super great busking.  We had planned to hang out in the train station but they booted us out at 1am.  However, the cop who told us to leave was very nice and sent us across the street to La Maison Blanche, a 24 hour cafe.  We had some drinks and later some pasta and went back to the train station around 5:30am.  La Maison Blanche was playing music videos all night, all by female artists.  It was fun to see the Spice Girls (who are apparently still famous over here), All Saints, and Shakira.  We heard recent songs and songs from years and years ago.

The next day we took a train to Reims and had a hell of a time finding the tourist information office which was miles from the train station.  We got into town dead tired around noon and after many trials and tribulations finally booked a hotel around 5pm.  Our room here is more than we were hoping to spend, but it’s worth it.  The hotel is right on the main drag where all the shops and cafes are so we can busk within blocks of our hotel.  We have our own bathroom complete with a shower and we each get our own bed.  After the place in Paris it feels super luxurious.

Last night we did some busking and made a killing!  In a total of about 3 hours of busking we made 72.76 euros!  That’s the best we’ve done so far.  That’s especially exciting considering it was a Tuesday night.  We also got our biggest single tip to date – 10 euros!  If we keep this up, we’ll actually have enough to pay for Nahum’s share of the hotel and food.  We got some really nice compliments from a jazz fan who stopped to watch us play.  He said he could tell we were American because we swing!  It’s nice to know that Americans have a good reputation for SOMETHING.  I feel like my playing is definitely improving and I played some great solos last night.  We’re also communicating better as a band and our endings are getting tighter and more varied.

We love Reims.  Food is MUCH cheaper than it was in Paris.  Last night all three of us ate dinner for a total of 8.50 euros.  It was a great dinner too.  We made sandwiches on baguettes with tomato and lettuce and cheese.  We’re hoping for more great busking tonight!

We have one more night booked at our super fancy hotel and then we’ll have to go to Frankfurt so Nahum can catch his flight home.

From Bath to Paris

We are in Paris!  I am feeling much better.  I think it was food poisoning since I got over it so quickly.  Yesterday we took a bus from Bath to Portsmouth.  In Portsmouth we had to walk quite a way to get to the port from the bus stop.  It was a little strange since we were in an industrial area and right next to a navy base.  The base was surrounded by tall, old brick walls complete with outposts with arrow slits.  At the port we tried to spend the last of our pounds before they become useless in France.  We did a pretty good job. 

I was worried about getting sea sick on the ferry, but that was not a problem at all.  The ferry, called Norman Spirit, was really big!  It was just like a floating hotel complete with resaurants, lounges and parking lots.  I barely felt any movement at all.  The ferry left at 11pm UK time and arrived in Le Havre at 7am UK time which is 8am French time.  We are now 9 hours ahead of you on the West coast.  We were too cheap to pay for beds so we slept in chairs on the ferry.  The people who knew wha they were doing had inflatible matresses.  I slept fairly well despite the fact that it was freezing in there and I was in a chair.  We just got into Paris by train and are now looking for a place to stay.  I hope to post pictures soon.

Yuck

I’m officially sick.  And not with that little cold I was fighting.  I felt a little nauseous when I went to bed last night and it just got worse and worse until I woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent need to get to the bathroom.  My body did it’s very best to remove absolutely everything from my GI track as I watched the sky outside the window turn slowly from black to blue.  Finally, I was falling asleep on the bathroom floor so I dragged myself back to bed – with a trash can.  After a short snooze the trash can turned out to be a good idea.  Fortunately, Keith, Nahum and I were the only ones in our room.  Keith woke up and asked if I needed anything.  Groggily, I refused and went back to sleep.  I insisted on staying in bed when it was time for breakfast even though we’re supposed to be out of the room from 10 – 12.  Keith talked the cleaning crew into letting me sleep and sleep I did.  I’ve pretty much slept the whole day through.  A few minutes ago, I finally felt up to getting up and getting dressed.  I’m still very tired though, probably since I haven’t eaten for almost 24 hours.

Keith and Nahum went out to busk and bought us bus tickets to Portsmouth, where we’re planning on catching a ferry to France.  We’re leaving tomorrow and I hope that I’ll feel up to traveling.  I don’t know what it is that I have.  I’m really hoping that it’s not the flu.  Maybe it’s food poisoning.  I took some pepto bismol earlier and that seems to have helped.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

From London to Bath

We stayed in London until Saturday.  Keith’s accordion finally reached us and we started busking.  We mostly played on the South Bank of the Themes.  The South Bank has the Eye of London, which has a big grassy area near by and a long wide walk along the river.  There were a TON of people walking in the area but there were also a TON of buskers.  Most of the acts were of the very strange variety (human statues, people in lizard costumes riding bikes, a contortionist etc.)  We tried there several times but didn’t really have any success.  The one time that we were doing well some jerk ruined our pitch.  Some hack who plays really bad guitar set up right across the walk way from us and started blasting his terrible playing at 11.  Jerk.

Our first day of busking we also tried busking at the park where the Albert Memorial is.  Unfortunately it started raining and we had to quit after just a few tunes.  When we were on our way out we met a guy named Chris.  Chris told us that he was on mushrooms and told us about the run-in with border patrol he had in southern California.  You see, he was communicating telepathically with the Mexicans that were trying to cross the border illegally.  Chris also told us that he is telepathic with bears and that he thinks that Prince Albert (the one the giant memorial is dedicated to) was Jack the Ripper.  After that interesting encounter we hid from the rain under the eves of Royal Albert hall.

I wanted to go buy a towel since the hostel we were staying at didn’t provide towels.  We asked around and found out that there was a Mark & Spencers down the street.  It was only a few stops down on the bus.  But Keith and Nahum refused to get on the bus so we walked.  It was pouring rain and we had to walk probably 2 miles.  We got to M&S, dripping and cold, just in time to be told that they were closed.  I was determined to get a towel so we got on the tube to another department store and finally got my towel.  Staying off the bus saved us precisely no money and just got us all wet.

The busking was miserable in London so depressed, we moved on to Bath.  Our first night in Bath was Saturday night and Keith and Nahum went out to busk.  I stayed behind at the YMCA (where we stayed) because I was feeling a little under the weather.  Keith and Nahum made a killing!  Finally some good busking!  Apparently, British people come to Bath on weekends to party and they met a ton of bachelor and bachelorette parties and were tipped enthusiastically by excited drunks.

Bath is absolutely beautiful and we like it much better than London.  Yesterday after some moderately successful busking we met some really cool guys.  Alex and Wally play fiddle and guitar respectively and were playing some Gypsy jazz.  Nahum started talking to them and they asked us to play with them.  We jammed on a few tunes and we started to draw a crowd.  It was a lot of fun.  My ear is developing really fast with all this playing.  I’m able to follow changes without even knowing the key!  I’m hoping that I’ll learn to sing harmony by the end of the trip.

Today we took a tour to Stonehenge!  Even though Stonehenge is touristy, it was cool to go.  It’s strange that we still know so little about it.  I learned that it probably was not associated with the Druids as in popular myth.  There were some people in weird outfits with signs saying “bring back the ancestors” standing outside of the parking lot.  I was confused thinking “the ancestors are dead…they’re not coming back.”  Keith surmised that there were probably bodies exhumed from the area by archeologists and the Pagans didn’t like that.

I’ve been trying to upload more pictures to facebook, but for some reason the upload keeps failing.  I think the internet connection here at the Y is unstable.  I will try again later.