The Final Year

   So. Florence. A short hop from Venice on the train got me here in just a few hours, the time spent talking to a transgendered lesbian couple from Manchester about the differences in slang between England and America. I emerged from the air-conditioned train into the inferno of the Florentine sun. Here is not as humid as Venice, but more like the oven of a hot Los Angeles day. In fact, much of Florence’s surroundings look just like the Hollywood hills. Wasn’t that a Mike Meyers joke? Anyway, I had a few chats over the phone with my mother in Pasadena as she helped me find my completely out of the way hostel way up in the forest. It’s a Renaissance Villa, capitalized because it’s not just a renaissance-style villa, but the actual thing. To get there requires a lengthy bus ride and then a few minute hike up a trail into the woods. When I reached the point of hikation, I ran into an older woman from Australia. We both looked up at the steep semi-paved path with sweaty faces and decided to just take a slow hike up through it. I had my 40 pound pack on my back, and she had a large backpack and a rolling suitcase that wanted nothing to do with going straight. I saw her struggling and sweating, so I gallantly offered to help by taking charge of her roller. Boy was that a mistake. She pushed the handle over to me and I discovered then that she was a traveling brick saleswoman. The wheels on the bottom, the size of ball bearings, bounced and swerved at every little pebble, of which there were few replaced instead by large rocks and potholes. Eventually I was simply dragging the thing behind me, as though the wheels did not exist. She was panting beside me as we walked saying things like "well, at least it’s a glorious day for a hike haha!" as I wrestled her stone alligator up the hill. Eventually we reached the Villa and went to the front desk. I was thankfully given a room on the ground floor, and could hear the Australian woman saying something like "no lift? Isn’t there some way I could have a room on this floor?" as I skittered past as silently and unobtrusively as I could. Yes "gallant" I said.

   Dumping my pack into the cubby (it’s like pre school!) I returned to the front to ask about lockers when I heard a loud "Hey, I don’t like that guy!" behind me. Turning (I don’t know why) I saw myself face to face with Tiffany and Steve, my friends from Brussels! What a small Europe! Actually, I recalled that they were to be in Florence that night, but long ago I had given up hope of seeing them. Little did I remember that they were staying in the same hostel as me! Oh boy ready-made friends! We said our hellos and decided to grab some dinner and talk about what we’d been up to in the last month. We were joined by some of their friends they had made in Florence in the last couple of days, which was nice, because they could sort of pass them on to me, which is the way these things work here. This hostel is strange. It has a 12am curfew that is extremely strict, and it also has a 10am-2pm lockout in which you are required to leave the premises. It being 7 pm at that point, we were all pretty uninterested in making our way back into town that night. We resolved to get some beers at the bar and sit out in the gardens and talk. We sat down and I noticed a familiar looking guy standing across the square a little ways off. He looked a lot like an Australian guy I hung out with one day in Amsterdam, but I wasn’t quite sure. I looked again. When I looked away, I saw him look at me. Then I looked back and caught his eye, which is when he grinned and came over to say hello. Sure enough, not only did I find Steve and Tiffany, but I also found Cameron! And his two friends from Australia and England! More people! We made room and sat out on the porch talking and laughing and having a grand old time the seven of us until the bell tolled midnight and we had to go inside and have "quiet time" for eight or so hours.

   The next morning I was to meet Steve and Tiffany in the lobby at eight for a trip down to the Uffizi (you feet stink) museum before their train left for Cinqua Terra at noon. I braved the communal showers and got down to the lobby as the other two were checking out, which took forever. Finally, at nine, we left the place. An hour later, we were standing in front of the museum standing in line, they with their gigantic Canadian packs and me with a day’s worth of anticipation. Their schedule being as tight as it was, we decided to check and see how long the line would be, and when Steve came back with the answer of 2 and a half hours, we realized that there was no way they would be able to go in. He also relayed the information that I could make a reservation for later in the day and not waste time standing in line. I did, for 12:30, and we left the line in search of other stuff. When we had passed the Duomo 45 minutes previous, there had been about 20 people in line, so we headed a block and a half back there to maybe see inside. Arriving we were greeted to a snaking trail of 500 people backing out the front entrance. These things form fast. It was longer than the line at the Uffizi, so we said our goodbyes and they went off to catch the train. I walked to the end of the Duomo line and planted myself.

   I sat there not moving for only a few minutes, thinking that I would wait and see if I could get inside and still make it to the Uffizi in time. If not, I would leave the line. Instead, I saw a cutout doorway in some plywood surrounding the base of scaffolding that rested against part of the enormous structure. Above the cutout doorway was bolted a very official looking sign that said "to the dome" in several languages. There was no one going inside it, though it was right next to the line. I asked the nice lady behind me to save my spot, and ducked in. Boy am I glad I did. I went straight into the cathedral to a ticket booth, where I was charged €6 to go through a turn style and take the first of 509 steps to the top. Spiraling up and up with no one in sight I ascended hundreds of feet, the last few hunched over as I stepped up between the slanted curves of the two domes. Halfway up I emerged onto a walkway inside the cathedral, with a glorious painted ceiling above me. The inside of the dome of the Duomo is why the place is particularly famous, as it depicts the "entire universe" as it was known at the time. The top around the cupola is heaven, the bottom around the base is hell, and in the middle is earth. The hellish part was quite disturbing, with people having their skin torn off and ghouls and demonic skeletons whipping people into slavery. Yeesh. After walking around this and ascending through the bent passage, I emerged on top of the dome outside with a 360 degree panoramic view of Florence. Yes!

   Back on normal people level, I still had an hour or so before I could go inside the Uffizi, so I went to gape at the line for David (as in Michelangelo’s). Haha, so many people. I saw that there was again a place to make a reservation, so I laughed and pointed at the suckers standing in the "stupid people" line as I walked into the reservation office (in Italian, the uffizi, which led to some confusion at first) and walked confidently to the counter. "One reservation to see David today please." Laughter. So, yeah. Today was sold out. Tomorrow, she’s have to check. As. Slowly. As. Possible. I deserved it for my misguided overconfidence. Eventually she came back and told me that there were only seven more tickets available for tomorrow, at five. Fine. Done. I walked out of the office and looked sadly at the "stupid people" line, which didn’t look so stupid anymore, because while they waited two hours I was going to have to wait a day and a half.

   Wiping the egg from my face, I returned to the plaza outside the Uffizi and listened in discreetly as a tourguide talked about the building and the incredible replica statues guarding the entrance. One was Michelangelo’s David, for instance. I learned that the Medici’s had had the place built for their government offices, thus the Uffizi name that was so confusing. I hopped in the longer-than-I-had-expected reservation line at 11:45, thinking that I had waited in line to buy a ticket to let me wait in line to get into an entrance that would keep me from waiting in line. By noon, however, I was inside and a half hour early, which was a detail overlooked by the staff as I removed my clothes and they searched everything in my pockets for bombs.

   I was looking at a long, scarcely planned afternoon, so I decided to make the most of the museum by spending another €6 on top of the €10 ticket and €3 reservation for an audio guide. For three hours I wandered among medieval and renaissance masterpieces as I actually learned something about the process of developing from one to the other. Usually I skip all rooms with art from the 1200s, because I do not need to see yet another doll-faced gold-painted Mary with naked baby Jesus perched impossibly on her un-perspectivized lap. But this time I actually saw the progression from stiff, Egyptian-style medieval composition to the ultra-realism of Da Vinci and Michelangelo and how one came from the other. It was like watching the Discovery channel, except instead of the TV there were priceless masterpieces.

   Emerging from the impossibly cooled museum three hours later with pained feet and stiff legs, I walked a short ways down to the Ponte Vecchio, an old bridge with built in shops along it that spans the Arno. It’s one of those bridges that’s much more interesting from a few blocks away, as being on it is roughly akin to walking along the diamond district downtown. You can’t see anything but glass displays with gold and jewels gleaming from them. And old, old arches. But it’s one of Florence’s Things, and it was on My List, so I went across it. A block from the other end is a place called the Pilazzo Pitti. Not to be confused with the Uffizi. Uffizi, Pitti, different places. However, I was quite unclear as to exactly what the Pitti is, assuming from the picture on the back of my map that it was a large plaza or something. I wasn’t too interested, but again, it’s a Florence Thing, so it was on the periphery of My List, strictly if I had time, which I did. Color me surprised when they demanded money. I had a choice, go into the palace, which I didn’t know what that was, or go into the gardens, which I didn’t know what that was. €8 or €8.50. Or €16.50 for both. You decide. Which do you choose? You have as much information as I did at that point. I called my mom. "Hey, mom, what’s the Pitti?" After the call I chose the "less expensive" option, and went into the palace. Another museum. I was rather upset, because it seemed to be not worth my time at all, especially after seeing a place like the Uffizi. It would be like going to LACMA then the Getty right afterwords. I decided that to get my money’s worth, I would test my new knowledge from one of my classes first semester. The ceilings in this place had been painted over a 150 or so year period in the 17 and 1800s. I would go through the place and try to discern which were Baroque and which were Rococo. Ha. I know stuff now. The game, however, was not so thrilling. Most were Baroque, but beyond that most of the rooms were so overwhelming with ornation (typical of both styles) that I just got bored. Also typical of both styles. I saw the throne room and the bedrooms and tons and tons of Renaissance paintings with which I’d just finished spending 3 hours. Burnt. Out. I left the place feeling ripped off, and searched for some Gelato to cool me off. Pineapples and currants and berries and apple slices and raspberry and vanilla scoops with whipped topping. I told you the Italians know how to cream ice. Anyway, it’s now after seven and I should start heading back to the hostel. Tomorrow I see David, the only thing left on My List, so it should be a quiet day. More later!

-C

   I returned from my Linz excursion to find an old man standing confidently with his hands on his hips in the center of the room wearing nothing but blue speckled underpants. Introducing himself as Georgo he dropped his last remaining shred of clothing and stepped toward me. I almost fainted until he slipped by and entered the shower. He turned out to be a single guy (widower?) who lived in a small town in the middle of Austria. He drove for two days to go to a ballroom dance in Linz. He seemed like quite the ladies man, which is a feat at 70 or so years of age. We talked, my eyes resolutely riveted to the pages of my book, as he thankfully began to cover himself with layer after layer of clothing until before me stood a sly dog in a smart-looking blue pinstripe suit. He even wore a hat. Out the door he went, shouting at me over his shoulder not to wait up. Heh. I read for a while, but wanted more from the evening. I decided to go for a nighttime walk along the Danube. I got two blocks before I realized I needed dinner, so I found a hotel cafe nearby and sat down at a table near the bar. Immediately there were five middle aged guys, watching the football match on the tele, who came over and wanted to know all about where I was from and such. I ended up having some drinks and some dinner and talking and laughing and just having a grand old time until almost midnight in that bar. When I got back to the room, sure enough, Georgo was nowhere to be found.

   The next morning I was awakened by a gentle slamming of the closet, and there was Georgo standing over me back in his customary underpants inviting me to breakfast with him downstairs. I was tempted to voice my terms, but I finally decided that he would probably not walk through the hostel without adding at least a couple more layers. Probably. Thankfully, I was right. In a few minutes he was again dapper and sophisticated, sans hat this time, so we headed downstairs. We spent the next hour talking about how the world was going downhill and no one had any manners anymore, and how America was the worst offender of all, no offense, and how in modern dance clubs these days no one learned the moves and every time you put your drink down someone tried to make you addicted to drugs by putting drugs into your drink. I didn’t say much during this conversation. Soon, however, he reached for his fork and upturned his coffee onto his dapper pants, and ran screaming from the room. I never saw him again.

   The train trip from Linz to Munich was an absolute breeze compared to the trip from Prague. The early checkout time of the Linz hostel allowed me to catch an early train, where I spent the next three hours or so talking to a rather belligerent Austrailian guy about everything that’s bad with the world. Time flew, and before I knew it I was in the Munich Hauptbahnhof with no idea whatsoever how to get to my hostel, or even if it was in the city center. Looking up the address I finally found someone willing to answer my questions (there were a few people sitting behind desks that said "Tourist Information" that answered my pleas for help with "I’m sorry, this is not a city information desk".) and set off for the underground. It’s a clean, reliable system, so by 1 pm I was at the front door. I found my room empty, but, alas, it was not to last. My roommate was a Japanese world cup maniac. He had already been to all three Japan games, and had another three to go. He had purchased tickets assuming Japan would get a long way into the cup, but they had exited in the first round, so I heard about how upset he was to be watching Australia play Italy and such. I was jealous, but nodded my agreement at his terrible plight, not wanting to upset this powder keg of a man. Much of the day remained, so I headed out to the Olympia Stadium (O leem pia Stah dee oom). It was created for the 1972 Munich Olympics, and is still the center of sport in the city. When I got there, I found also the under-construction headquarters of BMW that had been a source of inspiration for my final project this past year in school. Wandering around the Olympic complex I found a gigantic stadium filled with people. There was no entrance fee, so I walked in and saw a gigantic jumbotron in the center. The game was about to start, England vs Ecuador. As you might imagine, there were a few more English fans than Ecuadorians. But there was a large and vocal contingent of Argentineans. I sat in the backbreaking heat and throng of half naked people drinking loads of expensive cold water and enjoying the atmosphere. When the game was over I headed back into town. There are many pizza places in Europe, but the pizza is completely different, not to mention it is considered a Middle Eastern type of food. It’s very good in any case, so I sat down at an outside cafe, and three minutes later was punished for my crime. The sky darkened, sent bolts of very loud electricity overhead, and dumped buckets and buckets of water on my unprepared head. I skittered the last 7 blocks home jumping from awning to awning but getting soaked to the bone nonetheless. There were a bunch of wet world cup watchers in the hostel, so I sat with some young England fans and talked about their victory as Holland got eliminated by Portugal on the tv and the thunder rattled the windowpanes.

   Today I slept. I think the trip is catching up to me, as I find myself utterly exhausted in the mornings. At 12:30 my new roommate checked in, from Mexico he is, and I showered and headed out to see the sights. I started with the FrauenKirche, the big cathedral in Munich, that was advertising a visit by the pope in a month. Jeez. Next was a wandering, leading to the world famous and previously visited by me in 1992 Hofbrauhaus. It’s a brewery and biergarten, and I had awesome goulash (mit schweinfleish) and a gigantic bier and a pretzel the size of the Roman Empire. I left an hour later unqualified to operate heavy machinery, tilting down the middle of the street enjoying the lively German horns. I found a park and a river and the parliament building (asked to leave) and an island with a beach covered with sunbathers (!) right in the middle of the river. You wade over to it through the water. How cool is that? I’m probably missing something spectacular, but I just can’t think of what else. So I’m going to wander some more now. Enjoy your days! More later.

-C

So I switched hostels to one that came highly recommended by Brian, called the Boathouse Hostel. It’s not so much a boat house but more of a house for boats. It’s situated right on the river (whatever river that is…hmmm) and is about as pleasant a place as one could ask for. I spent the next day just taking it easy, wandering into town to see the Fred (Astaire) and Ginger (Rogers) building by Frank Gehry, one of the main reasons for my trip to Prague and almost forgotten amid all the old churches and castles. Thankfully, I heard some of my fellow hostellers debating a visit to "that weird glass building" up the road. I instantly knew what they were talking about, as I could hear my favorite Gehry building from a thousand paces. Unfortunately, the restaurant up on the top was closed for a private party, but I was able to snap some good pictures outside and walk amongst the strange curved columns.

   Next was the National Museum across town. I was able to use the same tram ticket to get there, good times, and walked up the steep wide double-wide street to the imposing front entrance. The terrace out front looked out over much of the length of downtown Prague, behind which flowed the green river, finally framed by the large rolling forested hills in the distance. I expected to find a large and lavish collection of art and sculpture inside the museum, so I was completely taken aback by the rooms and rooms (and rooms and rooms and rooms) of rock samples. You read that right. The largest geology exhibit I’ve ever seen, short of the Grand Canyon, is housed inside this massive, ornate building. I think this is where the term "geeking out" was invented by Georg Hünstel in 1856, because these were seriously the coolest rocks on earth. They had actual diamonds, uncut and still in their natural rock formations, they had 2 foot wide clusters of perfectly cubical, perfectly clear crystals. They even had a cubical crystal that was just one by itself and 3 feet tall. It is fair to say I’ve never seen earth formations like that. Anyway, I’ll shut up about it now, because I am aware of the social ostracism that comes with adoration of rocks. And I’ll admit that there might have been just one too many rooms of them.

   The rest of the museum was equally non-art-ish, with an entire floor dedicated to skeletal reconstructions of just about every animal that walks the face of the planet. Not just horses and chimps, but lemurs and guinea pigs and walruses and mammoths and sloths and narwhals and swans and alligators and otters and oh my the bears. Bears have frightening skeletons. Anyway, the rest of the museum had other less interesting (to me) natural science-related exhibits, including a gigantic wing of all kinds of stuffed exotic animals, which reeeeaaally creeped me out.   

   The museum tackled, I went back to the hostel, intending to just sit on the shore and read. When I got there, I sat down on my bed to take off my shoes, and woke up 4 hours later. Music was blaring from some unseen location within a mile of my room, unlocatable because of the numerous echos bouncing back and forth between the hills on either side of the river. Now nighttime, and having missed dinner at the hostel, I set out for a bite to eat. The only problem with staying at a place that’s on the outskirts of town is that it’s on the outskirts of town. I finally found a restaurant that was about to close but was willing to sell me a "takeaway" order of chicken and peaches with cheese and ham. It was surprisingly good. I managed to get back in time to see the last of the world cup games of the day (the US was eliminated, sigh). Then at about 11 I headed down the path in front of my hostel towards the likely source of the sounds. After 5 extremely frightening minutes walking completely alone in the absolute pitch blackness of an eastern European forest, I arrived at a music festival that had apparently grown up out of the ground in the course of the afternoon. I almost at once found two Irish girls who were staying in the room next to mine at the hostel, and we bummed around the site for a few minutes. There was an enormous rock stage at one end, and a gigantic DJ tent at the other. As no one was on stage at the moment, we headed inside. Ok, so I thought I’d pretty much seen the depths of depravity of the tobacco industry, but I had not even scratched the surface. If you’ve ever wondered why so many people in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, smoke, this was it. The tent was sponsored by Marlborough Cigarettes, and had all kinds of fun activities for teens inside. There were stations for music downloads, computers where you could design your own t-shirt, and games with prizes like lighters and other smoking-related items. To play, you had to have tokens. To get tokens, I’m not kidding you, the kids had to buy "limited edition" packs of cigarettes from one of the booth babes that were lining the giant space. It was absolutely disgusting. Thump thump thump went the DJ, cha ching cha ching went Phillip Morris. Outside the band was starting up, so we went out. Their name was Living Room, but the five of them might as well have been called One Chord Guy and the Feedback Boys. They sang in English, but it was obviously phonetic, because nothing quite made sense.

   Braving the dark walk back, this time (thankfully) with two completely freaked out Irish girls in tow. I zonked into bed and awoke the next morning totally unaware that it was my birthday. These things seem so trivial when you’re on the road. Having met and become friends with just about everyone at the hostel by that time, remembered the day quietly to myself and in a few minutes the whole place knew. It was a nice sendoff from the place to have everyone wishing me happy birthday. Little did I know the drama and triumph that awaited me on this day. Intrigued?

   I made my way to the train station, now an expert at the Praguian public transportation systems, and found the 30 minute line to buy an international ticket. I managed to tell the non-english-speaking woman behind the bulletproof glass where I wanted to go, then I even managed to have enough Praguian money to buy the ticket. The train was to leave at 1328, in an hour and a half. I went upstairs to buy a large bottle of water and check the departures board. After an hour and fifteen minutes, my water was half gone and the train to leave at 1328 still had not appeared on the board. I went back downstairs to the line, then the window, where another woman told me that my train did not leave until 1437. I went back up, drank my water and waited. Eventually this train did appear, but it indicated reservation only. I went back down, waited, and found out that the 1437 train was completely full, but that a train was leaving at 1523. I had to switch at Czesky Burnjevovich however. Would I ever get out of the Czech Republic? Finally, my water finished, the train appeared on the board, non-reservation, and I made my way to the platform. The lack of people there was entirely misleading, because though I rushed onto the thing when it pulled up and grabbed a seat in a cabin, within just a few moments the train was standing room only. I did, however, manage to find one of the few empty seats that was not already reserved (yes, reserved, I do not understand), which gave me a comfortable place to wait out the 45 minute delay in departure.

   I rumbled slowly to Czesky Budejovich and arrived there wanting very badly to have not consumed that large amount of water at the Praguian station. I had to run, however, to catch the next train, which had amazingly waited for us to arrive. I stepped on as it was pulling away and found a place to stand by the window, my bladder throwing a tantrum at each bump. A man was standing next to me. He was about 40 years old, pockmarked face, greasy hair, holding a cigarette like it was made of tissue paper between his fingers. He immediately attempted conversation. I really had no idea until this moment how utterly out of my element I was. I understood absolutely nothing, I mean nothing, that came out of his mouth. It was like a nightmare, except I was still wearing my pants. For two hours I clenched my pee and tried to speak to the greasy man beside me, while a large contingent of Czech high schoolers poured beer out the window and laughed when it blew back on everyone else down the train.

   After a while the crowd thinned, and the creepy guy and I moved to an empty cabin, continuing our non-conversation. He was very persistent about it, and I found myself answering more and more questions in the affirmative, following his lead, no idea what I was saying, before it occurred to me that maybe I should be less agreeable in this situation. Just a few moments later, the train stopped and people began to get out. We were far from the Austrian border, so I stayed where I was. The man got up and motioned me off the train. "Umm, no thanks, crazy dude, I’ll just stay here and not go to your basement to see your collection of chains." He was extremely insistent, to the point of grabbing  my hand an pulling. Not in a forceful way, just an insistent way. I shook my head and made it very clear that I was not leaving. He ended up outside, yelling at me like I was completely daft. The train was empty, and another one sat a little ways down on another track. Finally, I made the incredibly difficult decision to walk off the train. I found a trainworker and said "Linz?" to him. He pointed to the other train very insistently, indicating that it was about to leave. I ran as fast as my backpack would allow across the loose gravel, over the tracks, and through the first train door I got to. As soon as I did, it closed behind me and left the station. The man was standing with a scowl in the aisle in front of me, so I went up to him and smiled really big and patted him on the back and said thank you as clearly as I could. That seemed to decrease his frown somewhat, but just at that moment something incredibly welcome happened. For one thing, the train was night and day different from the other. Where the first was slow, this was fast, where the first was dirty, this was clean, where the first was crowded, this had only a few people. And standing next to me were two girls from Seattle. They even spoke English. The three of us were utterly perplexed but so glad to be with some fellow countrypeople. These girls were the type I would never bother speaking to in other circumstances, but in this situation we became "friends". I sat back in my large, comfortable seat and for the first time since I left Prague, relaxed.

  Arriving in Linz was a little scary, as the city was basically shut down at that point. The train station was completely deserted, and the bus station next door said my bus would be 24 minutes in coming. I eyed the line of taxis and decided 8 euros was a small price to pay for being someplace with a bed. My hostel turned out to be deserted as well, but the front door was unlocked and after a bit of searching around the gigantic, dark, abandoned lobby I miraculously found an envelope labeled "Herr Ward" with a key in it. I trudged up to my room and exhaled when I walked in and found it completely empty of people. To my utter astonishment, I had a room to myself. It even had a little cubby with an outlet just for charging cell phones. And no more communal showers! I had seen a tv downstairs, grabbed some dinner from a strange vending machine, sat down, and watched the game. Triumph!

   This morning I woke feeling all my 27 years and set out for downtown Linz. This place is so beautiful it makes you sneeze. Or it did me. I first went to the Electronica museum, where you can see all kinds of really cool new electronic inventions, like a large paintbrush that you touch to anything, and then paint with that image on a digital canvas. There was also a bizarre straw-interface design, where you suck and blow to interact with the screen. Also there was a pool of magnetically-charged liquid that would defy gravity by surging upward when a magnetic field was applied. The next stop was a modern art museum that was so wonderful that, had I a larger supply of digital camera storage and the authorization to do so, I would have taken a picture of every other item in there. I then headed up up up to "The Castle" on a hill overlooking the river and the city. It being Saturday, I expected crowds, but was pleasantly surprised to find the place practically deserted. In fact, pleasant basically describes the whole dang place. And the most pleasant place in the most pleasant city is high atop the hill behind the castle in a little garden that overlooks the entire valley for miles and miles in each direction. The river that cuts through Linz is huge, so I looked it up, and it is in fact the Danube. Go fig. I never knew that was here! (I believe I have previously explained my geography skills.)   So, last stop was a ginormous cathedral in the center of town, that had the requisite awestriking lofted, ribbed ceilings and buttressed tower and intricate stained glass windows. Just around the corner, I found a little piece of Hollywood, a Rock bar with posters and album covers all over the walls and ceilings, and, inexplicably, a bank of computers. I absolutely love Linz, and wish I could stay a bit longer. Alas, I leave tomorrow for Munich. More later!

-C

   Well, there’s not so much to specifically see in Prague, just more of a city to wander around in. Everything’s reeeeeaally old. My goal was to set out across "Old Town" and walk the Charles Bridge, a brick arch-y thing covered in sculptures of Biblical figures. Prague, however, had another idea. Thwarted by winding alleys and my utter lack of a map, I rummaged around the streets until I ran smack into the river, not anywhere near Karlov most (Charles Bridge). Instead, across the water from me, stood a gigantic complex atop a rather mighty hill. Up up up. 89 steps and a mile and a half later, I was looking out at a breathtaking view of Prague’s rooftops. It’s hard to explain what it looks like, because there’s just an endless sea of tile roofs punctuated sporadically by futuristic-looking antenna towers. Anyway, in this complex is the Prince’s palace and an incredible old carvy cathedral. There are grey-uniformed sentrys posted at all entrances, doing their best impressions of Buckingham palace guards, but looking a bit too serious without any gigantic fuzzy hats. Their hats were more Eastern Europe practical. Anyway, the complex is huge, and is more like a true medeival city than just about anywhere on the planet. The cathedral is centered in the walled-in complex, towering over just about everything for a hundred miles. I went in, purchased a "photography liscence" for 30 Crowns (approximately $1.25) and shot away at the incredibly high ornate ceilings and giant, intricate stained glasses. I don’t know the plural of stained glass. I suppose it would just be stained glass windowS. Anyway, it was nice, and also must have been air conditioned up the wazoo, because outside it was 100 degrees, and inside you wanted some fuzzy slippers.

   I left the cathedral and wandered the grounds for a bit, watching the precisely prescribed changing of the guards, looking a lot less comical with their 3 foot bayonetts. I kept worrying they’d skewer themselves. I suppose they’d practiced enough to avoid the odd impalement. I had a bit of lunch overlooking the expanse of city while watching a three-piece band consisting of a stand-up base, an accordian, and a flute, and three guys singing as they played them (well, aside from the flautist who did not sing while he played). The flautist had a mustache that was perfectly horizontal and stuck out off his head to a seemingly impossible distance to either side, so that when he placed his instrument to his lips, it followed the line of the flute perfectly. Any longer and he would have begun covering up some of the holes. They sang these beautifully haunting chant-like songs together in Czech and it was just a pleasure to listen.

   I eventually headed back down the hill to the water again, and followed it to the Charles Bridge, finally. There were people everywhere, including the occasional contingent of bikini-clad advertisements for various strip clubs in town. There was a guy sitting in the middle of the bridge that sang just like Louis Armstrong but looked like an overweight Czech dockworker. Brian had told me about him from his trip 5 years ago, and sure enough, he was still there.

   Back in town I was roasting again, so I went to a place to order a bottle of water. Getting water in Europe is always a challenge, but not always for the same reason. In much of the northern countries where they speak flawless English, it’s because of their terminology. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark (at least), you walk up to the counter and say, "May I please have a bottle of water?" Then you have to steel yourself for the inevitable response. I’m not sure why it makes me cringe so, but I remember the first time I heard it feeling rather ill.

"Gas or no gas?"

GAS? Can’t they call it something else? If I’m going to drink a bottle of sparkling water, I do NOT want to be picturing the process by which the sparkling is added if it is called gas. Can you see the factory? Lines of open water bottles conveying down the belt, with five or six big guys sqatting over each one after a big lunch of franks and beans.

"Please GOD, NO GAS!" I think was my first startled reaction.

"Uhhh, okaaaay." I clutched the handed over gas-less bottle and drank with fury, elated that mine had bypassed the gas-adding process.

   Well, in a country that speaks absolutely no English, getting water is equally difficult. Their responses typically sound like they could be English sentences, but are not.

"Excuse me, could I have a bottle of water?"

"Wow, that’s the best ski."

"I’m sorry?"

"Mai’s love aparts rainy."

"Uh, yeah, WATER," miming drinking.

"Out of rain comes sky."

"Yes, the large one."

"It’s a perv nearby?"

"NO, please, no gas." Then I ask for directions to the nearest metro station.

"Does that meal usually say ‘chesty’? Star of plum man. Fiends saulder and the rest erase."

"So, right, left, into the mall, and downstairs?"

"Da."

It’s an interesting place.

-C

   So I have just one thing to say about the Czechs, they love their inline skates. There are signs posted everywhere deliniating where one can or cannot Rollerblade. It’s funny. What bikes are to the Dutch, inlines are to the Czechs. It just confirms my theory that continental Europe is always 10 years behind the US when it comes to fashion and fads.

   Also, I’m currently staying in a hostel in Pasadena. You may have gotten the impression that I was in Eastern Europe, but you’d be wrong. I am at the Rose Bowl. There’s a wide green valley, a golf course, a large old-fashioned bridge spanning just to the north, bike (or, more accurately, Rollerblade) trails up and down, and a river running right through the middle. The only thing that may give my true location away is the sporadic overweight (to be kind) middle-aged topless ladies dotting the shoreline every 100 yards or so. They are easily located despite their attempt at arborial concealment due to the intense blasts of light reflecting off their expansive pale flesh. Occasionally they will flop about on the rocks, turning to get maximum roasting coverage, causing the shorelines to positively shimmer. It’s breathtaking really.

-C

I awoke with purpose, knowing that I had but 24 hours to see the entire city of Berlin. I knew I was kidding myself, (the American girl next to me just turned to her friend and asked how to spell "geenormus", as in gi-normous, as in the combination of gigantic and enormous, as in not a real word, to which the girl next to her replied "I don’t know, I never paid attention in English class". Sigh) because Berlin is no Copenhagen, and could take a month to see everything. But I was forced into this truncated visit because of the World Cup and it’s fans, so I made the day what I could. I exited the front door of my hostel and ran smack into one of the most famous Meis Van Der Rohe buildings in the world, a gallery/museum space that was not open, but was all glass, so I was able to take a few good pictures. The thing I’m pleased about is that I recognized it for what it was before I knew to look for it because of the plus shaped columns. Oh yeah, I know my stuff. Anyway, I ran into an older local couple there who were happy to show me a vague and recommended route through the city. I set off in the general direction they said, and found after a few minutes a big open space with a large spherical balloon floating in the center. After a cursory exchange of money, I climbed aboard this contraption with a father and his pre-school daughter and a Captain Kangaroo-looking, well, captain. He released a lever and we began to soar at a dizzying pace up and over the rooftops, tethered to the ground with a single robust-looking steel cable. 150 meters later, we were all puking contentedly over the side as the gentle wind buffetted us in wide, sweeping arcs. It was a wonderful way to see the sights in one place, and would have been even better if the 20 minute tourguide narration had been in English. I was actually fine with the breathtaking height if I looked out the side to the horizon, but god forbid I should turn around and look down the center along the cable to the ground. Which I did, often enough that I began to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. After the rather slow decent, the father and I took a look at my map and he spelled out exactly the route, turn for turn, to take through the city in order to see the absolute best stuff.

   First was a block away, Checkpoint Charlie. The block-long walk was along the last remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, where an exhibit about the Holocaust and the Russian Occupation was erected to form a makeshift museum. It was quite fascinating, tempered only by the fact that it was all in German. I was surrounded by several hundred Koreans. I knew they were Korean because they were all wearing the same bright red shirt emblazoned with the word KOREA across the front. It’s a world cup thing. I was contentedly worming my way through the crimson sea looking at the pictures when I saw one that made my head twinge. It was a grainy old black and white photo of three German officers, guns drawn, standing behind three bound, gagged, kneeling Jews in the last moments of their lives. The expression of terror on each of their faces haunts me still, and set the tone for much of the remainder of the day.

   Thoroughly shaken, I walked over to the wooden shed of a checkpoint in the center of the street, suddenly unconcerned with tourist attractions. I wanted to move on, so I continued along my prescribed route to a central square the man from the balloon had highly recommended. I figured if I saw some breathtaking architecture, my mood would improve. In the square was a display of painted bears. At first I was not interested, as it was a very similar exhibit to the painted cows of New York. But I wended my way through the throng nonetheless, and found that the bears were not just done by various artists, but were each a representation of the art of a different country. Every different country. In the whole world. Even Burkina Faso. My spirits lifted as I contemplated the wonderful universality of art and creation. Every culture on this planet (except for the US, apparently, as the bear was just turned into a statue of liberty, with added crown and torch and painted green robes. What pish) has evolved a creative visual outlet, and seeing the lines of colorful bears stretching around the perimeter of the square was enlivening. That was until I came across the bear for Serbia. The artist had painted it with bright blocks of color, but perhaps in a moment of personal truth had scrubbed the bear as clean as possible with some sort of bleaching agent, leaving only the faintest remnants of the color that had been. He then took a gun and shot a few dozen holes into the stained fiberglass. When placed beside the others, this bullet-riddled bear was a stark reminder of the all-encompassing destruction that war brings, down to the very soul of the people. A lump formed in my throat and I hurried across the street to get away from it.

   There I found a large old-looking building with a single giant stone-walled room inside. At the center was a sculpture of a woman holding her soldier son in her arms, weeping over his lifeless body. A plaque below informed that on this 300 year old place of memorial two bodies had been buried in the 1950s, the body of a fallen unidentified German soldier and the body of an executed unidentified concentration camp victim. That’s when everything went fuzzy and I had to leave. I wandered through the streets of Berlin, openly weeping behind my sunglasses as the weight of the atrocities of the world buckled my knees. After a few minutes I found a long, square colonnade. I was wandering between the columns when I noticed that one side of each of them was absolutely unrecognizable with bullet holes. Someone had stood behind each of them, lead showering down from the nearby rooftops or from behind the trees in the neighboring park. Sometime in the not too distant past, someone stood right there and prayed for their life. Someone thought about their wife, or mother, or brother. They thought about everything they had ever loved, every wrong they had ever done, everything they had ever accomplished, and stepped out from behind the column to shoot back at an equally terrified enemy, knowing that it might be the last thing they ever did. They may have even thought about how utterly fruitless it all was. I sat and cried.

   I think I was really feeling homesick at that point, and it may have been that as much as anything that sent me to the bad place. But I challenge anyone to see the things I saw, knowing that in 50 years the danger and destruction had not abated but simply moved on to another temporary home, and not be completely overwhelmed.

   I knew if I just sat there I could let this important day slip by. So I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and walked into a big beautiful building that I came to understand was the Berlin Cathedral, also called the Berliner Dom. The interior was breathtaking, soaring painted ceilings of gold and great carved tendrils of dark wood and stone. I found a staircase (the first thing I look for in any cathedral. up up up.) and ascended into the cathedral’s upstairs museum. From there it was a devilish set of spiral stairs to the base of the dome, where stepping outside gave another breathtaking 360° city vista. It was good for me, the exercise and the cool breeze and the distant views. By the time I was on terra firma, I was much rejuvenated. So I set out once again.

   After a few more miles, lunch, some three-boxes-with-a-nut-underneath scam artist entertainment, and a scoop of "authentic" Belgian ice cream, I reached the tower of Berlin. I don’t exactly know what it is truly called, but it’s a big space-needle-like tower thing that’s in Berlin. Thus my moniker. Thankfully this one had a lift (wow, I mean elevator. My vocabulary has been officially hijacked). At the top, my highest excursion at 205 meters, was a glassed in circular walkway. This time I got the audio tour, in English of course, and spent an hour or so hearing about the history of the Soviet occupation and its influence on the architecture of the city. A fascinating trip. When I reached bottom again, I had just one more stop, which was good because it was getting a bit late.

   I braved the underground system and reached the newly refurbished Parliament building. There was a line out front, and in it was an older group from Los Angeles (less and less of a surprise as the trip wears on) who were in Berlin visiting their hosted exchange student, a very attractive girl of 18 who had done a semester of high school in Laguna in a program a few years ago. I showed one of the guys how to send a picture email from his new Razr phone, and we sat in the sweltering heat in front of the Adidas Football Fun Zone (it’s a world cup thing) for a little more than an hour awaiting our turn. The 2004 renovation of the Berlin parliament building is much talked about in architecture circles, and I have encountered it in classes many times. It’s a glass dome, similar if you imagine to a Gothic dome on a cathedral, but made of glass with a central column of angled mirrors, and a spiral ramp that swings its way to the apex. At the top is a large viewing platform and a central circular bench-like thing that allows you to lay down and look up at the open-air oculus opening in the top of the dome. The blasting sun rays, enclosed glass space, and reflecting mirrors made it the perfect solar-powered sauna, however, and we spent only a few minutes there before the six of us were completely drenched. We wound our way down rather quickly and back onto the streets, where I bid my new friends goodbye.

   My List completed, I walked across the way to the giant central-park-like area. It was host to the main world cup festivities, and after a long wait through security where big men touched me in private places, I crammed into the throng. The park was absolutely mobbed with people, wall to wall as far as the eye could see. There were vendors, games, rides and general festivities. It was also hot, as I may have mentioned. Protecting my pockets, I pushed my way through to the other side of the park and headed home. At the hostel there was a game being projected onto the wall creating a 20 foot wide tv. A single chair was available, so I plunked my weary butt down and caught the last minutes of a game. Afterwords, I forced down some hostel food in the dining hall, thinking that just vegging out in front of a giant tv was a very attractive option for the evening. France was playing S. Korea, so I found a comfortable chair (of which there were a surprising amount) and, joined by about 30 other hostelers, cheered mightily against the French. In the final minutes Korea tied the game, to much fanfare. Bed.

   The next morning I learned a lifelong lesson. Never trust a Scot. My Edinburgh-accented roommate and I each had dates with the train station, so we set off together. Well, at least I got to see a lot more of the city, because we managed to turn a 3 mile walk into an all-morning affair of wrong turns and confusion. At least we never saw the Christiansborg. But a couple sweaty hours later we finally arrived at the truly monumental Berlin Houptbahnhof. I made my reservation and, after a much needed lunch, hopped on the train. Sitting next to me was, what else, a couple of guys from Los Angeles, Whittier to be exact. They were getting ready to start at MIT for graduate school next fall, and were spending the last few months of freedom in Europe. Also next to us was a guy from Seattle and a couple of girls from Leeds University in England. The six of us spent the next six hours having fun on the train, talking and laughing and speculating about the nature of our final destination, Prague.

   I set foot onto Czech Republic soil and managed in just a few minutes here to anger the gods mightily. Seattle dude (Dave) and I had split off as our hostels were in another direction from the group, proceeded to get completely lost, found our way again, and were then absolutely drenched in the most sudden torrential downpour I had seen since I was in Florida. We were caught very unaware, so we found a hotel parking garage driveway and stood with a local couple and the parking attendant watching the world get flooded, lightning streaking ferociously overhead. The thunder shook the surface of the rapidly pooling water which was doggedly sweeping away all the empty plastic garbage cans still on the street. Standing in the rather small opening while a still-upright cans tootled by without a care in the world made me laugh. You could almost hear the "wheeeeeeeeee" as they drifted slowly past.

   Seattle dude, being an expert on rain, knew exactly when to leave, and sure enough the moment we stepped onto the sidewalk again the clouds parted and the sun dried up all the wetness. By the time I arrived at my hostel (after a rather terrifying few moments of being lost by myself on the streets of an Eastern Block city) the tremendous humidity had absorbed much of the rainfall, and the sidewalks were almost dry, as though the rain had consisted of mostly pure alcohol. I dumped my stuff into the provided locker in my room and set off for the Old Town square. I stopped in at a middle-eastern place and had a Gyro with a New York couple and their son who was about to start undergrad at the University of Arizona. Saying our goodbyes, I continued on. The city had erected a jumbotron in the central square for people to watch the game, which meant that it was wall-to-wall Spanish people, as Spain was taking on Tunisia that night. I called Brian to tell him I had finally arrived in his favorite European city, but the call was drowned out for minutes at a time whenever Spain scored a goal. There seemed to be two rival factions of Espanians, each with their own increasingly loud chants and songs. It was a lot of fun. After the game, the crowd disappeared and I went back home, where my clean, dry bed awaited. A good couple of days. I have three more nights here in Prague, so I’m off to see the sights. I hope everyone is doing well! More later!

-C

Well, it took me 12 hours, but I finally arrived unscathed in Copenhagen (that’s in Denmark, in case you’re as bad at world geography as I am). It was a beautiful train ride, not least because we were going mach 4 through the rolling hills of this wet land. One picture taken out the window and you see every possible mixture of blue and yellow as far as the eye can see, which is actually quite a distance given the horizontality of the terrain. Everything here is gentle, including of course the people. My first surprise, after stumbling my way through several train transfers in places whose names I literally could not pronounce, was my realization that we were most definitely taking the more direct over-water route to Copenhagen, which, according to my map, left me with yet another transfer onto and off the barge. Call me flabbergasted when we darn toot’n slid right up the back end of that boat, train and all. That’s right, I ate German Schnitzel on a train on a boat on the North Sea. Or maybe it was the Baltic Sea. Anyway, it was utterly incomprehensible. This ferry was so big it had room for an entire train, hundreds of cars, a mall and two restaurants, and it still managed to plow through the 10 foot swells for 45 minutes to the other side. When we at first came to a stop on the ferry, I asked the nice older couple next to me what I should do with my bag while we were all wandering around the ship, and they puzzled their faces at me. They eventually worked out my security concerns, and responded with something I came to appreciate, "This is Denmark, son. Leave it here!" Well, their assurances notwithstanding, I returned with my dinner and ate it by myself on the lower deck in the train (thus the earlier schnitzel comment). It made me feel both secure and a total idiot. Eventually the crowds returned, we bumped into the pylons in Denmark, and just up and steamed away.

  Copenhagen is totally cool. My bed was less than halfway up the hostel on the seventh floor. It was a corner room offering breathtaking views of the large river/canal/port next to us and the numerous spired rooftops in the other direction. It was after 11 when I finally checked in, having wandered through the still-daylighted streets amid the Tivoli throngs. You’ve probably heard of Tivoli, I’d seen the requisite posters in run-of-the-mill "art" stores, but I really had no idea what it actually was. The self-proclaimed and thus believed "world’s oldest amusement park", It’s a bit like Disneyland, but smaller, a tad cleaner, and the rides actually go upside down. There were just tons of people running and screaming in and around it even at that late hour, and I knew it would be on My List of things to see.

   Though it was a six person room, I had only two roommates that first night, a nice bookish guy named Enrique from Barthelona, Espania, and a nonexistant but oft-spoken of (by Enrique) "paisano" (also his word, meaning fellow countryman I am told) woman named Kim from Los Angeles of all places. She arrived not long after I had tucked in, and we said our hellos in the dark, explaining where we were from etc etc. The next morning we all awoke simultaneously, as I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion in the hostels here. For me it’s an odd sensation, but no one else seems to bat an eye at it, only grumbling that now there will be a bottleneck in front of the bathroom. Out our window was a most pleasant modern building, which Kim explained was the Copenhagen Public Library. My architectural spidey sense was tingling, and I vowed to See It. I must have drooled out loud, because Kim mentioned she was heading over there rightthatmomemt, and I could meet her there in a few. A few later, I found her using the free internet amid the wonderful glass and flybridge people-movers that string through the interior like tendons. I explored the place, she booked hostels, and we then set off for the city center.

   My List being overruled by Our Stomachs, we found a nice pub to sit and drink Danish beer (yuk) and have the strangest open-faced "sandwiches" I’ve ever seen. It felt good, however, to have company for a meal for once. She was scheduled to take a bus to a place called Louisiana that afternoon (at first I thought she was trying to get away from me and was just really bad at lying), which turned out to be some sort of museum-ish thing, I’m still a little unclear, but that left me to set off on my own after our meal.

   Though I fully intended to find the first item on My List, I was sidetracked by the Dansk Architectur Institut which was having an exhibit on the architecture of Santiago Calatrava. I was helplessly sucked in the front door, and before I knew what I was doing, I was handing over 40 Kroner (~$3) to see a bunch of beautiful white spiny models (buildings, not moving clothes racks). (Seemingly) next to the Institut was a glorious piece of architecture that was the new Opera House. I set off on foot along the water to reach it, just a few hundred yards away. I am compelled to admit, for the first time on this trip, that I failed. See, it turned out that I had unwittingly stumbled onto an island (of which there are many in the area, in my defense). I walked toward the gigantic building only to find myself less than a football field away from it with a 20 foot wide gully of water in between me and it, and a 2 mile walk if I actually wanted to go inside. I opted instead to call my Dad and tell him about the marina I was walking next to while I shuffled my weary feet aaaaaall the way back past the Institut and over a bridge and nowhere near the Opera House. Instead, it was back to My Proper List.

   My next stop was the National Museum, which is one of those places that looks tiny on the outside yet seems to have infinite space within the magical walls. I kept looking for exits back out to the main lobby but instead would find yet more branches of rooms filled with rusted axes and ancient fur-lined coats. That’s not to say it was all Danish history. There were gigantic wings devoted to classical art (Greek sculpture mostly), Egyptian mummies and carvings, and "world cultural artifacts". It was a surprisingly thorough museum, but not entirely what I was ready for. I finally went down into the basement and saw the Vikingous Viking tombstones with Vikingical Viking writing on them. They made you hear "boom, boom, boom, boom" when you looked up at them (put away your quaint notion of a tombstone being less than hip height, these were a Vikingous 20 feet tall). After that I left to find what would become the most magical place of all in Copenhagen.

   Across the street sits the Prince’s Palace, also called Christiansborg Palace, for obvious reasons. No? Actually I couldn’t figure it out either. But what I mean by it’s magicality is that at any time, anywhere in the city, if you become lost for just an instant, you will find yourself standing in front of it. Anyway, you had to pay to see the stables, pay to get into the grand rooms, and pay again to see the underground ruins of previous castles that had stood on the spot since the first was built in the 13th century. Well, this trip having groomed me into somewhat of a cheapskate, I simply coughed up for that last one, as it sounded the most…urm, actually it’s really hard to figure out why guys like this stuff. We just do. Especially if there’s a bunch of skulls lining the walls (which there weren’t, unfortunately). After only 2.5 minutes of being by myself in this incredibly wide but 8′ high dark space, I was hopelessly lost. I found a series of signs that said "emergency exit", but they led to a solid rock face. As I passed the recently grated-up well that seemed to offer a glimpse of the Devil’s bald spot, I decided to just ball up on the floor, rock back and forth, and scream as loud as I could. Eventually an elderly man tottered down to fetch me, explaining that this type of thing happens all the time and that it can get confusing down there when you’re the only one and that they had just the thing upstairs to cheer me up. Wiping the tears from my face and greedily clutching at my lolly, I started out on an ambitious trek across the city to Tivoli.

   My idea, since it was now almost 5, was that if I walked to this light-filled place it would be dinnertime by the time I arrived. Marching along the streets, however, I saw a more promising option in the form of the shortest, widest boats you’ve ever seen skittering tourists through the canals. I serendipitously found the launch point, and was pleased to find that not only was a boat leaving tut suite, but they were serving grapes and drinks on the voyage. I followed a group onto the boat without ever encountering a pay stop, and would have ended up taking a private party tour of the city with wine and cheese and Dutchmen had I not felt a twinge of guilt and fessed up just as they were about to disembark. Instead I was shoveled over to the much less appetizing and much more expensive (than free) boat one dock over, and we departed for the waterways of Copenhagen. As I have mentioned, I am a sucker for canals.

   After a few minutes we stopped at another dock to pick up more passengers, and I noticed that I had been driven right into the heart of restaurant row. I up an r-u-n-n-o-f-t the boat, looking for a nice place to eat and watch some world cup madness on the tele. Unfortunately I came to the slow realization only as I watched my former mode of transport glide away that a $30 dinner with old people drinking as the only entertainment was not in my budget. I also found to my dismay that the little watery jaunt had just taken me several miles in the opposite direction from Tivoli. I found my location on a posted city map and headed slowly in correct vector. After walking past the Christiansborg approximately 12 times, I reached Tivoli, and by the time I got there I wanted to strangle the little rugrats that had just the night before been so amusing. I paid the $12 entrance fee, knowing food and an increasingly necessary seat were just round the bend. I underestimated, however, my reaction to the first screeching roller coaster that happened to fly overhead. Restaurants went out the mental window as I headed to the base of a half hour line that went straight up a rickety set of metal stairs. I made it to the top to find that, of course, I had not purchased any tickets for the ride. I had just waited 30 mins for a thrilling jaunt down the loser stairs, preteen linguists pointing and jeering at me in all manner of languages. Again I joined the throng, tickets in palm, and was eventually ushered onto the coaster. My public humiliation had just begun, however, as I had managed to find one of the few "child" seats to wedge myself into. This was discovered to great fanfare, and I was now not only holding up my train but the one behind it and everyone fearing for their lives on the stairs below. Two pimplefaces shouted at each other over the cries of protest while they directed musical chairs to get me into a normal person’s seat between two very disgruntled 6 year olds. Yeah, the ride was fine. Whoopee.

  Finally foot to ground again, I saw a "new" Japanese noodle place that looked halfway unslimed and ducked in for a much needed bite and rest. I also discovered as I was seated and stamped that there was a perfectly usable front entrance to the place on the street, so I could have avoided the entire Tivoli thing altogether. But then what would I have written about here?

   Back at the hostel I curled up in the corner with my book awaiting the next game on tv. I looked up to see Kim approaching. Pleasantries exchanged, she hinted at going out for some dinner, and before I could stop myself I heard these words emanating from my face, "Oh, I just had a big dinner, and I’m beat from walking all day long (both true, of course), so I think I’m just going to call it a night." I was slapping myself in the face as I said it, but I was too tired to alter my verbal momentum. I did, however, manage to keep it going in a more positive direction. "Actually, if you want to eat somewhere nearby I’ll tag along and maybe have a drink if that’s ok." Her scowl successfully erased, I dropped my book off upstairs and met her outside the hostel, where she stood with a sly look on her face. Next to her were two rental bikes, the likes of which you can only find in strange places like Denmark. They are wicked heavy, and unbeknownst to her at the time, mine was lacking a seat. I was in a much better frame of mind at that point, so was willing to strike out again. The bike turned out to be less of a medieval torture device than I had expected, as long as I rode standing up, which was not as difficult as I had originally thought. It also gave to a lot of laughter. We rode past the Christiansborg a few times before we ended up back at restaurant row. Kim finding the prices equally frightening, we just ditched the bikes (watching with giggles as a pair of drunken Danish men in suits scooped them up, then discovered the seat thing to great hilarity). We strolled through the shopping district as the sun finally set (it was near 11) and picked up some hot dogs absolutely drenched in great globs of mayo dumped on the food before our protestations were registered.

   We found a beautiful old Kirche (church) that was having a Posada-like AIDS service with candles EVERYWHERE lighting up the ancient brick in a way that made you really understand the Old Ways. Anyway, it turned into a very nice evening wandering and talking, especially because I could bring up things back home and she knew what I was talking about. She even knew SCI-Arc! Anyway, I think we both just needed a respite from foreigners for a few hours.

   When we finally returned to the room, we found it packed to the gills with a sleeping Indian family. Enrique was there too, but everyone was unconscious. I managed to wake everyone up, however, with my stumblings, and went to bed. I was awakened only twice in the night when the folding bunk above Kim, where the father of the family was sleeping, collapsed, wedging him perilously between the mattress and the wall, arms flailing like a safely held crab. Each time we all worked together to pull him out of the crack, so that by morning everyone in the room were friends. It was quite amusing.

   Today I went back across the train boat and into Hamburg, then over to Berlin, happy to once and for all put the Christianborg behind me. I was exhausted after many hours on the fast-moving train, so when I got here I just crashed with my book and watched the US tie Italy 1-1 in a world cup match with a roomful of America-haters from all around Europe. I cheered mightily nonetheless, and I think more than a few of them were happy I was there to kind of balance things out.

   Now I’m going to bed, as it is after one am, and it has been a long day. As always, More Later!

-Chris

   BOY does Rotterdam know how to throw a party! Last night I went to the greatest dance club I’ll ever experience, no question. It will be difficult to describe just the incredible scale of the thing. I estimate there were about 100,000 people there, in celebration of the Volvo Ocean Race (the around the world sailing race that ended today here in Rotterdam). Where do I start? First, an explanation. Clearly sailing is a much bigger deal here than it is in the states. For the race committee to put together such an amazing show in the heart of the city, drawing the majority of the auditorially-capable population, just shows how much the race means here. Ok, now the setup. 11:00 pm, rising full moon, gigantically wide stretch of the Rhine (and a few others that converge on this spot), and a 70 foot long racing sailboat hoisted up onto a barge in the middle of the waterway with DJ Tiesto at the helm. Except the helm is not a large wheel, but two turntables and a microphone. The sails of the sailboat were actually draped strings of tiny LEDs, so that a running video could be shown to both sides of the crowded riverbanks simultaneously. Thus the stage and dance floor were established in this larger-than-life disco. Now imagine a regular-sized disco, but instead of walls think skyscrapers. This all took place next to one of the centerpieces of Rotterdam, the Erasmus Bridge, an architectural marvel done by Santiago Calatrava, master bridge builder and engineer. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any cooler, they switched on the spotlights, and created a truly enormous tunnel of light across the now intentionally smoky river. I was impressed, because the smoke was almost invisible, yet was enough to really show off the photonic spectacle. Pretty soon, the walls of all the surrounding buildings had video playing on them too, DJ Tiesto having created a video mix incorporating scenes from that day’s races that went along with the music. Everyone was dancing and laughing, watching the spotlights dance across the water, when all of a sudden a small, perfectly shaped orange fireball erupted from a black barge in front of Tiesto’s. Pretty soon, little Xerox-machine-sized explosions were flying 50 feet into the air from about 15 or so guns in time to the music. It reminded me a lot of the fountain outside the Mirage, but instead of water it was fire. The tiny mushroom clouds gave way to full-on Iraqi-Oil-Field-from-1992 spouts of flame shooting into the sky. The orange intensity reflected across the water and all over the great expanses of glass surrounding is. Then the flames died away and a bevy of fireworks took off, like skipping to the grand finale of a typical show. Everyone oohed and aaahed, but they weren’t done. Music still blasting the white hair off of the elderly in the crowd, there came on a laser light show, using the spent clouds from the fireworks as a canvas. This led to some truly remarkable patterns and such, all still in time with the music. It looked a lot like the video for Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, except instead of a sequined white girl in the middle, there was a freaking sailboat. And the cone of light was the size of three football fields (either kind). Anyway, the thumping beats lasted until the wee hours of the morning, and everyone in the whole city stayed to watch, even the toddlers on their daddies shoulders with their fingers in their ears. It was almost unimaginable to see.

   Today I went to see the end of the final leg of the race, this culminating nine months of sailing around the world for these poor blokes. Imagine coming in last after all that. Anyway, appropriately enough the team from the Netherlands won, their skipper hailing from Rotterdam specifically, so everyone here was understandably ecstatic. The American team, calling themselves the Pirates of the Caribbean and sailing on a boat called the Black Pearl, came in second overall, so a good outing for them as well. It was sort of a lifelong dream fulfilled to see this kind of competition up close. The Pacific ocean is sort of a large cul-de-sac, and not many races of this type bother to come all the way up there just to say hello to a crowd of millions who don’t really care. But Rotterdam certainly cares.

   Tomorrow I head to Amsterdam for three days. More later!

-c