Mundenhof

Yesterday we traveled to Freiburg, Germany. Our host, Boris, was kind enough to take us on a tour of his robotics lab which was super cool. We got to watch a humanoid robot follow a ball. When the ball was taken away he started to charge in my direction because my jacket, which is bright pink, was the only red thing he could see! After that we went on a hike up a mountain (called the Schlossberg) and we could see the whole town from the top! He then took us to the old city where we got some beer made by a local brewery. Apparantly if they sell their beer locally they can sell it without doing whatever process it is they do to make it last longer, so the beer tastes really different. And really delicious! We then went for dinner and had a thing called a Flammkuchen, which is like if you made a pizza on a matzoh crust with no tomato sauce. Despite that description it was really tasty- mine had bacon, onions, and sour cream. Mmmm.

This morning Boris had to work so we amused ourselves. We went to the zoo, which is called the Mundenhof. The primary attraction for us to start with was that it was free. We walked about a mile and a half down some really pretty country roads. On the way we saw lots of different fruit growing, most of which we left alone- but there were blackberries and you can't just walk by a wild blackberry bush without having a few!

The zoo itself was really nice. As Alan eloquently put it, it was more like a park with sections for animals and sections for people. The animal enclosures were really enormous, and there were lots of really lovely little paths to stroll along. While no zoo could ever replace the

SD zoo in my heart, this one is better in some ways. There were fewer exhibits, but the upside is that all of the animals have plenty of space. It wasn't super flashy, but it also wasn't super crowded. At the SD zoo I often feel as though I'm tripping over children everywhere you turn. And at the center of the zoo is a family of monkeys that were really entertaining to watch. I don't think I've ever seen the monkeys in San Diego be as active as these were- and at one point one of the baby ones climbed up onto the ledge right next to the fence, which was awesome!

We walked back a slightly different path that took us through some woodland that was really pretty. Then I got stung by some stinging nettles. They really hurt for like ten minutes! Then we stopped by a bakery on the way home and bought a loaf of fresh bread. It was my first transaction completed entirely in German. I was successful in the sense that we got a loaf of bread, but I need to stop being so shy about my German skills and speak up a little! The fresh bread here is awesome! We've sort of been eating catch as catch can, and a loaf of bread is a really economical way to feed ourselves. Throw in some fresh blackberries picked on the side of the road and some peanuts (or meat and cheese if they are available) and it's a pretty good lunch.

Now we are at home awaiting Boris's return, at which point we will go see some castle ruins ("you Americans always want to see castles" - Boris) and then, if we have time, we'll go to a vineyard and maybe get some wine?

London wrapup

We have left the UK! We spent 1 week in London staying with Barbara's sister, Sue, and her husband Jeff. Staying at their house, that is. Sue and Jeff were on a vacation of their own when we arrived, so we spent all but 1 full day alone in their house Very gracious of them! We spent the first two days there getting over jetlag and recovering from sitting too much on the airplane. Then 3 days visiting the sites (mostly free) in London. Then the temperatures spiked, a lot, and we decided to take a day off from London. We did go on a nice 3 hour hike along the canal near Sue's house (gotta build up those muscles for Ireland), but by noon time it was a little too hot to want to go further. We took the rest of the day off, reading, planning our next bit of itinerary, and visiting with Sue and Jeff, who had finally returned. We heard later on the news that people were passing out from the heat in the London underground, which I completely believe, given how hot it had been down there the day before which was much more moderate in terms of maximum temperature. All in all I'm glad we took the vacation from vacation!

Next day we headed north to Cambridge. Sue offered to drive us to the bus station. Riding on the wrong side of the street felt really, really wrong. Panic inducing, at moments. And I thought it was hard to deal with crossing the streets by foot! I cannot imagine the process one would have to go thru to feel comfortable driving there.

Our train to Cambridge was uneventful, but not long after getting there it started to thunder. Not long after that comes the part you east-coasters would predict, though it came as a relative surprise to us: rain. Lots of it. We had planned to do a walking tour of Cambridge, and had gotten so far as finding a museum coat check to drop our backpacks in so we wouldn't have to lug them everywhere, and also to increase our chances at being able to sneak into the colleges without paying tourist fees (my plan: claim to be a prospective student). When the rain started to fall we had just gotten to the outer edges of the more historical part of Cambridge, just outside of kings college cathedral. After only a few more minutes of rain we decided we had better turn around in a hurry. The next hour was spent inside the museum were we had dropped our backpacks, looking at some very nice art, and a huge amount of Egyptian artifacts (so much so, that one wonders if any are left in Egypt!). Not at all what we had planned for our day trip, but fun nonetheless.

We had hoped the rain would finish up before we wanted to leave, but by the time we were hungry for some food it was still coming down enough that we decided it was unwise to get even furhter away from the trainstation. So we headed back to the train, and about halfway there the rain really started to fall in earnest, the kind of downpoor that soaks your bag in minutes. Plus the lightning was getting very close. We took refuge in the admissions office for "open university" and waited out the lightening, but not the rain. We had packed some rain ponchos, and jymm was pretty sure her pack was watertight, so once we felt it was safe we beat a path back to the train station. At that point the rain more or less stopped, but having been once-soaked we were twice shy and decided to move on to (via train) to the hotel we were staying in for the night, chosen so that we could be near the airport.

Being near the airport was important because our flight left at 7am next morning, and given some of the unusual bits of language on our ticket  (airplane doors lock at 6:30, and a somewhat obtuse discussion of bag and visa check desks) we felt the need to get there by 4:30. Feeling somewhat silly, I might add, since we expected the airport to be dead at that hour of the day. Instead it was the busiest airport I've ever seen, given it's size. Long lines, barely anywhere to sit, and not much more space to stand. Even so, we did manage to jump through all the required hoops and get to our gate waiting area only 35 minutes after we walked in the door. And that bit about doors locking at 6:30? Well, we didn't even start boarding until 6:40. Oh well. The important part is we made it to our next destination on time, and with no suprize fees to pay. As I type, we are sitting in the Baden baden train station in Germany, waiting to go see Boris, a friend of mine from my days in grad school when I worked for a german PI.

Today's photo is a shot of london. Given all the rain and trainstations we've been around, there's not much else to show of note from the last few days. I expect that will change soon!

Portobello Road

Note: This post was mostly written on Sunday, but I wasn't able to finish it until today (Tuesday), so when I say "today" I mean "Sunday"

This morning we got an even later start than yesterday. Our original plan was to go to Portobello Road Market and find some delectable fruit or something for lunch, take it to Kensington Gardens and eat, then explore several museums in the afternoon. What actually happened is that we got out of the house late, accidentally got on the slowest train to London possible, and didn't arrive in the city until well after 12. Getting to Portobello Road involved further mishaps- they are doing work on the Tube this weekend and it seemed we ran in to that today at every turn. We had to leave the train station we arrived at because the Tube line that served it wasn't even running and walk maybe half a mile to the next station! This turned out to be fine, and led to some other adventures which we'll talk about later, but it was inconvenient.

Several hours later we arrived at Portobello Road. And boy am I glad we persevered, despite the determination of the Underground to keep us away! Basically the whole road is line with little shops that sell stuff, and all of the shopkeepers have tables of fun stuff outside that you can look at as you meander your way along. We saw used cricket bats for sale, a store with a window full of antique Singer sewing machines, lots of antique doorknobs and things. Also, there were tons of little stalls selling gelato, and some selling crepes with nutella and strawberries, and some selling Belgian waffles with ice cream. Given the heat I'm not sure how we resisted the last. At the end of the line there was a market where people sold fresh fruits and veggies, but we were too late for that so we contented ourselves with a little cafe for lunch.

I have to say this was my favorite thing we've done so far. It was fun to get away from the tourist attractions and just see London.

Lunch!

Jymm and I decided to try some traditional London/British food. Of course, fish and chips comes to mind here. Chips = french fry's. Yesterday we were looking for a cheap place that would take credit cards, and failing that we went to an ATM this morning, determined not to be thwarted today. FYI, the cost of "buying" 32 dollars (20 pounds, that is), was only about 9 cents! Thank you Charles Schwab for not charging conversion fees, and Llyods for not charging ATM fees. Well, somebody charged some fees, or else we wouldn't be 9 cents short, but I'm not complaining!

Lunch time found us walking along Portobello road (jymm's going to talk about that one further).  We saw a few fish and chips places but either they looked very fancy, or in one case, super-not-fancy, but had no prices posted, and appeared to be deep inside some building along a twisty hallway, hidden from view (what did they have to hide???).

Eventually we  got tired of turning down places and took the first one we found. Nearly empty (never a good sign) this place appeared to largely specialize in Malaysia and British breakfast foods (!) but they also had fish and chips. Not exactly the traditional fish and chip shop we had been envisioning. Looking over the menu, however, I realized that the classic "local" food I had been hungering for was lamb sausage and mixed greens/veggies over fried noodles. Local to Malaysia, anyway. To make a long story short, it was fantastic, if oily. Jymm's fish and chips actually tasted lighter, if you can believe that. As you can see in the picture Jymm is sampling my dish, and after we finished she admitted that my meal may have been the better of the two, though I tried her's as well and it was pretty good too.

The London Bridge

Even I, never outside of the USA before this trip, had heard of the London Bridge. I even had some images in my head of what it looked like, and some idea that it was old. None of it matches this, which looks like it was made in the 70s. Actually, it was; they tore down the old one.

I guess London has enough history laying around, they don't need to save every last bit of it. I would have changed the name, myself, so as not to disappoint tourists.

Postscript: The nearby tower bridge looks exactly like I expected the London bridge to, so maybe my idea of the (old) London bridge wasn't so accurate after all. London certainly has some fantastic older architecture. It's been a lot of fun just wandering around and seeing it all, sometimes by mistake.

Locked in a Tower

This morning we went to visit the only paid attraction in London we plan to see: the Tower of London. You guys might not know this about me, but I'm a huge nerd for history, especially history that has to do with England during the Tudor period. So I told Alan that if we only did one paid thing I wanted the Tower to be it, and he obliged.

It turns out that what most people (including me) know about the Tower- namely it's reputation as a prison- is only a small bit of its history. It has also been used as a royal mint, a record office, a royal residence (I knew that one), an observatory, and in the last 150 years or so a museum. All this I learned in three hours!

In any case, I've read a lot about the historical figures who have occupied the Tower over the centuries- as visitors and as prisoners- and it was pretty cool to stand in the places they stood. It was also cool to see some of the stuff they have kept there in the museum- like Henry VIII's armour.

With that being said, I think in retrospect I might have been satisfied to see it from the outside. It was expensive to go in, and I don't know that it was totally worth the price. For one thing it was much more of a "museum" than I expected- I sort of thought it would be restored to recreate the original use. Of course, it would be sort of hard to do that given that it has had so many uses over time. Also, it was really crowded. There were some things we skipped, like viewing the crown jewels, because the line was too long. Admittedly this was our fault- we are having a hard time getting to bed at night because it stays light so late (it is just dark now at 10:30pm!). Perhaps if we had gotten there when they opened it would have been more fun.

All in all we have decided that so far our favorite parts of the trip are the ones that don't involve the traditional tourist sights at all- not something I would have predicted.

We Go A-Wandering

After our morning & afternoon of sightseeing Alan and I were pooped. So we decided to walk to the train station so that we could see a bit of London on our way. Walking down Grosvenor place was super unpleasant- the traffic was so loud we couldn't talk with each other. So Alan suggested a little detour which turned out to be an awesome decision!

First we meandered through the place where all of the embassies are. Not much to see here- rows and rows of white houses (imagine a brownstone house, but white). Then we turned into Eaton Square which was a pretty little park. One thing I really like about London is how many parks there are- it makes the city feel much more pleasant.

We meandered for a while and ended up in an area of the city known as Pimlico according to our map. There we saw lots of fun things- for example, we wandered through a farm market where they were selling fresh fish and freshly butchered meat along with the usual fruits and veg.

We also saw an air conditioner disguised as some steampunk contraption and a church named for St. James the Less. I have to wonder- the Less what? Less smart, Less nice, Less pretty?

It strikes me that the person who named this church may have had self-esteem issues to identify with such a saint.

Finally we crossed Vauxhall Bridge (bridges are another thing London has a lot of) and caught a train home. It felt really good to sit down, but I was glad we had taken the time to stroll about off the beaten track. I'm hoping we'll do more of that in the next few weeks.

like a tourist

Today we spent some time seeing the traditional sites of central London. The house of parliament, the changing of the guards, the national gallery. Many of these I have seen before in photos. In person is better. Except maybe the changing of the guards, where we competed with a couple thousand other folks for a good view of... people standing still (at least for most of it). Maybe someday I'lll look that one up on youtube.

Central london has 3 large parks, which were quite nice and green. We made use of two of them for a sausage, cheese, and cracker lunch. The first time because it was lunch time. The second time because looking at art in the national gallery tired us out. Standing around looking at painting is harder than it looks! We did find some really nice van Gogh and Serat paintings, though. I find works from the 1800s on to be much more energizing than the 1000 paintings of  20 saints that count as "great art" before that time.

Supermarket Redux

As Alan has mentioned, we didn't do much yesterday. The only thing we did other than our lovely canal walk was hop the train to the next town up and go to another supermarket. I don't know how to explain it other than that we've developed an obsession? Who knows. In any case, I realized that in the grocery store is when I really feel like I'm in a different place altogether.

It's like this: when we're on the train, or at some tourist spot, all of the things that are weird or different just seem like part of the Big Adventure. But when you're in the grocery store, doing something you do all of the time, it is bizarre that everyone around you speaks differently and that some of the food is weird. Like you realize that yeah, this is a place that is not the US and people live here.

The supermarket we went to was like any US supermarket on the first floor, and then there was an escalator up to a second floor where they sold clothes. Imagine Costco, if the food and other stuff were sold in separate rooms. There was also a Marks & Spencer next door which was the same sort of deal- a supermarket connected to a clothing store. I like to imagine the grocery list: eggs, chicken, a blouse...

A few more things of note: English muffins are called white muffins, hamburger buns are called baps, you can buy prawn flavored potato chips, and everyone drives their cart on the left side of the aisle.

We're headed into London today, so tomorrow's post will be much more meaty.

A morning in west byfleet: the Basingstoke Canal

We are taking it easy on day 2 to rest my back for our greater London trips planned for the next few days. Luckily, west byfleet has some attractions of its own. Near Sue's house there is a very long canal which must have been used for shipping a long time ago, back in the days when barges were towed by oxen or other 4-legged animals.  Now it's just a (very pretty) hiking (and biking) path. With one very strange addition: people live on parts of the canal. The picture pretty much tells it all. Some of these boats look like they have been moored here for 20 or more years.

The Great Train Adventure

Our first European adventure was to figure out how exactly to get from Heathrow Airport to the place we are staying in a little town outside of London. While you read the story I am about to tell you, I would like you to keep in mind that we were suffering from a glorious combination of severe sleep deprivation and jet lag.

Things started out well, or so we thought. Alan had some directions involving a bus and a train, and we found signs for the Central Bus Station in Heathrow almost immediately. We merrily followed the signs thinking "oh, this is easy! we're going to be so good at this!" Then things fell apart. We descended into a chaotic scene reminiscent of Grand Central at rush hour. We saw a sign for Information and thought "okay, no problem, we'll just ask someone". The only information we were able to gain was that he couldn't tell us anything. So we got in the ticket line and waited for 20 minutes. Meanwhile I will confess that I was getting a touch whiney. I had thought that Alan had this all figured out! I will try to be more easy going in future.

We (finally) get to a ticket window, and the lady has never heard of West Byfleet. She called in reinforcements and after some consultation of dusty reference books was able to figure out the type of pass we wanted. Then more catastrophe- we need photos to make ID cards for the British Rail system. Well, Alan was prepared but never told me that I needed one. More confusion! The people at the window were like "okay, no problem, just run over there with some coins and use the photobooth". But we, California folk that we are, carry no cash ever (you'd think we'd have learned our lesson from our recent trip to New York!).

Finally, what we ended up with was a 7 day rail pass for Alan, and a one way pass for me. But a one way pass to where? The lady had no idea what we were talking about with our bus and train route. More discussion, anxious consulting of books, whispered conversations with the manager. Meanwhile I was getting pretty grumpy, and Alan was getting grumpy right back. But it was sorted out after a while and we were on our way by a different route.

The train trip itself was uneventful. It was actually kind of challenging to convince myself we weren't just on a super cushy NY subway- even the smell inside the station was the same! We traveled via the Tube to a train station, then got on a train to West Byfleet, disembarked some amount of time later, and then walked the quarter mile or so-in the pouring rain- to the house where we spent the rest of the day trying hard not to fall asleep.

jetlag and shopping: more fun than you expect

We've been here 24hrs, and most of that was spent sleeping or wishing strongly that we could sleep. Our flight left PHL at 10PM, and got to London at 10AM, with about 6 hours in air. That almost sounds like enough time to get a decent night's sleep, until you consider airline seats != bed. The bright daylight on arrival more or less convinced our bodies it was morning and I at least felt pretty wakeful as long as I kept moving under personal impetus - ie the 1.5hrs on the tube was a real challenge, even though my speed relative to the ground was pretty high. Having not experimented with sleep deprivation in over a decade, the experience was actually kind of fun.

Our other big adventure: shopping for groceries. We are staying with relatives or friends for the first half of our trip. I've read that the big budgeting mistake many people make is not paying much attention to spending at first, and finding that you've used up your entire budget before the vacation is half over. To combat this, and take advantage of our kitchen access, we plan to start out cooking for ourselves and eating as cheaply as we would in San Diego, and then start to relax the purse strings later. To that end, our big meal plan for London is beans and rice (with courgette, though a zucchini by any other name still tastes as sweet). Finding those San Diego staples turns out to be more of a challenge than expected, but at least everything still looks the same, in the cases where they have it at all (who would have thought that white beans were an exotic food?).

Welcome To Our Travel Blog

Hello readers!
We have decided to create this blog as a way of commemorating our honeymoon, and a way of letting you all know we're still alive. We'll try to post daily, with a post from each of us. The plan is for each of us to write a little something about one of our adventures that day and then add one photo that gives a good idea of what it was like. Don't worry, we'll have lots more photos when we get home.