Edinburgh

First off, I'm going to apologize for the fact that our posts have been so sporadic lately. As we get close to going home we've been thinking more about houses and less about blogging. Edinburgh really deserves more than the short post I'm going to give it. Edinburgh was everything I'd hoped London would be. It was great and if you come to Europe you should spend at least a couple of days there.

We visited the National Museum of Scotland which is cool if you like history and old stuff. They have lots of it. We also visited Holyrood House- it was awesome. It looks a lot like it did back in the 1600's, which was really cool to see. And there was a free audio tour guide thingy, which I liked a lot. It was especially cool to hang out in Mary, Queen of Scots bedroom.

We also hiked up Arthur's Seat, which is basically an oversized hill. Some great views at the top, and it was a reasonably nice hike. We walked the Royal Mile, which is mostly lined with shops called things like "The Real Scotland" that sell all kinds of stuff that says Scotland on it. We visited a cathedral and it was beautiful on the inside. It's really cool to think about how they built those things before math or engineering were at all understood.

I found out that there was a Marshall clan. Also a street called Marshall street, and a street called Gifford park.

In any case, now we're headed home. We spent half of yesterday here in Glasgow, but there's not much here. The food is good.

Falkirk Wheel

While in Falkirk we went to visit their major attraction: The Falkirk Wheel. What the wheel is, essentially, is a modern day canal lock. It is challenging to describe how it works- there's a sort of boat shaped part filled with water that the boat sits in. This part has wheels on the bottom and sits inside of a circle that is in turn set into a larger mechanism. When the boat wants to go up the boat goes into the boat shaped part and then the larger mechanism flips over while the boat part remains upright because it's on wheels inside of a circle. Got that? Good. (If you look at the picture it will be easier to see what I'm talking about.)

In any case, it was pretty cool to watch happen, and it really is an ingenious mechanism. I overheard a tour guide saying that it replaced 11 locks. So instead of taking almost a full day to get through that part of the canal it takes about 15 minutes.

The funny thing is that they've turned it into an amusement park. There are food vendors and you can take a boat tour that goes up the lock and there is a children's playground and a gift shop and lots of walking trails. I would definitely recommend it if you're in the area.

Falkirk canal hike

Yesterday we walked around Falkirk, Scottland. To stay away from busy streets I routed us through a park, where we happened upon the Callandar house, which apparently was the site of a lot of Scottish history, dating back to 1000AD. The interesting part to me was that they showed how the house changed over time. It wasn't until the 1800s that it looked anything like the fancy, old building that we saw, before that it was more or less a rectangle of ever increasing size.

From the park we tried to find an old canal and towpath which had been converted into a hiking and biking trail. I had seen it from google satalight views, so I knew there was a trail, though at the time I didn't realize it was a canal - I though it was a small river next to a hiking trail. Perhaps that is why I was confused when my smart  "phone" showed that we were getting close, but it was nowhere in sight. Eventually we were standing right on top of the river, and all we could see were gently rolling hills. The map software is sometimes hard to interpret, but this was pretty strange. I concluded there must be a tunnel, though at the time I had no idea if it was open to foot traffic, nor was it clear why it would even be there, since I didn't know about the canal.

Some more wandering, however, brought us to a valley through which the canal and trail were routed. We almost turned back, however, because the sign for the trail leading into the valley said it was closed due to landslide. After some discussion, we decided to take a look, anyway, which revealed no such landslide. Silly sign.

Indeed, the canal did pass though a tunnel. As did the hiking trail. The canal was constructed around 1812, and though the tunnel itself was not labeled, I assume it too dated to the same time,as otherwise the canal would have been pretty useless. It was a little intimidating to enter a 200 year old tunnel, at least in part because it was leaking very badly - along several points inside a large amount of water fell in torrents from the ceiling, sometimes into the canal, sometimes onto the trail (yuck!). The tunnel was quite long - around 1800 feet long, with the occasional light to keep it from being pitch black.  It felt very much like a movie set, especially because of the all the noise from the falling water. I'm quite impressed they build something so large so long ago, and that it lasted so long.

At points it was quite like being in a cave, including some stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, and in a few places, huge limestone deposits covering the old brick walls - perhaps a few inches think in places! I was a little worried that jymm might feel claustrophobic, but it seems she enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

Ireland Hike, Day Three: Ireland Redeems Itself Spectacularly

We set off on our final hiking leg with some reservations. We even considered just skipping the hike and taking the bus straight to Ennis. But in the end we went through with it- and boy were we glad we did! We hiked from Doolin to the Cliffs of Moher, then grabbed a bus from the cliffs to Ennis. Words cannot really do this hike justice, plus I noticed that our last few posts are super wordy. So, here are some lovely pictures taken along the way.

               We walked along an old road that is now only used by farmers to reach their cattle.

                                          Out on the horizon you can see the Islands of Aran

                                         We took a break to eat some fudge with chili

                                                  Looking back at where we'd come from

                                           Better find a different way to go!

                                           One view of the Cliffs of Moher- it was pretty spectacular

Once we were done hiking we flagged down a bus (literally, we stood in the road and waved at it until it stopped and picked us up) and rode down to Ennis. This day, with it's beautiful sun and lovely vistas really made up for the struggle on the second day of hiking. We're really glad we didn't wimp out and skip it.

Ireland Hike, Day Two: Jymm and Alan vs. The Elements

It was a dark and stormy night...no wait. It was actually a dark and stormy morning, it just seemed like night because the sun never came out. In any case, imagine a drizzly day in mid-February in New England and you'll have it. We were fed a delicious breakfast with homemade soda bread then, despite the terrible weather, decided to stick to the plan and hike to Doolin. So we pulled our packs onto shoulders aching from the hike the day before, said goodbye to our hostess and headed up the road. The grocery store in Fanore is very small- smaller even than the one in Ballyvaughan. But we found a couple of fresh scones and some cheddar cheese and figured that would do for lunch. We didn't expect to be on the road very long, see. Oh, if we had only known.

We got some directions from one of the locals and set off down the road. At first all was well and good. It was chilly and a little damp, but not too bad, and the Irish country side really is a beautiful thing to behold. But after about 30 minutes of walking we crested a hill and found ourselves buffeted by 21mph winds. Oof! It was enough to almost knock you off your feet! We were optimistic- surely we would go down into a valley soon and get out of the punishing wind. Nope. The only break we had from the wind that afternoon was the two times we were able to find bushes that were tall enough and facing the right direction to serve as a windbreak while we rested. For several hours we struggled, us against the wind, uphill and down. It began to rain, and the rain felt like needles against our faces. We cursed our stupidity at coming to this godforsaken land where it was 17 degrees Celsius in the middle of the summer and fantasized about a hot shower. We vowed never to stray from our beloved San Diego again and moaned about how much the distant cliffs looked like the ones in La Jolla. Mostly we just marched on in grim silence, taking turns walking in front of each other to provide a windbreak for the person behind. There are not a whole lot of pictures from this leg because it was too wet and cold and rainy and windy to pull the camera out. Besides, the last thing you really want to do when you are that miserable is take pictures to remind yourself later of how it was.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, we arrived at our hostel in Doolin. We opened the door and found ourselves in what looked like a cozy living room, complete with a wood burning stove. I could have kissed the doorstep the warmth felt so good! The other hostel guests inside directed us next door to check in- only problem: the proprietors of the establishment were gone who knows where for some indeterminate period of time. After some debate, a walk down to the village to see what there was to eat (not much), and some crying (mostly by me) we decided to just make ourselves comfy in the hostel lounge, on the assumption that if we had been able to check in that's what we'd be doing anyway. It's good we decided not to wait out in the rain because the owners did not show up for another two hours! But after we were checked in the man in charge offered to drive us to the local grocery store, which was good because otherwise it was going to be leftover scones and some peanuts for dinner. This action on his part most likely saved Alan's life- I get a mite cranky when I don't get dinner.

The following day we did pretty much nothing- laundry, read some, poked around in little shops, bought some fudge with chili in it (yum!). It was good, we needed the rest. And the weather was pretty horrible anyway, so we were glad we hadn't planned more hiking. The hostel itself was super nice- it had a huge, sunny kitchen with three separate stoves so lots of people could be cooking at one time. The living room space, as I've already mentioned, was comfy, and our room was pretty cozy.

The Burren Way: day one

Our next adventure was decidedly outdoors in nature: we were going to hike down part of the western Ireland coast, on a trail called the Burren way. Unfortunately, the weather turned against us. We landed in Dublin, and next day took a bus all the way across Ireland to Ballyvaughan. Dublin was sunny and moderate. Ballyvaughan was windy  and rainy. But we were fresh from Oslo, and were not perturbed. We had good coats that were rain resistant, and nylon shirts/pants that dry almost instantly. We could handle this! Plus Jymm seemed mostly over her cold so we were in high spirits. After a tasty but somewhat small breakfast at the B&B we stayed in, we were ready to take off.

First adventure: what to pack for lunch. No Lidl or Tesco here. The corner shop was only slightly larger than a gas station convenience store, and was the only option for miles. Luckily they had fresh bread and full-fat mozzarella cheese - not exactly what we were planning to buy but a delicious choice nonetheless.

The host at the B&B had made our planned hike sound short and easy - oh, you can hike the Burren way in a day if you want, she says (we planned 3 days!), so we elected to make our first day a little longer by adding a extra little loop in Ballyvaughan. Good idea, and at first we had no problem finding the path, which was mostly low-use roads (mostly used for farming access, we understand). But at some point we missed a turn (signs were not a strong point, despite what we had been assured). It was still very pretty, much like the photos shown here, but now the roads got a little bigger, and a lot more busy. A lot more.

Almost every single road we walked along was lined by stone fences, usually allowing about 1-2 feet of unpaved shoulder on each side of the road. Often there just wasn't any way to get off the road at all. Understandably this made us a bit nervous, as cars wized passed. Later we learned that this is pretty much standard for the entire area over there, and that many (most?) people drive down the middle of the road anyway( until they meet another car coming the other way, at which point it's not unusual for somebody to have to pull almost off the road to let them pass, kind of like the roads in my home town!). In any case, everybody seemed quite prepared to give us plenty of room if they weren't already in the middle of the road when they came upon us.  But for the first few hours it was kind of stressful.

Throughout all this there was intermittent rain. Never very much, and usually not lasting for more than a couple minutes. Mostly it just made us impressed by how well dressed we were in our REI finery, and entirely ready for this kind of thing. Then at one point Jymm points off in the distance and said, oh, look at the fog coming in. I pointed out how the 'fog' was coming down in think sheets.  Yes, it was rain, though at first we didn't really think about what that would mean personally to us in the very near future. A few minutes later, the first rain drop. 30 seconds later, a real downpour. Lucky, we were right next to a gate in the ubiquitous rock fences, and could climb into a nearby field and take shelter in a patch of trees that could not have been better located. And get out our actual rain gear (poncho for Jymm, trash bag for Alan - can you guess which one held together the longest?). If not for those trees we would have been drenched.


Eventually we got to the next part of the walking trail and got away from the traffic, which was nice. And we started to be able to recognize the oncoming storm, and pull out our rain gear before the first drops would fall.  The wind was so great, though, that no storm lasted more than 10 minutes. Likewise, the calm between the rainfalls. I may be making this sound less pleasant than it was. We were triumphing over the elements and learning how to read mother nature. It was fun, if a little damp, and our clothes kept us plenty warm. Plus, the scenery was really great - truly different than anywhere else I've been.

And so the rest of the day went. We eventually came to realize that the so-called hiking trail was really just a collection of roads, the whole way though. Most, however, were farm roads and we would see 1-2 cars an hour. The scenery made up for it, though. We have way more pictures than we really can show here, and none of them can capture the wide-open vistas.

The one big change as the day wore on was the wind, which really started to pick up. It's kind of hard to photograph something like the wind, but perhaps the picture gives a hint of what it was like. I don't think it ever knocked us over, but it came close plenty of times.

Our last little adventure of the night was trying to find our next hotel (bed and breakfast, to be exact). We had remembered that it was in the town of "Fanore", and my handy smart phone that can't make phone-calls showed it on the map I had downloaded of all of Ireland. The built in GPS even told us we were getting close to Fanore. But eventually we realized that Fanore was not so much a dot on the map as a widely scattered collection of houses, with no stores and very few people out. The few we found had never head of our B&B. We couldn't even be sure if we should go north along the coast, or south. Stressful, indeed. The website had shown the location on the map, but the closest crossroad wasn't even visible on said map. Very helpful! Luck and talking to several people eventually got us there, tired and dirty, but in pretty high spirits overall. Boy did that hot shower feel good, too!

Ballyvaughan

The morning after we arrived in Dublin we packed up our stuff once more and headed on down the road. The first trick was to figure out which bus was ours- a helpful Irishman stepped in and showed the way. The bus driver was super friendly- asked us where we were going and what we wanted to do there and made comments on the weather in Dublin vs. that in Galway. It seemed like he chatted with the passengers up in the front of the bus the whole three hour ride from Dublin to Galway!

So, we rode the bus for 3.5 hours and arrived in Galway 45 minutes later than we were supposed to, which meant we missed our bus to Ballyvaughan. This gave us a little time to tool around Galway, though we were somewhat hindered by our packs. It's hard to look around a shop when your backside extends an extra few feet. So the short story is we didn't see much other than the inside of the bus/train station.

When it was time for us to catch the bus we went outside to find ourselves in the midst of utter madness. No one knew where they were supposed to stand or which bus they wanted! Of course this made me doubt if I had the right stop(I did) so I joined the confused milling around for a bit, but in the end it all got sorted out and we got on the bus to Ballyvaughan.

The ride from Galway to Ballyvaughan took a few years off of my life. There aren't any highways in this part of the country. The roads here are not really quite wide enough for two cars to pass each other without one of them driving onto the (barely existent) shoulder yet the bus driver just barreled down the middle of the road at 500mph. It was like we were living inside of one of those car racing video games, and the player controlling our car was a two year old!

Finally, a little green around the gills, we arrived in the little village of Ballyvaughan and at the B&B Meadowfield, where we spent the night. We took a little walk around the village after depositing our things, got our first taste of the charming Irish scenery, and came to really appreciate the phrase "small town". Ballyvaughan is one of the bigger towns we've been in since leaving Galway and the grocery store there could barely be called a convenience store in the states.

In any case, our bed was comfortable, our hostess was agreeable, there was a hot shower and in the morning a delicious breakfast. Who could ask for more?

Dublin

Hello adoring fans! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. The truth is that I caught a cold and since then by the time of the day that we get to a place with internet I really just want to go to sleep. Also, we haven’t had internet access everywhere (shocking!).

First, let me just say that being sick in a foreign country is not fun. You may not know this- I certainly didn’t realize it- but you have certain rituals you do when you feel bad to make yourself feel better. For instance, I drink copious amounts of apple juice and green tea, and suck on jolly ranchers to make my throat feel better. Here there I don’t have the brand of green tea I like, they don’t seem to sell any hard candy at all (!) and the apple juice is carbonated. Also, rather than sleeping a lot and watching Spongebob Squarepants I have to ride planes and buses and/or hike in order to arrive at some new destination every day. Oh, the trials of being me.

Just to be clear, I have a really minor cold- I had a sore throat and I’m a little tired but it’s really nothing to write home about. Heh.

So, two days ago we arrived in Dublin, Ireland. We caught a bus from the airport to the city, then found our hostel (and only got a little lost on the way!). When we got there we found, to our delight, that we’d been upgraded from a six person dorm room to a private room with its own bathroom. Hooray!

Our first order of business was some food, since, as Alan has already described, we hadn’t had much to eat for several days. We found some dive that sold cheap burgers and stuff and had what was maybe the best meal of my life. Alan had fish and chips and I had a chicken fillet sandwhich. Mmmm… after two days of all yogurt all the time it was heaven.

Then, after a nap (I am sick after all) we went a-wandering in the streets of Dublin. I like Dublin. It’s not dirty or crowded, and the narrow streets make it feel old. I liked just wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere. The street singers here are like one thousand times better than the ones in the subway in NY. After some wandering we found the castle by accident and just had time to take in the cathedral before someone came to shoo us out so he could close up. We also found a second hand shop and a 2 euro store (which seems to be the equivalent to the dollar store). We did not buy anything- though I did find this really awesome jacket in the thrift store and it took every ounce of will not to buy it (I do not need more weight to carry!).

Then we rambled back in the direction of the hotel, found a grocery store on the way (they have Lidl here, just like in Germany J) and bought some supplies for dinner, and lunch and dinner the next day. The next morning we ran to the bus station and headed off for Galway en route to Ballyvaughan. And we didn’t even get lost once.

Oslo is for hiking and IKEA

We are without internet so all our posts are going up a bit after the time they happened/were written. I can't tell you how much I miss internet. I know, it's a vacation, but you so quickly become accustomed to constant access and all the convenience and entertainment options that brings.

Day 2, oslo

Having seen the city, we were ready to go out into the wild. First, however, breakfast, which meant a short hike over to a shopping center that had a 'discount grocery' store. REMA 1000 feels a bit like an Aldi or Lidl, but at Ritz prices. Actually, I'm sure it's cheaper than a lot of oslo options, but then food is so amazingly expensive here. Apparently yogurt and bread are sold at a discount due to government subsidy, which meant we could buy a large single-serve yogurt for $3. We paid $6 for a rather stale and tame loaf of bread yesterday, and considered but then passed on buying some ice-cream ($9 for a somewhat generous amount for two people). Keep in mind, these are the cheap options at the discount grocery. For additional context, McDollands sells bigmac hamburger for $20, and most restaurant meals we have seen advertised on the street go for $40-60, on the low end. How do people eat here? Anyway, back in REMA 1000 I bought $6 worth of yogurt (one for each of us). At the hotel we mixed into that some musli we had purchased in Germany at Lidl (I'll miss shopping at Lidl, not a lot of selection but really low prices and what they had tended to be good), and had a pretty satisfying breakfast, on the whole (we ate that meal 4 times in Oslo, and it did start to get pretty old by the end though!).

As usual, we hadn't been vey good at getting an early start, so instead of hiking in the middle of the day, we decided to take advantage of the late sunlight, and instead go for another walk around Oslo (as long as you stay on the proper side of the street it's easy to stay out of the sun). Setting out in a direction we had not walked before, we ended up seeing less of note than yesterday, though there was a nice little river walk that we found and meandered along. Then we went back to the hotel and snoozed for a while to let the surprisingly intense sun die down.

Around 3 we embarked on our real adventure. IKEA has two stores in Oslo, and they offer free buses to those IKEAs, running one an hour. Usually a free bus to a single destination wouldn't be that exciting. But IKEA is a big deal, as you will see. Also, public transport to and from IKEA would have cost us about $40 total. We weren't the only people excited to go to IKEA - there was a line of people waiting for the free bus, and we have read that it's often standing room only on the bus, though we were lucky enough to get a seat, pretty easily.

So what's so exciting about IKEA? You probably think you can guess, but you are almost certainly wrong. Aside from the cheap way to get out of downtown Oslo, IKEA also offers really, really cheap hotdogs. We are talking $1/hotdog. And $1.30 for a drink with free refills. $2 soft-serve ice-cream. On our first visit to the IKEA food stand I had two hot dogs, and though I'm sure they were nothing to write home about, (but here I am!) they were soooooo good.  Perhaps it is because they are 100% yogurt free.

For once feeling actually satisfied with the food in our bellies, we set out for a hike. I'm not really sure what kind of hiking options Oslo has, other than they are supposed to be great. We selected this hike because the park was a short distance south of IKEA. The park has many miles of trails - probably 20 or 30. For reference, another park, north of IKEA by 1-2 miles has a least as many miles of trails. In any case, the trail we took (also selected due to the closeness to IKEA (15 minute walk, roughly) was very striking. The forest ground was covered in large patches of moss, there were lots of picturesque boulders and rocks to scramble over, and the trees were tall and provided great shade. After about a kilometer (their units, not mine!) we came to a gorgeous lake, almost crystal clear, with some ducks and people swimming here and there along the shore.

The lake was very nice,  but it was way too early to finish so after a short rest we selected one of the many trails in the area, somewhat at random. The trail was around the lake, which we hoped meant it might be more flat. We were very, very wrong. On the upside, however, about halfway around the lake we came to a sheer rock cliff overlooking the lake, with some amazing views of the area (and, I suspect, IKEA,  if we had been able to recognize it far in the distance).

The scenery was so great I think we would have considered hiking even longer once we finished the lake loop, but our bellies were getting empty, our water bottle was completely empty, and mosquitoes were keeping us from resting for very long. The only thing that did not stop us at all was available light, even though it was 9:30pm when we were done (it looked more like 2pm).  If I ever come back to Oslo, I think it will be to hike, rather than visiting the city. I'll pack LOTS of dried food, I'll camp instead of staying in a budget hotel (which was perfectly nice, except it cost as much as 5 hamburgers), and I'll bring deet.

In case you were wondering, we also had dinner at IKEA that night. two more hot dogs for me, bringing me up to a total of 4 for the day. Jymm tried to have a more balanced meal by having fewer hotdogs and adding a soft-serve ice cream.  We also took a quick trip around the non-food part of IKEA, and found it to be pretty much exactly what we expected from our San Diego visits.

O$lo the city

We have two days in Oslo, so we decided to do one seeing the city and one seeing the surrounding nature.  So far my favorite is the opera house, which is made so you can walk up its slanted 'walls' and around on top of its roof. I suspect it's not open in for such activity in the winter though - those walls are steep, and pretty smooth.







In addition to the thoroughly modern opera house we saw the genuinely old and historic Oslo fort. It felt like a real castle, in stark contrast to the tower of London. We had no idea what it was from the outside, actually - I had guessed a university. I'm glad we decided to wander in!

If you guessed that we found these places by accident, you are right. The internet is less of a good guidebook than you might think. But wandering has gone pretty well for us, and takes a lot less planning!

Land of the Midnight Sun

Yesterday evening we arrived in Oslo just in time to watch the sun set as we rode the bus from the airport to the city. At midnight. It was nice because it meant that we could see some of the scenery as we rode along. But it is unnatural and my brain can't handle it. And then it was already getting light again by 1:30 last night when we got in bed. Even now as I type it looks like late afternoon, yet it should be bedtime!

We'll post more later about our day today. It was fun, but the light thing is super weird. Also we are in pretty much constant sticker shock. At McDonalds a single burger costs $20. That's right- for 1/5 the price of our hotel room we could have a hamburger. It's insane. Otherwise Oslo is a really nice place- just, if you ever come here, pack food.

Traveling Cheap and Light

Yesterday we went nowhere and did nothing. Not strictly true- we took naps and ate food. But otherwise nothing. This evening the second half of our trip begins wherein we go from having friends to stay with to having to stay in hotels/ hostels/ B&B's/ Guesthouses. This means two things for us: we lose access to clothes washing facilities and we won't have a kitchen anymore. Here are our solutions for those two issues.

As any of you who saw our luggage know, we didn't bring much with. We knew we'd have to haul our bags with us all over the place, and I know from personal experience that suitcases on public transit are a nightmare. So we each packed a small backpack worth of stuff- which means we each have about two days worth of clothing. I actually started out with more than that but was unpleasantly surprised by how long it takes cotton shorts to dry, so we mailed them (along with the stupid dress shoes I elected to bring for who knows what reason) home. Our original intention was to wash our clothes in the sink, but through some experimentation we have found that the easiest thing to do is just to wear your clothes into the shower! The clothes we have dry overnight, so we should do fine. We'll see. So far we haven't had to deal with any real dirt or stains- just regular "I wore it all day and it's smelly" sort of dirt.

As far as food is concerned, we are cheapskates. We decided, when we found out how much this all was going to cost, that we would avoid eating out in order to save money. So far that has been easy because we have the use of full kitchens, which means we can cook and refrigerate food. Our plan going forward is to continue to eat out of the grocery store, but we'll have to find foods that don't need to be cooked. We've got a back of muesli (it's like a breakfast cereal with oats and seeds and nuts and dried fruit) and we figure we can buy yogurt as we go (it's cheap!). We also just found out that the IKEA in Oslo sells cheap meals and has a free bus to take you there! Whoo! We'll supplement with cheese, maybe some smoked meats, baby carrots, etc. We'll also get a full breakfast in some of the places we're staying. We'll see how long we can last before we just give in and go to McDonalds!

Mercedes Benz luxury concrete truck

I've never had aspirations for owning a Mercedes, but living in the US I've had a firm impression of them as a luxury brand, and would assume that all their cars or other vehicles are much more expensive than your typical mainstream Toyota Camry, etc. That, however, seems to be a story made for US consumption. Or, maybe German concrete truck drivers are payed A LOT more than in the US? For the record, I've also seen a lot of delivery vehicles and some dump trucks with Mercedes logos.

Today is our last day in Germany. It's raining so we'll probably spend most of it packing and cleaning. Next stop: O$lo, Norway (said to be the most expensive city in Europe, but we didn't know that when we booked cheap flights there)!

Mugglesee

Yesterday we went for a day hike around a lake called the Mugglesee. It's surprising how much green space there is in Berlin. From the center of the city you can ride the train for thirty minutes in pretty much any direction and wind up at the forest. I think that makes this a really livable city.

We took the train to a town called Friedrichshagen. Then we walked down the main street of Friedrichshagen, admiring all of the little shops, and stopping of course at one of about ten bakeries for some bread and a jelly doughnut. It was a good thing we did as we were sort of short on food for this adventure- we forgot to buy bread for sandwiches the day before.

At the end of main street we arrived at the mouth of a tunnel- it is pictured on the left. We emerged on the other side of the tunnel in the picture on the right. We felt as though we had gone through the wardrobe

and found ourselves in an enchanted forest. Granted, it was a humid, mosquito ridden forest but still really lovely.

We walked for several hours along the shore of the lake. It looked really inviting, especially when the temperatures started to climb, and it would not have taken much convincing to get me to jump in. There were people boating on the lake and swimming and lying in the sun on the shore. It reminded me a lot of Laurel Lake on a weekend only a lot bigger.

Finally we turned around and headed back the way we had come. We were sort of hoping to find some sort of bratwurst or something for lunch when we went back through town, but we discovered that everything closes early on Saturday (like at 1pm!). Oh well. We got back on the train, made a slight detour to the grocery store for bread, then came home. Today we're taking it a little easy, but we'll probably go for a hike in the forest near here a little later.

A walk through east berlin

After enjoying our unintended east german architecture tour in Postdam, I decided to actively seek out some of east berlin's architectural horrors (to quote our guide book, loosely).

The area we went though was heavily damaged in WW2, and almost all the building were constructed by the DDR, most of which were huge housing complexes. It was described in the tour book as not worth the long and boring walk; they advised us to hop on the subway to skip to a more interesting part of town further along the street.Some of it was actually quite nice, such as the tree lined sidewalk show here.

 There were also a lot of fountains, some more aesthetically pleasing than others. We also saw lots and lots of DDR housing. Huge, almost identical buildings lined the road. Apparently they manufactured them in factories and then assembled them one after another, on site. I think we must have walked 10 minutes without seeing more than one style of building. For once, my camera got a break: one picture was enough! Eventually we got to the subway stop where our guidebook said the architecture got more interesting. Guess what: modern with a light neoclassical facade. Bleh. The part we were advised to skip was much more interesting, if you ask me. Architecture is all about fads, I suspect.  All in all a very interesting morning walk. Here are a few choice photos.

We saw this building 10 or so times on our walk. 

We saw a photo of 'this' building in a museum later, though now I suspect that there were multiple instances of it spread across Berlin. I find this one quite pleasing to look at, in truth. The background is another one of the tile mosaics.

An example of the more 'worthwhile' buildings our guidebook advised us to skip directly to by taking the subway. I find the fake and pointless detailing much more ugly than the (admittedly monotonousness) housing developments that preceded it.

My biggest complaint with the architecture after our morning tour was that each building was repeated over and over again. I think we saw about 4 different types of DDR housing buildings on the whole, in a couple hours of walking. I still come away appreciating the overall style, but I too would grow tired of living in the same  building style as every single one of my friends and relatives, and seeing that same building street after street. I think even the floor-plans were all the same. Can you imagine?

At the same time, it seems silly to direct the tourists away from such sites: it's a much more interesting side of Berlin than the fancy buildings with their silly detailing that has zero significance. 

East German modern architecture is the best

We borrowed a guide book from Jonathan and Flavia (our gracious hosts in Berlin). The book has been nice to have with us, pointing us to interesting sites and giving historical background info that makes the sites more memorable and enjoying.

After a few days, however, I detected a huge disconnect between the guide's view on architecture and mine. The neoclassical buildings (think domes, arches, and lots of 'frills') gets lots of praise. All the modern architecture gets derision or they skip it entirely. Much of the modern architecture here comes from the DDR (east Germany), so this could be a political thing, but I suspect many of you also dislike modern buildings (feel free to comment), even in less politically charged origins (think the UCSD campus). In Potsdam, we saw a palace (background) juxtaposed with a 2-story DDR era building (foreground). The DDR building looked in poor repair, and frankly I wonder if the plan was to tear it down in the near future. But of the two buildings I found it much more interesting than the generic dome, which we've seen all over Germany. I will admit, however, that the DDR building wasn't particularly pretty, but I would submit that the dome wasn't either.

Another DDR building we saw had a tile mosaic, which I would go so far as to call aesthetically pleasing. The rest of the building wasn't bad either, but I'll spare you the pain of viewing a fourth photo.

For those of you worried about my sanity, rest assured that Jymm, at least, does not seem to share my fascination  though she tolerates it sweetly.

A little bit of home in east berlin

I thought San Diego was famous for 'California' burritios and fish tacos. In Berlin, however, (at least) one person thinks its known for steak (and beer, to a much lesser extent). In fact, Jymm thinks German beer is much better than San Diego beer. We found this ad deep in former east Berlin, where they probably don't get many tourists to set them straight.

Bundestag

Our plan for this morning was to go for a hike. We woke up to the pitter patter of raindrops- silly San Diegans, forgetting to check the weather forecast! I figured it was a nice excuse to go back to sleep.

Later in the day we went to visit the Bundestag, the German government. It is housed in a building called the Reichstag, and on top they have this glass dome thingy that you can climb up inside. When we arrived in Berlin on Monday our host suggested that this would be a fun thing to do and also clued us in to the fact that we would have to register ourselves with the Bundestag in order to do it. Apparently they had a bomb threat or something a while ago. In any case, Alan got right on that and yesterday we got a notice that we were all set to go for this afternoon. After some excitement trying to find a printer- we had to have the letter they sent us in hand to get in the door- we were all ready.

So, this afternoon, after a nice stroll around East Berlin we headed over to the Reichstag and

arrived just in time for our appointment. First they send you through something that looks kind of like airport security except you don't have to take off your shoes. Then you join a group of

other visitors and a guide takes the lot of you up to the actual Reichstag. You go through this sort of airlock door- extra security?- and then up an elevator to the dome.

The dome is this amazing construction of steel and glass. Around the outer wall spirals a walkway that you use to get to the top of it. They give you a little ear thingy to listen to as you walk and it tells you about the buildings you can see when you look out over Berlin. I probably would have enjoyed this part more if I weren't as afraid of heights as I am. But it was still pretty cool. At the top there is a hole in the roof which is supposed to ventilate the "plenary chamber" below where the parliament meets. It's pretty cool- the ceiling of the plenary chamber is also glass so you can look down as you are walking up the spiral and see into where they are doing all of the lawmaking stuff. At least, Alan said it was cool- I couldn't make myself look over the edge for love or money.

It was a cool chance to learn a little about the German government and also see a really nifty piece of contemporary German architecture. I think, actually, that it would have been awesome to do it the first or second day here because the little ear thingy did a really good job of

explaining what the different buildings around central Berlin are and a little of their history. So, in the case that any of you ever come to Berlin go to the Bundestag website and register beforehand so you can go to the dome.

Can you spot the Alan in this picture?

Potsdam

This morning we dragged ourselves out of bed early so that we could get a jump on the day. We then proceeded to take two hours to get ourselves out of the house, so...maybe tomorrow we'll just sleep in. In any case, we took the bus to a little train station called Grunewald (Green Forest) that looked like a military bunker inside. Then we took the train out to Potsdam, which is a little town about 45 min (by train) out of Berlin. The town was once the summer residence of German royalty, so I wanted to go primarily because I thought we might see a palace.

When we arrived in Potsdam we immediately got ourselves turned in the wrong direction- we saw a group of people heading off and figured they must be going the same way we wanted to. Just for future reference, this is not a valid way to navigate. After we managed to get turned in the right direction, our first view of the old city center of Potsdam was...well, as you can see in the picture, the buildings are impressive, but there is a ton of construction going on right at the entrance to the city, which is maybe less impressive. According to the guidebook they are constructing a building to house the government of Potsdam on the site of a former palace, which was torn down by the Soviets.

Despite our misgivings we persisted and eventually found ourselves in a pretty shopping district with lots of those little bakeries that Alan is so fond of, and tons of other fun shops. There was one store with an entire wall of different kinds of tea! It actually reminded me a lot of

Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island. We found a fruit market, and a cathedral, but no palace(there are several of them there, so I guess we just weren't looking hard enough!). The architecture was an interesting mix of 18th century neoclassical and 1950's Soviet concrete block. It was fun to walk around and I walked in to a bakery and ordered myself a jelly doughnut in German. It was delicious, and also the first time a shopkeeper has understood what I was asking for the first time I asked. Interesting tidbit: as many Americans know, the jelly doughnut is known as a Berliner in most of Germany- however, in Berlin it is called a pfannkuchen.

Finally it got too hot and we jumped back on the train and came home. The day sort of fizzled after that- the only thing we really accomplished this evening was a shopping trip to H&M.