Salzburg: Where Mozart meets the Sound of Music

We almost skipped right over Austria.  That wasn't going to fly with me.  Not without seeing either Vienna or Salzburg.  I wanted to see both cities, but as time was limited, I was forced to pick one.  I chose Salzburg; not only because of the movie, "Sound of Music", but my good friend Corine had recommended it, so why not?

Salzburg is really a pretty city.  The old part of town is where tourists flock to, to buy the famous Mozart chocolates.  We had time to walk around after we unpacked; first to the famous Sacher Hotel to grab a tasty meal.  I had the famous Weiner Schnitzel, while Alex got the "Salzburger".  Even though it was really good, I felt a stab of guilt eating veal.  And for dessert, I got the famous Sacher Torte, a yummy chocolate cake with a side of whipped cream.  The wonderful thing about this dish was that the whipped cream didn't have any sugar in it, so it just added a creamy taste to the cake.  If it were the US, the sweet whipped cream would completely overpower the chocolate cake.  Maybe Americans can cut back on sugar intake by following some Austrian examples.

I decided to book a tour for the one full day that we had in Salzburg; a Sound of Music tour, to Alex's dismay.  I thought it would be an appropriate tour because the movie seemed to include a lot of beautiful sceneries of Salzburg, and that's what I wanted to see.  Unfortunately, the tour seemed to be for the real fanatics of the movie; ones who didn't mind singing on the tour bus.  Yes, they played all the songs from the movie and most of the people on the bus sang along (it got to be a little too much for me).  But they did take us to different locations where the movie was shot, which was pretty interesting, and we learned some trivia about the making of the movie.

The rest of the day, we spent walking around the old part of town, shopping for Mozart chocolates and snapping pictures of places of interests (like the house Mozart lived in).  We parted with Salzburg, and made our way towards Munich.

"Czech"-ing out Prague

The train to Prague from Berlin was a terrible one; the air conditioning didn't seem to work...at all.  Not only was it hot, but the bathrooms were not clean, and they had no water/soap!  But in the end, we made it to Prague.  We arrived at our hostel sometime in the afternoon, we had some time to roam around the neighborhood.  We grabbed a quick dinner at a local Italian restaurant and took the metro into the city to take some night shots.

Since we only had two full days in Prague, we opted to take the "Ultimate Walking Tour" of the city - 6 hours of walking with a guide, with lunch and a boat tour included.  This way, we had one day to dedicate ourselves to shopping and walking around on our own.  Our guide was so informative, and with a city of Prague with it's  rich culture and history, it's hard to get bored.  We climbed up to the castle, where we had a spectacular view of the city.

For lunch, I got a traditional Czech Goulash (with beer, of course).  It was so good!!

Here's an interesting fact: most inhabitants of the city are not religious, but Prague is filled with cathedrals.  So what can you do to raise money to restore and maintain these buildings?  Easy, you hold classical music concerts in them.  The setting is near perfect, the city gets enough tourists who are interested, and it's probably cheaper than seeing the Czech Philharmonic (although quality doesn't compare, I'm sure).  While Alex headed back to the hostel to process his dear photos, I stuck around to catch a performance in one of the churches.  It wasn't the greatest performance, but it sure was something different.

The next day, we went to catch a glimpse of something different in Prague.  Some know it as the Dancing house.  Some know it as Fred & Ginger.  Some know it as the Frank Gehry building in Prague.  Some love it.  Some hate it.  The rest of the day was dedicated to walking around at our own pace, snapping photographs and peering into souvenir shops.

At least we didn't have to resort to sleeping in the train stations...yet.  We left Prague at the crack of dawn to catch an early train to Salzburg; arriving at the main train station of Prague, we were confronted with a row of sleeping bags.  At exactly 6 am, security officers came around and woke everyone up.  I guess it was nice of them to let these youngsters sleep under a roof, rather than out in the streets.

Berlin: The City No Longer Divided

We were greeted by a week of heat wave in Berlin; hot was an understatement.  We would go walk around, come back, and take a cold shower so that we wouldn’t pass out from heat exhaustion.  All the grasses were dried out due to the drought they were experiencing.  But of course, this didn’t stop us from seeing what Berlin had to offer. 

The first day was dedicated to seeing the Berlin Wall, or what was left of it.  It's really incredible to imagine what this particular city has gone through within the past 30 years.  The area around the memorial dedicated to the pieces of the walls were dead quiet, and the heat seemed to make the silence even louder.  Most of the visitors whispered, as if attending a solemn funeral (an appropriate gesture, since precious lives were lost in that particular location).  They had preserved a portion of the walls, with 'no-man's land' between the East and West wall.  There was a tower we could climb to peer into the forbidden piece of property.

After we returned to our hostel, we ventured out to catch the final of the World Cup on one of the main streets of Berlin.  We had arranged it so that we would be in Berlin for the final because we thought Germany would make it to the finals; you can imagine our disappointment when Spain beat Germany.  Despite our disappointments, it was pretty cool to catch the World Cup in Europe; the soccer capital of the world.

The next day, we took the train out to Potsdam, to see...actually, Alex was more excited to see Potsdam.  I was excited about the Cola ice pops because it was another hot day.  We took a tour bus to see all the major attractions, including Sanssouci.  On a scorching day like that, we could only do so much during the day; we were exhausted by 3pm, so we headed back to the hostel for a cold shower.

Next few days in Berlin were spent walking around in the heat, seeing all the sights in walking distance from the main train station in Berlin.  There's the Bauhaus Archives, with a collection of works by students and professors at the infamous school started by Walter Gropius (first photo below).  There was the National Gallery designed by Mies Van Der Rohe (second photo below).  The Jewish Musem by Daniel Libeskind.  Reichstag with an interior renovation by Norman Foster, including the dome (third photo below).  Altes Museum by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (fourth photo) and the famous Brandenburg Gate (last photo).  I'm not putting up any pictures from the Jewish Museum for my blog because they just didn't come out so great; it's hard to capture the 'it' of the building from the street views, and after going through a security check equivalent to that of an airport, I was kind of exhausted.  The building itself seems to work in theory and concept, but I can't really say it works realistically.

When it came to food in Germany, beer and sausages aren't the only ones popular.  Apparently, there is a huge community of Turkish people, and Donner Kebab has rooted itself into the culinary history of Germany. They are cheap, convenient, probably healthier than McDonalds, and very tasty.

Our hostel was sort of unusual too.  It wasn't exactly a hostel per say.  A nice lady had converted her apartment into a hostel like environment, where she rented out a couple of rooms to travelers.  The result is a very cozy and welcoming environment.  If ever in Berlin, I can recommend "Comfy Little Corner".  It was clean, affordable, near transportation and we were always in very good company of the staff and fellow travelers.  Unfortunately, I failed to take a picture of the lovely place; hopefully I can plan another trip to Berlin so I can go back to Comfy Little Corner to snap a photo for keepsake.

And I leave you with what was apparently the model of "Sauron's Eye" in Tolkien's famous "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.  The masterpiece was written as the Second World War was breaking out, and we were told by our hostel owner that this TV Tower was the inspiration for the 'Eye of Mordor'.  If it's true or not, I don't know for sure.

Stockholm Syndrome

I’ve come to the conclusion that Swedish food is salty.  This is a poor speculation based on the two occasions we had to resort to eating fast food during our trip in Sweden.  First time was when we were stranded at a bus terminal in Sweden on the way to Oslo.  Second time was for a train transfer from Oslo on the way to Stockholm.  We ate at a McDonalds on both occasions, and on both occasions the fries were covered in salt.  Covered.  I’m not sure if Swedish food is known for saltiness but I will let you know that their fast food fries are.

I was a bit curious and excited about Stockholm because according to some quiz I took years ago titled “Which city should you live in?” I was told that Stockholm was my best match.  Of course, the quiz was on facebook and one can only question the credibility of these quizzes.  But I was curious. 

Stockholm turned out to be a beautiful city on the water with a more traditional architectural skyline.  The city itself is a cluster of islands, with archipelagos not too far from the city center.  The Gamla Stan, the old city center, is an island where traditional buildings thrive for tourists.  It reminded me of Burge; a pretty place to go shopping.

There are modern buildings in Stockholm.  Just not on the island of Gamla Stan.  There was the Sky Dome, for example, on another island south of our hostel.

And when one speaks of Sweden, the first thing that pops up is the big blue box with the yellow sign; IKEA.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go see the biggest IKEA in the world.  We did make it to the Vasa museum; a museum dedicated to a wooden ship that was at the bottom of the harbor for 300 years.  Pretty impressive, right?  It seems so, until you find out that the ship only made it about 1500 meters before it sank into the harbor.  A huge failure, probably due to all the ornamentation that the king called for (less is more).  After it sank and after many failed attempts to salvage the ship, it was forgotten for 300 years until recently.  I guess the impressive part of the museum is how they salvaged the ship; the pollution in the water and the lack of salinity of the harbor in Stockholm preserved most of the ship in its original condition.

From Stockholm, we had an all day ordeal getting into Berlin.  We had to take the train from Stockholm back to Copenhagen, then from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Germany.  And then from Hamburg to Berlin.  This whole trip took over 12 hours; we caught the train from Stockholm around 8 am, and we arrived at our hostel in Berlin at midnight.  But at least we made it.  

The Norwegian Affairs

Norway was always a country eagerly visited by my fellow Japanese tourists; for fresh seafood that it's famous for.  'The cold waters of Scandinavia tightens the meat on fishes like salmon, making it absolutely delicious', I read in a Japanese tourism book for Scandinavian countries.  Many of my close friends and family members know that I am not the biggest fan when it comes to culinary arts in the seafood department.  I'm a black sheep of half of my culture because I can't stand the very smell of raw seafood; sushi.  I gag at the taste and smell of raw fish.  I cringe at the fresh fish market, hold my nose and run for a safe haven.  You get the point.  The point being I was not going to Norway for the sake of culinary enlightenment.  To be honest, I didn't know what to expect in Oslo, the capital of Norway.  I made the mistake of thinking "Moomin" was a Norwegian creation; it's not.  We had heard rumors about Oslo being one of the most expensive cities.  And that it was abundant with daylight.


The trip to Oslo was not a simple one.  We left Copenhagen by train into Sweden, took a bus to catch a train that would have taken us to Oslo.  Unfortunately, the bus arrived at the train station 20 minutes late, and the train that left had been the last train to Oslo for the day.  After a lengthy conversation with the station master, we were told to take a bus to another bus terminal, where we could catch another bus to Oslo.  We had no Scandinavian currency with us, but we were told that our rail passes would cover for the cost of the bus tickets.  At some point in evening, I was ready to accept the fact that we would need to camp out at the bus terminal if the bus driver didn't recognize our rail passes.  Fortunately, the bus driver recognized the rail passes and let us on the bus to Oslo.  We arrived around midnight.


Oslo is a city mixed with old and new architecture; right near the central train station is the brand new Opera house, whose access to the roof is open to the public.  It's an architectural and tourism icon all in one; more people have been on the top of the roof than inside the building.  But it's also beautiful inside as it is outside.

One of the days, we booked a day tour to see the Fjords, a must-see natural landscape in Norway.  The train ride out to the country was 5 hours, plus another 1 hour train ride to go down the steep mountains.  A ferry terminal waited for us after our long train ride to take us through the narrow cliffs of the fjord.

What was unbelievable was the temperature difference.  It was cold.  Alex and I prepared ourselves and had bought sweaters and wind-proof jackets, but it was still cold.  The occasional rain and constant wind didn't help either.  

The fjords were absolutely gorgeous.  The water was a dark emerald green and the landscapes rich with deciduous green.  Some fjords had patches of snow, waiting to be melted, down a waterfall off the cliffs.  There were tiny towns spotted along the banks of the water; aside from 1 or 2 of the larger towns, most of these towns consisted only of 4 or 5 houses.

After the tour, we got back on a bus that took us to a train station, and it was another 5 hour train ride back to Oslo.  Needless to say, we were pooped.

The only Norwegian dish I was able to try was Svineribbe, a pork dish that it typically eaten around Christmas time.  It came with pickled cabbage and beets and pumpernickel bread.  I'm not a big fan of pork, but it was either that or seafood, which I didn't have much tolerance for that day.  It was tasty, a bit greasy (because its pork).

The rest of the time in Oslo were spent walking around, visiting museums of all kinds, including the Viking ship museum, and enjoying the beautiful weather on the waterfronts of Norway.  The summer time is an ideal place for vacationers, but I am curious as to how cold it gets in the winter.

KBH

Kobenhavn; also known as Copenhagen.  I’ve already written about my emergency fiasco with the hospital.  I ended up sleeping in until or past noon that day; it was a day of recovery.  My sore throat was gone, the sun was out and I was feeling great.  We took our sweet time getting ready to venture out into the city, as there was still an abundance of time of daylight still left in the day.

Copenhagen is a clean city; the water from the harbors is so clean, it’s safe to swim in it.  There are designated swimming areas where the children swim and the youth/adults tan on the grass.  I’m not sure about the quality of air, but I’m wondering if the cleanliness of the city had anything to do with my speedy recovery from my cold.  If that were the case, I need to leave NY ASAP.  Similar to Holland, everybody bikes everywhere.  There are bike lanes on both side of the street usually, with vehicular traffic taking up the middle of the road.  It’s definitely nicer to have designated bicycle lanes; you don’t have to worry about being run over by a bicycle on the sidewalk. 

We walked around Copenhagen relaxingly, looking into different stores and shops, visiting museums, architecture centers, and taking a canal tour.  We had great weather for the time we were there, but were told that it could get very depressing in the winter time. 

The traditional Danish food is the open sandwich.  It seemed like an over sized orderve; meat or vegetable placed on a piece of bread, to be eaten, oddly enough, with a fork and a knife.  It was edible and certainly tasty, but I wasn’t too impressed with them.  There’s also the Danish pastry, which we enjoyed pretty much every morning/afternoon as our first meal of the day. 

We were recommended by a friend to try a drink made from Elderflower.  In most cases, it’s called Elderflower juice.  I accidentally bought a concentrate of it, which had to be diluted with water at about 4:1 ratio.  Let me tell you, it’s absolutely delicious.  It’s sweet and refreshing on a hot day, and I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like it anywhere.  Even in Japan. (The picture below is a soda version, that I bought from a 7-11, which is everywhere).

One of the days, we took a train out to the outskirts of town to see some development housing by the former architecture firm PLOT.  As this area was just coming together as a community, it reminded me of the area I grew up in Tokyo.  The housings were really cool, but I bet they are very expensive to own/rent.  Aside from all the cool housing, I can’t get over the whole cycling community outside of the US.  And I mean cycling as in everyone and their mom riding their bicycles to get to everyday destinations. The only people you see riding bicycles in the US are kids, who aren’t old enough to drive and people who can’t afford to buy a car.  It is absolutely amazing to see the number of kids, youth, and adults ride their bikes to just about anywhere.  I wish the US would pick up on these healthy habits, but of course that would never happen in a country dominated by auto-mobilization. 

We left Copenhagen, sun-kissed and warm.  I found a creative way to document all of the different currencies of Europe in my sketchbook, so the long train rides aren't as boring (not originally my idea).

Miniature Wonderland

After many transfers and hours on the train, we made it to Hamburg, Germany.  Truth be told, the only reason we were in Hamburg was to go see the “Miniature Wunderland”, a permanent display of model trains and sceneries from around the world.  The story was that two brothers won the lottery and decided to spend their winnings on creating this miniature ‘wonderland’.  Alex is a huge fan of these things, and I myself am no stranger to these trains; my dad and my uncle loves trains, which has caused many fights in the past. 

I’ve been to a couple of these ‘train shows’ with Alex in the past.  I was a bit worried for my sanity because Alex can spend an entire day at these events, just watching trains go by.  I’ll stick around, see each display maybe once or twice, but could never do a whole day.  I’d just get bored.  I guess it’s the equivalent of a department store for women; while women shop, men sit and wait.  At train shows, it’s the women doing the sitting and waiting.  I was, however, a bit optimistic as this was supposed to be the largest model train display in the world, and there would be enough things for me to look at, long enough to keep me sane.

Even though I wasn’t a big fan of model trains, I was impressed at the level of details and thought that went into these displays.  First of all, the display is huge.  It takes up about 2~3 floors altogether.  They have sceneries mimicking different parts of the world; United States, Scandinavian countries, neighboring European countries and the city of Hamburg itself.  And they’re still not done.  Apparently, there would be more countries added to their collection of displays, with everything planned to be completed in 2014.  It was quite impressive.  In one section, they actually used real water in the display!  They can control it to mimic the tide, and they had a remote control operated boat in it as well!!

Along with the trains moving, they also had cars and trucks moving.  They could mimic traffic jams on certain streets.  Sometimes, a ‘fire’ would break out in a building (the interior of the building would glow orange-red) and the fire trucks would drive from the fire stations with their sirens blaring.

After every couple of minutes, it would become ‘night’, where the lights were dimmed to mimic the sun setting to eventually darkness and all the buildings were lit up magnificently.  There were special buttons placed around the display that viewers could press to start up some mechanism; a button to start the gondolas in ski resorts, or the rides at festivals.  The kids loved it, and so did the adults.  We took in every little detail they had to offer for six and a half hours.  I had to go sit and wait for a bit, as I got a little fatigued from standing for so long.  But if you’re a fan of the model trains, you’re bound to be blown away by these displays.