Europe in a day

So, after spending almost 8 months on the road, I've become rather skilled at traveling efficiently/quickly. In fact, I've perfected my travel techniques to the point that I was able to see almost all of Europe's major sites in a single day! Actually, a half-day. Don't believe me? I've got photographic proof!

well, I can see Amsterdam now, so no need to visit it next. . .

leaning tower of Pisa!

one of my favorites: the Széchenyi baths in Budapest. Look closely, and they even have the locals playing chess in the baths, just like the photo I took (bottom of the post)

the Acropolis. . . again? Wasn't I just there?

Venice!

the Berlin wall - guess I can cross Berlin off my list of "places I missed on my trip and need to visit another time." Sweet!

returning to Prague and its cool astronomical clock

hanging out in Paris with the Eiffel tower. What's that? You don't remember a giant Atom-like building in Paris? Ummm, well, it's new. . .

hanging out in the land of waffles, chocolate, and beer

So, after a very fun, but slightly longer than expected stay in Bonn (courtesy of Belgium having a one-day rail strike the day I was supposed to travel), I headed over to Brussels. There I met up with my friend Mark, who's spending the year there doing nerdy math things. It was great to see Mark and catch up on all that had happened since we last saw each other. . . ummm, 2 weeks earlier at Oktoberfest. Ok, so, not a lot of catching up to do. Still, it was good to hang out, drink some delicious Belgian beer, and lose a few games of Backgammon.

While Mark was at work I wandered around Brussels. Gotta say, I'm a pretty big fan. They've got a great old city, and lots of interesting museums (one surprise hit was the Musical Instrument Museum where you don these headphones and when you enter a specified area you hear a sample of the displayed instrument - pretty cool). They they also have delicious waffles, fries, and beer (which I mentioned before, but it bears repeating). Oh, and they also have a model of an Iron atom magnified 165 billion times. Good stuff.

Anyways, on to the pictures - enjoy!

hanging out with Mark at the Delirium bar - a very cool bar which has about a bazillion beers, including Delirium Tremens on tap. Fun fact: Belgian strong ales have a lot of alcohol in 'em (about 9%). To be that strong, they need lots of sugar for the fermentation, which means that they are delicious.

me at the Atomium, this crazy building built for the 1958 Brussels world's fair. It is designed to look like an iron atom, magnified 165 billion times. Inside they have a restaurant, a panaroma-view, and lots of exhibits about the world's fair. I liked the part where they talked about the cold-war tensions visible in the American and Soviet Union display areas. . .

artsy shot of the atomium

cool shot of late-afternoon light hitting the cathedral at Brussel's Grand Place

another artsy shot of the cathedral at Brussel's Grand Place

now THAT'S a big guitar!

Brussels is well-known for their waffles (as well as beer, chocolate, and fries). In case you happened to be in an area with no waffle stores, these mobile waffle trucks were there to save the day!

me and a somewhat scandalous but wildly popular statue, the Manneken Pis

what I believe are two pieces of the berlin wall

during my wanderings I happened upon this cool car museum with a bunch of awesome old cars. I'll take the 1927 Ford, please!

Stray reunion in Germany

So, as you may have noticed (and I believe I have mentioned), my trip through Europe has been all about hanging out with friends. I met up with several friends from home (Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland with Marla and Elisa, Oktoberfest with Mark and Justin, and Austria and Greece with Justin. However, I've also had the chance to meet up with some people I've met at earlier parts in my travels. In Munich I hung out with Philipp and Martin, two guys I met on my Stray bus trip in new Zealand. And then, after my trip to Greece, I returned to Germany to visit Coca, another friend from my bus trip.

It was a great visit. We went to a wine festival, hiked through some very nice trails in Bonn, laughed at my inability to pronounce German names (ok, well, only one of us was laughing), and even made it to an amusement park! Well, I'll let the pictures do the talking for me:

cool cathedral in Bonn

wine country! We ended up at a wine festival in an old-west saloon (with confederate flags and everything, kind of strange). But we got to have this special young wine which hadn't fully fermented yet, so was extra-sweet, but not as strong. It was good, but apparently if you have more than a few glasses it messes with your stomach.

enjoying a nice hike through wine-country. Well, at least it was nice when it wasn't raining on us. . .

one night we went to a birthday party being held in a German fraternity. Fact: German frats are a lot fancier / cleaner / better-smelling than their American counterparts. This one even had a museum-style display room of old uniforms (pictured).

water-gun fun at Phantasialand

my favorite rollercoaster (fear and force) at Phantasialand. I got an amazing (and absolutely hilarious) picture of me and Coca on the rollercoaster with a certain someone screaming her head off, but was threatened with severe bodily harm if I posted it, so this one will have to do. . .

I passed this sculpture on my morning run, so I snapped a pic. I learned long ago to always take my camera with me, 'cause whenever I don't bring it I miss something awesome (like yesterday, when I ignored my own advice, left my camera at the hostel, and missed a very cool rainbow).

cooking up a delicious baked-tortellini meal. As usually, I was relegated to "vegetable chopper", a position I have held for almost a decade . . . (If I had been the one cooking that would probably be smoke in the picture, rather than steam)

island life's the life for me!

After 4 days in Athens, Justin left to return to the real world (sucker!) and I then took a ferry to the Greek Islands. While several islands had been enthusiastically recommended to me, I was informed by the people at my hostel that almost all of the islands I'd been recommended were basically ghost towns now, since it was the end of the season and almost all the shops had closed. So, I ended up at Santorini, one of the ones that was less reliant on the party scene, so still had some life left.

I ended up getting along very well with the other guys in my hostel, and we hung out and explored the island over the next few days. One day we went on a day-long boat tour where we got to climb up the youngest island in the Mediterranean (something like 450 years old), went swimming in some hot springs (which were more like "lukewarm springs", but still cool), and ended up in Oia (the town with the white buildings, windmills, and blue-roofed churches which most people associate with Greece) for the sunset.

The next day we rented Mopeds/ATVs and did a tour of local beaches. I had also intended to go scuba diving, but bad weather (rough surf) ended up forcing the dive to be canceled. Oh well, guess I'll just have to come back! All in all, it was a great few days. Very nice to just chill for a bit, and an island is certainly a good location for that. From what we saw, with all that the island had to offer even when it was half closed, it must be insane when operating at full capacity in the summer. I'd definitely recommend a visit!

I'm on a boat!

the famed cityscape of Oia, Santorini. Note all the white buildings, and blue-roofed churches

another Oia view, this time of the area with windmills

life in Santorini: beach and a kindle. Life is good

one really weird thing I noticed here - there are TONS of snails! Never seen anything like it before.

artsy shot of a classic Greek house in the late evening

cool erosion patterns at one of Santorini's beaches

I was amused to see this bag of Pumice stones selling at the grocery store for 25 euros. If you drove about 2 miles, you'd get to a beach which has thousands of 'em! I wonder how many people buy these anyways? And I wonder if they'd be interested in sand as well. . . this could be my million-dollar idea!!!

another artsy shot - grapes

at the goodbye dinner with the guys from my hostel

mountains, ruins, and lots of olives

After Oktoberfest, Mark returned to math-land, and Justin and I fled the city for the peace and quiet of Innsbruck, Austria. Specifically, we were there to hike, and hike we did! Despite some ominous-looking weather, we picked a gondola station (Seegrube) high up on one of the peaks surrounding Innsbruck, and headed for it. While it was a steep and difficult path (which apparently suicidal mountain bikers would bomb down), we made it up, and were rewarded with a great view before the clouds rolled in on us. We then hiked back down, very thankful that the bad weather which had been forecast never really materialized - we only had about 30 minutes' worth of light rain, and about 15 minutes in a cloud. Not bad at all.

Now that the hike was done, it was time to return to Munich where we'd catch a flight to our next destination, Greece!! Over the next few days we explored all the cool ruins in Athens (most notably the Acropolis), and took a day-trip to nearby Corinth and Nafplio. In the evenings we'd head to our hostel's roof deck where we'd hang out with fellow traveler's, and enjoy the awesome view of the Acropolis from the deck. Not a bad way to spend a week!


Pictures below: enjoy!

the view from our hotel in Innsbruck, Austria. Not bad, eh?

view from our hike - a gondola to the peak disappears into the clouds

view of Innsbruck from above

well, I can't exactly have a blog entry about Athens without including a picture of the Parthenon. . .

I wasn't joking when I mentioned "lots of olives" in the title - they were everywhere! We did sample a few (ok, I didn't but Justin did), and they weren't so tasty, though. Probably weren't ripe. Or we were confused and they were actually highly poisonous berries which looked like olives. Well, as far as I know Justin's still alive, so I guess no harm done. . . (update: apparently all raw olives taste gross. They need to be cured before they taste good. Credit: Mixer)

cool view from a hole in the wall at Palamadis castle during our Nafplio day trip

run for your life, it's Godzilla!! And, ummm, his giant bottle of water! I randomly encountered this scene at a tourist trap outside the castle and couldn't resist. . .

cool fortified island off the shore of Nafplio

cool statue. One of the bajillion statues in Athens.

artsy shot - the Greek flag flies proudly over a church steeple

another artsy shot - dogs in the window. Random Athens fun-fact. While these dogs clearly have a home, there are a ton of street dogs in Athens. But apparently it's the government's job to look after them, so they all have collars, and are well fed. They're also quite well behaved. So almost anywhere you go in Athens (the ruins, Syntagma square, the welcome mat at our hostel) you'll see a big street dog (or three) fast asleep. Random!

the Parthenon lit up at night, as viewed from the rooftop bar at our hostel. Pretty damn cool.

Oktoberfest!!!

After a great week and a half of traveling with Marla and Elisa they left (all good things must come to an end), and I went to Lindau Germany, a small town in Germany which is right next to a lake (in fact, about half of it is on an island). It was the perfect place to rest and relax for a few days, which is exactly what I needed, since the next stop on my list was Oktoberfest!!

After 3 days in Lindau, I took the train into Munich on Friday (Oct 1). There I met up with Philipp, a friend I met on my New Zealand trip who lives in Munich. Since I wanted to take this night easy (and we didn't think we'd have any chance of getting into the beer tents), we went down just to wander around and give me a first glimpse at what to expect the next day. I was amazed by what I saw - Oktoberfest is more than just beer tents, it's basically a giant fair. It has tons of rides, carnival games, and course lots and lots of food. After wandering around a bit and taking the requisite night pictures of Oktoberfest, we headed back.

The next morning I was up nice and early to meet Justin, a friend from college and former roommate in DC who flew in that morning. We met up with his school friend Annette (who spoke German, a very nice bonus) and headed off to Oktoberfest. By now it was 11am on the last Saturday of Oktoberfest, which meant that all the beer tents were already full. After waiting in line for 3 hours (!!!!) we were still a long way from getting in. Luckily, another of Justin's friend had a reserved table and was able to sneak us in using some wristband skulldudgery. We were then joined shortly thereafter by Mark (another friend from school whose flight got in a bit later). We spent the day in the tent eating, drinking, and enjoying the Oktoberfest atmosphere. We ended the night with dinner and a run through a fountain (seemed like a good day at the time).

For our second day we were determined to avoid being stuck in line, so we got to the tent nice and early. This time we got in without incident, before the lines had formed. And what a great day it was. Highlights included:

• cheering on all the crazy people in the first tent who would get up and chug a whole 1-liter beer. One guy chugged 2 liters in a row. That was NOT a pretty sight 30 seconds after he finished (don't try this at home!!)
  
• chowing down on giant pretzels, sausage, gingerbread, and more
  
• a mid-day break to ride the rides, including the requisite trip to the Ferris Wheel to get a bird's eye view of the festivities
  
• singing "Sweet Caroline" along with 2,000 of our new best friends at the top of our lungs
  
• me getting bumped off of the bench I was standing on and nearly face-planting onto the table before catching myself with one arm in a wild display of acrobatics

Suffice to say, we had a great weekend. And since we ended it with the same number of people we started it with, I'd consider it a rousing success!!

But, don't just take my word for it - check out the pics:

welcome to Oktoberfest!!!

enjoying a mini-college reunion in Munich

Giant beer? Check. Giant pretzel? Check. Cross that off the Oktoberfest must-do list!

for some reason Justin doesn't seem to appreciate the "pretty princess" gingerbread heart we bought him. What an ingrate!

the aforementioned gingerbread heart meets an untimely demise

Oktoberfest birds-eye (well, ferris-wheel-eye) view. As you can see, a couple other people got the memo about attending Oktoberfest. . .

Mark, Justin, and I compete in the who-can-hold-a-full-stein-at-arm's-length-longest game

inside one of the beer tents

one of the great things about Oktoberfest is celebrating with the new people around you. Here I am having a blast with my new best-friend-for-two-hours.

Oktoberfest by night