It turned out to be really hard to upload pictures while traveling, and since Julie and I never really slowed down, per se, it wasn't a process we invested much time in figuring out.
However, I have no excuse anymore. Here are the four publicly viewable Facebook albums that I have crafted:
Max and Julie's Trip to Europe:
http://oregonstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2109771&l=e93c7&id=19700046
Max and Julie's Revenge of the Trip:
http://oregonstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110011&l=9c8cc&id=19700046
Max and Julie's Return of the Trip:
http://oregonstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111957&l=dff99&id=19700046
The Thrilling Conclusion of Max and Julie's Trip to Europe:
http://oregonstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111967&l=993d3&id=19700046
Thanks so much for reading the blog. I hope these pictures are entertaining!
max
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
German food
Travel is hectic. There's just no way around it. Especially when you're travelling at the breakneck pace of a city per every three days. However, it means we get to see a lot of different food, and in so doing I've learned a lot about European (and German specifically) food. I've prepared all of the fine raw information, seasoned it to taste, and put it in the information oven, set to 375 F, 150 Celsius.
1: If at first you don't succeed at finding the tour book's promised little German eatery, staffed only by the loving patriarch of an ancient family line and overlooking their own personal stretch of the Elbe, well, there's always Döner.
What is Döner? This isn't entirely clear to me. It's a huge hock of delicious, spiced meat suspended vertically by one of the shiftiest looking heaters I've ever seen. Imagine the blinds of a window. Now imagine that they're made of metal and simultaneously on fire. And next to a rotating hunk of meat that can lure a grown man and woman three blocks.
Döner kind of tastes like beef, and since it's so hard to find those quaint and inexpensive German eateries, it's been a consistent supply of protein and vegetables from the handful or so they graciously throw on there.
Oh, and it's not necessarily a single thing either. I've ordered Döner and gotten a pizza before. That was in Köln, in the morning, on Christmas Eve. And since it was the morning (and maybe because it was Christmas Eve) they cracked and fried an egg on my vegetarian pizza, which was nice of them, unless I were vegan.
2. When you do find those quaint German establishments, be sure that you understand what you're ordering. Or rather, what you're not ordering. Those silly Germans aren't so much into side dishes, so don't be surprised when all you get is a sausage simmering in a bowl of hot water with some breads. When I looked back at the menu, I realized that was exactly what I had ordered, but I don't know, I expected a potato salad for some reason. Or maybe some sauerbraten. In retrospect, I was really grateful for the plate. After all, I hadn't specifically ordered it, and I don't know how I could have cut the sausage in that pot of boiling water. It probably would have looked really funny to everyone but me as I slipped around the sausage and stabbed at the water and splashed myself with scalding sausage water.
3. This doesn't so much relate to food, but pub crawls are fun. However, so is not destroying your urinary tract. In fact, if you decide to relieve yourself at the wrong time, you may get lost. And if you get lost in Berlin on New Year's Eve, it is at first a humbling prospect. Let's just say that I did do that - get separated from Julie on New Year's Eve, and let's just say that I had one of the single weirdest experiences of my life that night.
I ended up at a McDonald's at 4 a.m. with two girls that spoke German and broken, inebriated English, and I spoke English and broken, inebriated German. They complained about German guys, as I recall. I told them it wasn't the German-ness that was the problem. And then I found my way to my hostel, navigating the S-Bahn and everything. I'll let you try and fill in the dots inbetween the Brandenburg Gate and a McDonalds just south of Kreuzberg.
1: If at first you don't succeed at finding the tour book's promised little German eatery, staffed only by the loving patriarch of an ancient family line and overlooking their own personal stretch of the Elbe, well, there's always Döner.
What is Döner? This isn't entirely clear to me. It's a huge hock of delicious, spiced meat suspended vertically by one of the shiftiest looking heaters I've ever seen. Imagine the blinds of a window. Now imagine that they're made of metal and simultaneously on fire. And next to a rotating hunk of meat that can lure a grown man and woman three blocks.
Döner kind of tastes like beef, and since it's so hard to find those quaint and inexpensive German eateries, it's been a consistent supply of protein and vegetables from the handful or so they graciously throw on there.
Oh, and it's not necessarily a single thing either. I've ordered Döner and gotten a pizza before. That was in Köln, in the morning, on Christmas Eve. And since it was the morning (and maybe because it was Christmas Eve) they cracked and fried an egg on my vegetarian pizza, which was nice of them, unless I were vegan.
2. When you do find those quaint German establishments, be sure that you understand what you're ordering. Or rather, what you're not ordering. Those silly Germans aren't so much into side dishes, so don't be surprised when all you get is a sausage simmering in a bowl of hot water with some breads. When I looked back at the menu, I realized that was exactly what I had ordered, but I don't know, I expected a potato salad for some reason. Or maybe some sauerbraten. In retrospect, I was really grateful for the plate. After all, I hadn't specifically ordered it, and I don't know how I could have cut the sausage in that pot of boiling water. It probably would have looked really funny to everyone but me as I slipped around the sausage and stabbed at the water and splashed myself with scalding sausage water.
3. This doesn't so much relate to food, but pub crawls are fun. However, so is not destroying your urinary tract. In fact, if you decide to relieve yourself at the wrong time, you may get lost. And if you get lost in Berlin on New Year's Eve, it is at first a humbling prospect. Let's just say that I did do that - get separated from Julie on New Year's Eve, and let's just say that I had one of the single weirdest experiences of my life that night.
I ended up at a McDonald's at 4 a.m. with two girls that spoke German and broken, inebriated English, and I spoke English and broken, inebriated German. They complained about German guys, as I recall. I told them it wasn't the German-ness that was the problem. And then I found my way to my hostel, navigating the S-Bahn and everything. I'll let you try and fill in the dots inbetween the Brandenburg Gate and a McDonalds just south of Kreuzberg.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas from München
It sucks to not be home on Christmas, and it mildly sucks to fight your way through a grocery store full of desperate last-minute Germans to stock up on food so you can hole up in a hotel room while all of Germany closes down for the 24th, 25th, and 26th. However, the internet cafe here seems lively, so maybe there will be pockets of life.
Anyway, to all those at home this is the ever-popular service announcement from your boys overseas. Imagine Julie and I waving against a backdrop of the München Altstadt. Merry Christmas everybody. Boy, how I wish I could join you.
Anyway, to all those at home this is the ever-popular service announcement from your boys overseas. Imagine Julie and I waving against a backdrop of the München Altstadt. Merry Christmas everybody. Boy, how I wish I could join you.
Monday, December 17, 2007
A bit more substantial review
Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities we've been to, but it's also the coldest place on Earth. Sure, each city has had its charms, but far and away the Christmas lights strung between slanting rows of brightly painted canal-side houses make Amsterdam one of the prettiest. Again, though, it's the coldest city on Earth, so my memory of it might be a bit tainted by trying to hike my H&M scarf up ever further.
Julie and I have started buying gifts sporadically, but with increasing momentum. One gift I think is particularly inspired, and falls well within the category of "stuff you can only get here," where "here" is defined retrospectively as Koln. I even had to run through the crowded streets (oh those throngs of well-dressed people!) and narrow corridors to get it, making it, (I think) extra-special.
Koln was a welcome change from the country-side, which got so quiet and lifeless at night. Corvallis is a pretty sleepy town, but there's always at least the buzz of traffic, if not a party at the neighbors'. Despite its silence, Malgarten was absolutely beautiful, and it was exactly what I wanted the German countryside to be like. Julie and I ate a fancy five course dinner family restaurant just across the street with goose and sauerbraten, striped trout soup, and Chocolate cake from Vienna. When Vienna is just a hop, skip, and a jump away, I can picture some mountain man with lederhosen and a knapsack full of my chocolate cake crossing the Alps, not some faceless refrigerated airplane that would carry the cake to the U.S. I think it's a little more romantic of a notion is all.
The lady who runs the monastery (Kloster Malgarten) sent Julie and I off with two books of her husband's art, two souvenir mugs, and friendly hugs. Which was unexpected because people in the German countryside usually border on the rude. I guess they're just trying to be honest - after all, why should they be nice to a complete stranger? But once you try to get to know them apparently, they show you all of the renovations they've made to their monastery, their art gallery, wake you up for breakfast (although that was kind of our fault for sleeping in), and give you parting gifts and hugs. Again, maybe this was just Frau Heitmann, but I'd like to leave the rural parts of Germany believing everyone would have done this.
By the way, everyone go to Kloster Malgarten, north of Bramsche. If you're in Germany, that is. There are Napoleonic prisons! Who doesn't like Napoleonic prisons?
It's kind of suprising, but Julie and I have planned our next two weeks in stunning detail! Tomorrow we go to Heidelberg and will spend the night there. Then we go to Stuttgart for two nights. After that, from the 21st to the 23rd we will be in Nuremberg, and then we will go to Munich, where we will be from the 23rd to the 26th. After Munich, we will be in Salzburg, Austria from the 26th to the 28th and after that things are a bit hazier, but we have definite reservations in Berlin from the 29th to the 1st. We're also going to see Prague and Dresden before heading to Frankfurt for the night of the 4th.
Since all of our train rides are covered on those days that we travel (within Benelux, Germany, and Austria at least) we could feasibly go straight from Netherlands to Austria in one day, but will instead use this strategically to stop off in the smaller towns inbetween our destination towns. For instance, between Munich and Salzburg on the 23rd, I'm pushing for us to stop at Garmisch-Partenkirchen to see the Zugspitze - the tallest mountain in Germany. I think that between Stuttgart and Nuremberg we might see King Ludwig's castle, just outside of Fussen, but that would take us further afield.
Anyway, we're starting to get used to this travel business and are milking it for all it's worth. Just today we're seeing Anne Frank's Hiding Place, and the Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums and we're going to have to order a Heineken with dinner, what seeing as it's brewed here and all.
SO yeah! And we're having a blast! It's cold, of course, but it's been gorgeous and clear everyday, with little time left for rain - only snow! Cold, glorious snow.
Missing everybody terribly, and trying hard not to think about Christmas,
Max
P.S. Julie has just informed me that our train leaves tomorrow at 6:30 am to get to Heidelberg at about noon. So, I guess I'll be sleeping on the train!
Julie and I have started buying gifts sporadically, but with increasing momentum. One gift I think is particularly inspired, and falls well within the category of "stuff you can only get here," where "here" is defined retrospectively as Koln. I even had to run through the crowded streets (oh those throngs of well-dressed people!) and narrow corridors to get it, making it, (I think) extra-special.
Koln was a welcome change from the country-side, which got so quiet and lifeless at night. Corvallis is a pretty sleepy town, but there's always at least the buzz of traffic, if not a party at the neighbors'. Despite its silence, Malgarten was absolutely beautiful, and it was exactly what I wanted the German countryside to be like. Julie and I ate a fancy five course dinner family restaurant just across the street with goose and sauerbraten, striped trout soup, and Chocolate cake from Vienna. When Vienna is just a hop, skip, and a jump away, I can picture some mountain man with lederhosen and a knapsack full of my chocolate cake crossing the Alps, not some faceless refrigerated airplane that would carry the cake to the U.S. I think it's a little more romantic of a notion is all.
The lady who runs the monastery (Kloster Malgarten) sent Julie and I off with two books of her husband's art, two souvenir mugs, and friendly hugs. Which was unexpected because people in the German countryside usually border on the rude. I guess they're just trying to be honest - after all, why should they be nice to a complete stranger? But once you try to get to know them apparently, they show you all of the renovations they've made to their monastery, their art gallery, wake you up for breakfast (although that was kind of our fault for sleeping in), and give you parting gifts and hugs. Again, maybe this was just Frau Heitmann, but I'd like to leave the rural parts of Germany believing everyone would have done this.
By the way, everyone go to Kloster Malgarten, north of Bramsche. If you're in Germany, that is. There are Napoleonic prisons! Who doesn't like Napoleonic prisons?
It's kind of suprising, but Julie and I have planned our next two weeks in stunning detail! Tomorrow we go to Heidelberg and will spend the night there. Then we go to Stuttgart for two nights. After that, from the 21st to the 23rd we will be in Nuremberg, and then we will go to Munich, where we will be from the 23rd to the 26th. After Munich, we will be in Salzburg, Austria from the 26th to the 28th and after that things are a bit hazier, but we have definite reservations in Berlin from the 29th to the 1st. We're also going to see Prague and Dresden before heading to Frankfurt for the night of the 4th.
Since all of our train rides are covered on those days that we travel (within Benelux, Germany, and Austria at least) we could feasibly go straight from Netherlands to Austria in one day, but will instead use this strategically to stop off in the smaller towns inbetween our destination towns. For instance, between Munich and Salzburg on the 23rd, I'm pushing for us to stop at Garmisch-Partenkirchen to see the Zugspitze - the tallest mountain in Germany. I think that between Stuttgart and Nuremberg we might see King Ludwig's castle, just outside of Fussen, but that would take us further afield.
Anyway, we're starting to get used to this travel business and are milking it for all it's worth. Just today we're seeing Anne Frank's Hiding Place, and the Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums and we're going to have to order a Heineken with dinner, what seeing as it's brewed here and all.
SO yeah! And we're having a blast! It's cold, of course, but it's been gorgeous and clear everyday, with little time left for rain - only snow! Cold, glorious snow.
Missing everybody terribly, and trying hard not to think about Christmas,
Max
P.S. Julie has just informed me that our train leaves tomorrow at 6:30 am to get to Heidelberg at about noon. So, I guess I'll be sleeping on the train!
Friday, December 14, 2007
I Do In Fact Protest...
I feel in my humble yet perhaps more beer savvy experience that Altbier has a smoother richer taste, a beautiful amber color and frothy head. The after taste though rather non-existent but if I had to describe it does not contain the coppery wash as the Kölsh does but while I do enjoy the Alt I very much like the Kölsh. In Germany how can one not like any beer they taste and savor?
And the travelling stuff
I'll get to that soon. Consider this a brief: "hey, now I'm in Koln and alive and healthy and nothing's been stolen or lost yet!" update.
It's important that I provide this after disappearing to the Kloster for two days.
Tschuss!
It's important that I provide this after disappearing to the Kloster for two days.
Tschuss!
Kolsch is better than Altbier, in my humble opinion.
Okay, the title gets the main business out of the way. Julie may contest it, but she's wrong. There's just no arguing with the smooth taste of Kolsch.
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