I like real-time posting better anyway.
Amsterdam's an awesome city, but I'm tired, and ready to go home for a bit and feel like I'm getting ready for normal life with going to Michigan and all (though I still have not heard from NYU or Columbia). Today was Anne Frank's house and the Amsterdam Historical Museum, which was really cool - Amsterdam is really a fascinating city. After that I just did not have the energy for an art museum and didn't feel like paying the 10€ they wanted at the Rijksmuseum, so that makes me like 0 for 3000 or so on Amsterdam's art Museums. Ah well. And I'm doing the Red Light District tonight with the same tour group that did my walking tour (free and the best I've had so far in any city), so I'll get to see all about that.
I felt like I got the good Amsterdam experience though. The last few days have been a haze of walking tours, biking, drinking, and coffeeshops, so, well, haze. It's actually really hard to escape the smoke here, though they're banning indoor cigarette smoke. So yeah, no more hash at coffeeshops. It's another big difference between Americans and Europeans - we all smoke straight weed, but the Brits here are appalled and frightened by the idea of weed without tobacco. It's kinda funny.
One of the more interesting things I've learned about here is Dutch politics. They didn't just become suddenly more liberal in the 70's. Amsterdam grew up as a trading town, so they saw all different culture and exposure breeds tolerance. Also, they have all historically been merchants that controlled the city, not a king, so they were always willing to compromise puritanical moral standing for the more profitable route. Thus, we have one of the most liberal cities in the world for a long time. And since Amsterdam is the capital and has the most votes in Parliament, as goes Amterdam, goes the country.
However, for the first time, maybe ever, the Dutch government is in the hands of Christian conservatives. The smoking ban alone will close about 1/3 of coffeeshops, and they're passing more laws to restrict the weed and prositution via red tape. Rotterdam and The Hague have like 3 coffeeshops each, and apparently they want to get down to that number here. It's a little nuts, and no one knows what will happen, specifically to tourism. But that's sorta the point for the government. They don't want people coming to Amsterdam just to get wasted out fo their mind. The Brits are about half the tourists at any time here, just in for the weekend, and apparently have been known to get wasted and cause trouble. They figure the tourism will survive like any other European city. I bet it will, but if they kill off the drug culture, not anywhere near at these levels. No chance.
Oh, and one other awesome thing I wanna share. Tax law is at the root of some of the distinctiveness of Amsterdam (and maybe most original Dutch?) architecture. Property tax was assessed based on the width of the house (they're mostly built as brownstones, all together). This caused people to build narrow and straight up, causing all the stairs in the city to be absurdly steep. (I had already noticed this in my hostel, where I'm sure I drunkenly bruised my shin.) Because the stairs are so steep, you can't get furniture up them, and Dutch people move in through the windows. Thus all the windows are huge, and most houses have hooks for a pulley in front off the roof. And apparently, they realized that if you haul a couch up a vertical wall, you'll destroy the wall as it bangs into every floor. So what did they do? They designed houses leaning forward. Crazy, no? I have pics. Soon. Nowadays they seem to move with fire engine ladder type conveyor belts (saw someone moving in, and anyway, it makes more sense), so the lean is no longer necessary, but there are plenty of older houses that do.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
I Missed the Colisseum and the Forum.
Yeah...I'm kinda an idiot. But I figure after 2000+ years, what's another few for it to wait? A night of partying with University students in San Lorenzo may not be as appealing in two decades. And I obviously wasn't missing the soccer game. So yeah, ah well.
Rome was pretty much a nonstop party. I didn't stay at the Yellow Hostel. This is significant because I thought I was going to, to the point where I asked them to find my reservation and I as surprised when they couldn't. Where I did stay, Hotel Alessandro's, was right around the corner, so I pretty much became a Yellow groupie after I met people on their nightly pub crawl. Seriously, one hostel had a bar with a patio that was always crowded and one didn't. Where would you hang out? (That is, except for the hour at my hostel with free pizza every night.)
Highlights were definitely walking around Rome at night with a bottle of wine and Dixie cups and the soccer game. Around 2:30AM on the uber-classy night, we sat down in front of the Colisseum, and I remember I kept saying "We're in front of the fucking Colisseum!" over and over. It was pretty damn cool.
The soccer game, my first ever, kicked ass. Roma beat Atalanta 2-1 trailing by a game on the last game of their regular season before all the different European tourneys. Unofortunately Inter Milan drew, so Roma ended the season a half game out. Though the top four go to the tourneys, so it's fine. It was the coolest thing to see when the scoreboard kept updating the other game and the stadium cheered or jeered in unison depending on the update. So much better atmosphere than most sporting events I've ever been to, maybe with the exception of college football. The two biggest cheers game whenever opponents of Inter or Lazio, their bitter, hated rivals scored. And it was particularly funny when Siena scored against Inter because the crowd, all listening to the game on the radio would cheer in unison right before the score update. In fact, they once all cheered with no score update, and I found out only later that night that Inter had missed a penalty kick.
Anyway, so far Rome has probably been my favorite city mostly because I had people to hang out with the whole time, and definitely had the most quality bonding time out of any of the stops. And I may get a local's tour of Montreal out of the whole deal. I'm holding you to that, Hugo, if you're reading. Also, you can't trip without finding another ruin or church, so there's that.
Rome was pretty much a nonstop party. I didn't stay at the Yellow Hostel. This is significant because I thought I was going to, to the point where I asked them to find my reservation and I as surprised when they couldn't. Where I did stay, Hotel Alessandro's, was right around the corner, so I pretty much became a Yellow groupie after I met people on their nightly pub crawl. Seriously, one hostel had a bar with a patio that was always crowded and one didn't. Where would you hang out? (That is, except for the hour at my hostel with free pizza every night.)
Highlights were definitely walking around Rome at night with a bottle of wine and Dixie cups and the soccer game. Around 2:30AM on the uber-classy night, we sat down in front of the Colisseum, and I remember I kept saying "We're in front of the fucking Colisseum!" over and over. It was pretty damn cool.
The soccer game, my first ever, kicked ass. Roma beat Atalanta 2-1 trailing by a game on the last game of their regular season before all the different European tourneys. Unofortunately Inter Milan drew, so Roma ended the season a half game out. Though the top four go to the tourneys, so it's fine. It was the coolest thing to see when the scoreboard kept updating the other game and the stadium cheered or jeered in unison depending on the update. So much better atmosphere than most sporting events I've ever been to, maybe with the exception of college football. The two biggest cheers game whenever opponents of Inter or Lazio, their bitter, hated rivals scored. And it was particularly funny when Siena scored against Inter because the crowd, all listening to the game on the radio would cheer in unison right before the score update. In fact, they once all cheered with no score update, and I found out only later that night that Inter had missed a penalty kick.
Anyway, so far Rome has probably been my favorite city mostly because I had people to hang out with the whole time, and definitely had the most quality bonding time out of any of the stops. And I may get a local's tour of Montreal out of the whole deal. I'm holding you to that, Hugo, if you're reading. Also, you can't trip without finding another ruin or church, so there's that.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
A duomo, lounging on statues, and amazing hostels
Yeah, so when there's no free internet, the blogging kinda falls off a cliff. But I'm gonna try to catch up while I'm here in Amsterdam. Since the last post, I've been to Florence, Rome, Athens, Mykonos, Crete, Budapest and Vienna. It's been really amazing, so much so that I haven't really gotten a chance to sit in front of a computer and write. But that all changes with the combination of a wait for check-in, rain outside, and free internet. Woo!
Ok, so Florence. There are three things I will remember about Florence (other than the things you can find in art books). Well, four, but the last was just an odd and frankly somewhat scary story. The first is walking around the first night with these two random journalism students from the hostel. My companions were indeed memorably dull, but the real memory is walking coming up on the Duomo surrounded by a HUGE piazza (or plaza - should I use English here? It just seems weird to convert) that had at the time all of maybe 20 people in it. Buildings with entire piazzas to themselves are very imposing, but so much more so at night. During the day, there are tons of people, both tourists with hats and cameras and locals running for espresso, and among the hustle, it's very easy to be only marginally impressed. But seeing it all at night, with the white marble reflecting the little light there is, and the emptiness illuminating the sheer enormity of the plaza, well, wow. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, as I didn't even expect to be sightseeing then, but now I will make sure to see sights at night more often.
The second memorable bit occurred in this open square that I can't remember the name of, with tons of statues, including The Rape of the Sabine Women. At night, I saw college-age people lounging around, leaning against the statues and smoking. By day, tired tourists took their break on and around them. Locals pass them on their way to works every day. These statues are just a part of the actual city, and they have become part of the banality of human existence. I mean, of course they have, they're just sitting there, so that's what happens, but it blows my mind. Someone (a Brit, I think) said to me recently about NY that it was amazing to go to the top of the Empire State Building and just see buildings packed in until the horizon. I suppose that compares to the feeling I had in Florence, with me on the other side thinking that's just normal, but wow.
And the last of the good memories from Florence is my hostel, Ostello Archi Rossi. My only regret about it is that I had it early enough to be disappointed by every other hostel I'll go to. This one I'll also add pics for when I get them onto my laptop next week. Ok, here's goes: Frescoes everywhere on the walls. Free hot breakfast with an additional buffet from 7-8. Free walking tours every day. Cheap and good restaurant fro dinner. Courtyard where everyone gathered and to eat and drink the cheap wine and beer at the desk, not to mention other snacks. Good laundry machines. Best beds so far. Messages written all over the otherwise white walls walls. Just the best hostel ever. Most impressive was that it seemed everything was really geared toward making sure the travelers all spent time hanging out in the hostel, which is hard to make happen without a bar. Oh, and later I heard another "best hostel ever" story about another Florence hostel, and that makes me wonder if they just make the hostels there great because people don't stop for more than a couple days otherwise. I mean if you're an art history student, it's an amazing place. But beyond that, there just isn't all that much to do.
It was the best hostel imaginable except of course, for the fourth thing, a crazy Taiwanese chick, who was maybe the weirdest person I've ever met, and definitely the weirdest outside of MIT. One part (but definitely not all) of the weirdness was that she aggresively propositioned me within literally ten minutes of having met me. After a while, I was on the top bunk, trying to go to sleep, and she stood next to me saying things like "I'm so horny." I was a little frightened to actually sleep at this point, and I waited most of an hour for her to do so first.
Oh, and I forgot to mention before that I stopped by Pisa for two hours between the airport and the bus. Everyone's right, you don't need more. I got the holding up the tower pic, and that was that. The church is beautiful, and I hadn't yet seen all that many, so there are lots of crappy no flash pics. And I made friends with a gay couple from Tampa, who I may well end up meeting up with. Hard to resist an offer of a "refreshing drink by our pool" in their new house.
Ok, so Florence. There are three things I will remember about Florence (other than the things you can find in art books). Well, four, but the last was just an odd and frankly somewhat scary story. The first is walking around the first night with these two random journalism students from the hostel. My companions were indeed memorably dull, but the real memory is walking coming up on the Duomo surrounded by a HUGE piazza (or plaza - should I use English here? It just seems weird to convert) that had at the time all of maybe 20 people in it. Buildings with entire piazzas to themselves are very imposing, but so much more so at night. During the day, there are tons of people, both tourists with hats and cameras and locals running for espresso, and among the hustle, it's very easy to be only marginally impressed. But seeing it all at night, with the white marble reflecting the little light there is, and the emptiness illuminating the sheer enormity of the plaza, well, wow. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, as I didn't even expect to be sightseeing then, but now I will make sure to see sights at night more often.
The second memorable bit occurred in this open square that I can't remember the name of, with tons of statues, including The Rape of the Sabine Women. At night, I saw college-age people lounging around, leaning against the statues and smoking. By day, tired tourists took their break on and around them. Locals pass them on their way to works every day. These statues are just a part of the actual city, and they have become part of the banality of human existence. I mean, of course they have, they're just sitting there, so that's what happens, but it blows my mind. Someone (a Brit, I think) said to me recently about NY that it was amazing to go to the top of the Empire State Building and just see buildings packed in until the horizon. I suppose that compares to the feeling I had in Florence, with me on the other side thinking that's just normal, but wow.
And the last of the good memories from Florence is my hostel, Ostello Archi Rossi. My only regret about it is that I had it early enough to be disappointed by every other hostel I'll go to. This one I'll also add pics for when I get them onto my laptop next week. Ok, here's goes: Frescoes everywhere on the walls. Free hot breakfast with an additional buffet from 7-8. Free walking tours every day. Cheap and good restaurant fro dinner. Courtyard where everyone gathered and to eat and drink the cheap wine and beer at the desk, not to mention other snacks. Good laundry machines. Best beds so far. Messages written all over the otherwise white walls walls. Just the best hostel ever. Most impressive was that it seemed everything was really geared toward making sure the travelers all spent time hanging out in the hostel, which is hard to make happen without a bar. Oh, and later I heard another "best hostel ever" story about another Florence hostel, and that makes me wonder if they just make the hostels there great because people don't stop for more than a couple days otherwise. I mean if you're an art history student, it's an amazing place. But beyond that, there just isn't all that much to do.
It was the best hostel imaginable except of course, for the fourth thing, a crazy Taiwanese chick, who was maybe the weirdest person I've ever met, and definitely the weirdest outside of MIT. One part (but definitely not all) of the weirdness was that she aggresively propositioned me within literally ten minutes of having met me. After a while, I was on the top bunk, trying to go to sleep, and she stood next to me saying things like "I'm so horny." I was a little frightened to actually sleep at this point, and I waited most of an hour for her to do so first.
Oh, and I forgot to mention before that I stopped by Pisa for two hours between the airport and the bus. Everyone's right, you don't need more. I got the holding up the tower pic, and that was that. The church is beautiful, and I hadn't yet seen all that many, so there are lots of crappy no flash pics. And I made friends with a gay couple from Tampa, who I may well end up meeting up with. Hard to resist an offer of a "refreshing drink by our pool" in their new house.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Dublin is the Boston of Europe.
Though, um, perhaps the reverse is more accurate, as least for the Irish parts.
Anyway, Dublin was pretty cool, tho likely not my favorite city, and I wanted to write some impressions. The first thing is how much like Boston is really is. First, you can walk across basically the whole city in 25-30 min. Second, the history of the city itself is very similar. It focuses on an event called the 1916 Easter Rising, where on Easter Monday, the citizens rebelled against the rule of the English, and when captured, the leaders were summarily executed by firing squad. Three years after this event, in 1919, began the Irish War of Independence. So if you combined the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre into one event, you have roughly Dublin, but 140-odd years earlier. Oh, and for the third thing, there are obviously a lot of Irish people, and despite this being obvious, it leads certain parts of Boston to have the same type of Georgian architecture you see everywhere in Dublin.Let's see, what did I do there? I went to the Guinness brewery, and thought only two words. "Willy Wonka." Of course, those were closely followed by "Pawtucket Pat," which is perhaps more accurate. It was awesome. I started expecting to drink an experimental pint and start walking through walls or something. By the fourteenth experiemental pint, I was definitely flying at least. Thank you folks, I'll be here all week. The coolest part of the brewery was defintiely the exhibits in teh art and advertising through the ages. Guinness certainly has had some memorable ads, and I particularly like the Toucan ones. They've also had some rather, um, offensive ones through the ages. I'll post some of the pics when I have my camera, soon.Other sights: Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) - This is a jail that is important in the history for two reasons. 1) When constructed, each cell only was designed for one person, and then immediately after construction, it was 3-4 per. Whoops. Anyway, during the famine in the 1840's, food became scarce some people stole or begged and the jail bceame more crowded, and then they made begging illegal. So yeah... But the truly horrible thing was that people were trying to get caught for petty crimes because conditions in the jail were better, even after they tried to reduce rations to limit that. 2) The leaders of the Easter Rising were held then executed here.I also did a musical pub crawl. We didn't crawl so much, and got no drinks for our 10€. But we learned all about traditional Irish music and the role it plays in the culture and heard some played (the fiddle guy was really good, too). I love Irish music, and really want to go buy a Dropkick Murphys CD now.Wow, this post is getting long - I'm gonna have to post more frequently so this doesn't happen. (I'm also two cities past Dublin already, so that's another reason). Anyway, there was this gorgeous park in Dublin called St. Stephen's Green (Dublin also has a park 3x the size of Central Park, which is impressive), and the last two days I was in Dublin it was beyond beautiful out, so I went and just sat and read. It was awesome. Funniest part about those trips was that probably near 75% of all the people were couples cuddling, lying on each other, or just flat out making out. It was equal parts sweet and kinda gross. The 300lb per person couple that plopped down right in front of me and startig going at it was definitely the latter. But it really seems they get all of two or so nice days a year, and they all wanted to take advantage. I guess I was lucky.Anyway, that was Dublin. I'll hopefully put some pics up soon. I have oh, a million or so. Done with Florence and I'm in Rome now. Will post about Florence soon. Just one thing: òàù+èì< (no shift key) and !"£*éPç°§> (shift key) and ][#@€ (alt gr). Stupid Italian keyboards need a third button option and make my life difficult. Ah, well.
Anyway, Dublin was pretty cool, tho likely not my favorite city, and I wanted to write some impressions. The first thing is how much like Boston is really is. First, you can walk across basically the whole city in 25-30 min. Second, the history of the city itself is very similar. It focuses on an event called the 1916 Easter Rising, where on Easter Monday, the citizens rebelled against the rule of the English, and when captured, the leaders were summarily executed by firing squad. Three years after this event, in 1919, began the Irish War of Independence. So if you combined the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre into one event, you have roughly Dublin, but 140-odd years earlier. Oh, and for the third thing, there are obviously a lot of Irish people, and despite this being obvious, it leads certain parts of Boston to have the same type of Georgian architecture you see everywhere in Dublin.Let's see, what did I do there? I went to the Guinness brewery, and thought only two words. "Willy Wonka." Of course, those were closely followed by "Pawtucket Pat," which is perhaps more accurate. It was awesome. I started expecting to drink an experimental pint and start walking through walls or something. By the fourteenth experiemental pint, I was definitely flying at least. Thank you folks, I'll be here all week. The coolest part of the brewery was defintiely the exhibits in teh art and advertising through the ages. Guinness certainly has had some memorable ads, and I particularly like the Toucan ones. They've also had some rather, um, offensive ones through the ages. I'll post some of the pics when I have my camera, soon.Other sights: Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) - This is a jail that is important in the history for two reasons. 1) When constructed, each cell only was designed for one person, and then immediately after construction, it was 3-4 per. Whoops. Anyway, during the famine in the 1840's, food became scarce some people stole or begged and the jail bceame more crowded, and then they made begging illegal. So yeah... But the truly horrible thing was that people were trying to get caught for petty crimes because conditions in the jail were better, even after they tried to reduce rations to limit that. 2) The leaders of the Easter Rising were held then executed here.I also did a musical pub crawl. We didn't crawl so much, and got no drinks for our 10€. But we learned all about traditional Irish music and the role it plays in the culture and heard some played (the fiddle guy was really good, too). I love Irish music, and really want to go buy a Dropkick Murphys CD now.Wow, this post is getting long - I'm gonna have to post more frequently so this doesn't happen. (I'm also two cities past Dublin already, so that's another reason). Anyway, there was this gorgeous park in Dublin called St. Stephen's Green (Dublin also has a park 3x the size of Central Park, which is impressive), and the last two days I was in Dublin it was beyond beautiful out, so I went and just sat and read. It was awesome. Funniest part about those trips was that probably near 75% of all the people were couples cuddling, lying on each other, or just flat out making out. It was equal parts sweet and kinda gross. The 300lb per person couple that plopped down right in front of me and startig going at it was definitely the latter. But it really seems they get all of two or so nice days a year, and they all wanted to take advantage. I guess I was lucky.Anyway, that was Dublin. I'll hopefully put some pics up soon. I have oh, a million or so. Done with Florence and I'm in Rome now. Will post about Florence soon. Just one thing: òàù+èì< (no shift key) and !"£*éPç°§> (shift key) and ][#@€ (alt gr). Stupid Italian keyboards need a third button option and make my life difficult. Ah, well.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Dublin!
I'm safe and sound, alive in Dublin. Though I believe after last night, perhaps only 3/4 of my brain cells remain. Honestly, how many do you have to kill off before you're legally dead? Maybe I'm not sosafe and sound after all. Anyway, the outskirts of Dublin, seen through the windows of the bus I took from the airport, is pretty much what I expected from an Irish city. Cute little brick houses, with cute little lawns and curvy streets. And central Dublin looks a lot like other cities, tho I spent a lot of yesterday either napping to fight jetlag or in an internet cafe writing a letter to Columbia Law, rather than touring, so I guess I'll be able to say more later.
Last night I went to Temple Bar, and I have one thing to say. 6 Euros for a beer?! Of course by the time I got there I was well on my way and too drunk to realize how outrageous that was. ...And now you're all pretty much up to date on my trip. Today I will take the hop on hop off bus tour. The difficulty is that one of the first stops is the Guinness brewery. So...it's beer at 10:30 then. I guess it's one way to fight a hangover.
Last night I went to Temple Bar, and I have one thing to say. 6 Euros for a beer?! Of course by the time I got there I was well on my way and too drunk to realize how outrageous that was. ...And now you're all pretty much up to date on my trip. Today I will take the hop on hop off bus tour. The difficulty is that one of the first stops is the Guinness brewery. So...it's beer at 10:30 then. I guess it's one way to fight a hangover.
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