Whirlwind Traveling

It’s been about two months since I last updated and not much has happened – work has been insanely busy with budgeting for the next year (yes, I do actually have a real job…sometimes).

Travel destinations:
1) I went to Prague, it was a ton of fun, I don’t think I can ever go back (the food is truly terrible).

Dan, Ali, and Diep on St. Charles' Bridge

2) Salzburg and a lake tour of western Austria - absolutely unreal!  Austria is just a beautiful country with the Alps running through a majority of it (side note, the Alps are less well known here making Austria a much more affordable to ski and vacation).   The views are pretty similar to what I remember seeing when traveling through the state of Washington -- I love the Northwest!

One of the many lakes surrounded by the Alps near Salzburg, Austria

3) Italy – Florence and Cinque Terre are truly amazing cities.  I think my new favorite city in Europe is now Florence.  I went with Mark and Ali (both friends from Seattle). 

Duomo

View at the top of the Duomo

We spent our one day in Florence climbing to the top of the Duomo, wine and cheese tasting at a local wine shop that has been around for over a hundred years, having dinner at a local (and tourist) hot spot restaurant, and drinking wine in a park next sitting directly over a river (with music and soccer in the background of course).

Florence by Night

Mark and I then made our way to beautiful Cinque Terre (5 cities next to each other along Italy’s coast).  Mostly, we relaxed on the beach and ate amazing food.  The cities are known for their amazing views, great hikes, delicious seafood, and tasty pesto (which comes from the Ligure region – the northwestern area of Italy).

Monteroso, Cinque Terre

Diep and Mark - Monteroso, Cinque Terre

3) After Italy, Mark visited me in Munich where we did a lot of beer-drinking. Here are some places Mark went and I recommend seeing when in Munich.
                - Andechs monastery and Ammersee Lake (about an hour from the city, you can go to an amazing brewery that is run by monks.  The beer is delicious and it overlooks a gorgeous lake)
                - Hofbrau House – the largest beer hall in Europe
                - English Gardens – the largest city park in Europe (with plenty of beer gardens within)
                - Marienplatz – Munich’s city center square and where city hall sits – you can watch the glockenspiel (a clock that chimes at every hour) do a little show
                - Olympic Park – once the site of the Olympics in the 70s or 80s, take a moment to swim in the Olympic pool here for just a few euros or visit the BMW headquarters and museum.

Marienplatz - Munich's new city hall building by night

Typical German meal...giant hunk of pig

Mediterranean Living

It’s been a busy past two weeks: Athens and Crete at the end of March and then Istanbul for Easter with Lauren and Brie (friends from college), and part of the trip with Brenna (Brie’s much more adventurous younger sister – I don’t think I met the right Blakey). ;)

Partial view of Athens from the Acropolis

First, let’s go through my impressions of Greece:

On the way to Rethymno, Crete

1) I completely understand now why Greece is in so much debt – it doesn’t seem as if people there actually work…and they are all about giving you free stuff during meals (a coke here or an appetizer there) and of course always plenty of Ouzo (awful Greek liquor) to go around.   But really, who can blame them with the gorgeous seaside views and plentiful sunshine?
 
2) Greece needs to invest in repairing its sewage system and cleaning up its streets…you’ll see what I mean when you read about or visit Greece.  In comparison to Munich, Athens/Greece was like third world with a nice subway system.

Gyros - cheap and DELISH

3) Greek coffee is excellent.  Greek food...not as great as I had expected.  Maybe it’s just not agreeable to my palate or maybe we went to the wrong places? Not sure, but here are the items I thoroughly enjoyed: feta cheese, spanakopita, greek honey with greek yogurt (I think my fave food item in Greece), grape leaves stuffed with rice, greek salads, olives, and gyros. Mmmm, good stuff; their appetizers are pretty tasty but the main course leaves much to be desired.
 
Brief summary of our activities w/ pictures below:

I have to admit (and Brie can certainly confirm), my knowledge of Greek history is very much so lacking. Luckily, I have intellectual friends and Wikipedia, both provide me with much needed education on history and culture.

Acropolis at Night

Parthenon (sits on the Acropolis)

Acropolis – apparently the Parthenon sits on top of the Acropolis – who knew?! I had to reorient myself slash ask Brie multiple times where we were and if we had “reached the Parthenon?”  I am an uncultured and uneducated human being, it is true.

P signs can mean parking in an olive grove...

Crete and drive to Rethymno – beautiful seaside views and apparently signs that have “P” do not necessarily mean that there will be parking for a scenic overpass.   This “P” sign led us to an olive grove…I thought I’d take the Suzuki offroading to see how it’d drive.  NOTE: NOT A GOOD IDEA! I’m amazed we made it up and down hills without the car sputtering out.

Knossos: first city in Europe – note that when the hotel concierge tells you that you can spend maximum of 2 hrs there…she actually means you can spend maximum of 30 mins there.  This may be very ignorant, but ruins all look the same to me, especially when hungover!

So that’s about it for my Greece trip – I headed back to work and did a 50 hour workweek before heading off to Istanbul for Easter.


Onto Istanbul, much more exciting of a city than I originally anticipated.  Imagine a Middle Eastern larger version of New York City with prettier landscape and a bit more run down housing.

Istanbul, a city with over 13 million inhabitants with a majority Muslim population, is bustling with culture and hotbeds of activity – as many people will tell you, it has a mix of Asian and European influences, which makes sense as it is the only metropolis in the world that sits on two continents (Europe & Asia).  There are of course many mosques (usually elevated on hilltops so they look even more prominent) and the expectation that women dress more conservatively (with a scarf over a woman’s head when entering a mosque), but then there are also pedestrian only streets filled with cafes, clubs, bars, and other secular outlets.   Quite a fun mix.

What Brie, Lauren, and I did in Istanbul:

Hagia Sophia

Dome of Hagia Sophia - you can see it's not quite perfectly circular anymore

Looking up at the Blue Mosque

Hanging Chandeliers inside Blue Mosque

1) Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia – there are quite a few mosques in Istanbul, but the two most famous are the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (which is actually now a museum rather than a mosque).  I had never entered a mosque (not even in Jordan) so it was interesting to see the differences or similarities between a mosque and a Church.  A) There are no faces/figures in mosques as Muslims don’t believe in veneration of a figure. B) There are large hanging chandeliers hanging from the dome everywhere (probably why the Hagia Sophia dome keeps collapsing…it wasn’t the most stable of buildings I had ever walked around). C) There is a pulpit-like area where maybe a religious head leads the group in Torah...and when I put here Torah, I meant Quran. (just a bit of a mix-up) haha oops. D) While not quite as decorative as a Catholic church, these mosques were hardly plain – the mosaic designs on the walls and lattice work done in the mosque are beautiful. 

View at Kale Cafe Brunch in Rumeli

2) Boat Tour on the Bosphorous – you don’t learn too much on these tours as the Turkish people’s English is not understandable at all.  At first I thought it was just my hearing problems that kept me from understanding, but what I learned is that some who spoke English were mispronouncing every other word so you really could only understand 1 out of every 10 words he or she was saying. This was our experience on the Bosphorous tour, where I think one of the only facts I learned is that kitchens were built in another building detached from palaces in case of a kitchen fire, only the kitchen would burn down.  Regardless, awesome views of the city – definitely recommend a Bosphorous boat tour.

3) Turkish Bath – if you are a prudish American (like myself), then it might be a bit awkward to go to a Turkish bath where clothing is basically optional.  We went to Cemberlitas where the men and women are placed in separate rooms to be bathed by someone of the same sex: women are provided with underwear (you can wear a full bathing suit if you feel the need, but you would be one of the few) and men (from what I hear) are provided with just a towel.   Once I got over the awkwardness of spending time with friends half naked, it was quite enjoyable – it’s like going to the spa with your girlfriends. 

Turkish icecream - Dondurma - be careful...

4) Eating tour with amazing views: If you ever go to Istanbul, you have to eat brunch in the neighborhoods of Rumeli or Babek.  Both areas have cafés littered along the Bosphorous strait and are great seaside and people watching locations – these neighborhoods are extremely wealthy so you’ll see Porsches, Lamborghinis, Mercedes, BMWs, and other luxury cars displayed prominently outside the cafés/restaurants.  In the evenings, there are plenty of “rooftop” restaurants with 360 views of the city – Lebiderya at the Richmond Hotel is a good one that we went to with tasty (and strong) margaritas. Oh and don't forget to try the Turkish icecream - the vendor likes to play hard to get. ;)

Galata insanity on a weekend night

5) Partying / Clubbing: Lots and lots of bars and clubs even though Islam does not allow drinking…we went to Galata where there is a pedestrian only walkway that no matter what time in the AM it is, it is bound to be packed on Friday/Saturday nights.
Overall, a great trip with the girls –nothing similar to our tour of Catholic Churches and Easter mass at the Vatican in Rome three years ago.  Istanbul is a place I definitely recommend visiting if you get the chance, maybe even multiple times! 

Only decent picture of us from the trip - Blue Mosque in the background

Efficient travels to Budapest (pronounced “Buda-pesch”)

Night train "Couchette"

While I was pretty excited to rest after the Amsterdam trip, I decided to hop on a train to Budapest for St. Patty’s weekend after one weekend of resting in Munich. It was my first time going on a night train and actually the first time ever traveling/touring a city alone. If you’re a heavy sleeper (like myself) and can fall asleep on any flat surface, I totally recommend taking night trains to travel through Europe. 1) Less hassle: I prefer traveling by trains over planes – usually drops you off in the heart of a city and no heavy security checks. 2) Night trains are so efficient – I was able to go to work for a full day on Friday, go home and pack, go out to dinner, watch a few episodes of how I met your mother, and still make it to my train and arrive to Budapest first thing on Saturday morning. 3) Sometimes night trains can even save you money – the train was basically my hotel for Friday night and Sunday night. I got to spend all day Saturday/Sunday exploring Budapest and saved a night of accommodation costs.

View of Buda from Pest side

Background: Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is a beautiful city, at least on the surface. It actually reminds me a lot of Paris with its grandiose buildings and its multiple bridges. The city is separated into Buda (where the hills and caves are and the nicer, more residential part of the city) and Pest (a more touristy side of the city, and where I think a lot of the businesses are) by the Danube river - I feel like every major European city has a large river running through it (which makes sense as I imagine commerce usually happened around these areas).

I started the trip w/ a free walking tour of Budapest. If you’re a college student, I definitely recommend taking free walking tours of city – it’s a great way to see a city and get the low down about the inexpensive places to party/get alcohol and which days/how you get into sites for free.

Afterwards, I had lunch with a fellow Microsoftie at a Hungarian restaurant and got the local and economic viewpoint on the country. While the touristy areas seem pretty clean and all seems well in Budapest, the country’s economy is actually in terrible condition and unrest is on the rise. The extreme right wing party has the majority in the gov’t (I think?) and in general, the country is becoming fairly nationalistic with some anti-Semitic sentiment. A lot of major companies have left Hungary, resulting in rising unemployment and poverty rates – apparently, once popular restaurants and areas are fairly empty now a days. However, I do think tourism to Hungary is still alive and well. It helps that the city has an efficient transit system, is inexpensive, and is seen as one of the few places to travel to in Eastern Europe.

Went to mass @ St. Stephen's Basilica

Inside of St. Stephen's Basilica

Overall, I didn’t do too much during the trip; the more I travel in Europe, the more European cities all blend together – really, most regions have distinct characteristics, so if you’ve gone to three or four of the major cities in any one continent or region, I feel like in terms of sites and architecture of buildings, it’s all the same. What’s more interesting to experience, I think, are the culture and local food. 

Budapest Parliament building



Some things I noticed:
1) I found people to be quite friendly in Budapest: strangers helped me without being asked when I looked clearly lost, staring confusedly at a map; an old lady offered me a slice of her orange in the park; I helped a different old lady cross the street – good times!

2) Maybe it was people catering to tourists or maybe people were very well educated or a combination of both? Either way, it was pretty easy to find English-speaking people and quite easy to get around Budapest – the trains and buses are rickety but it gets you around. The city is also fairly small and walkable.
3) Music must be incredibly important to the Hungarian culture. Many restaurants and a few nicer cafes seemed to have live music and there were plenty of piano bars for entertaining. Even the street musicians were fantastic!

Gorgeous Bookstore Cafe w/ $2 cappuccinos and live piano music - NBD

4) Hungarian food is not fantastic – actually, I find most Central and Eastern European food to be quite heavy and salty. Stews are fairly common in Hungarian food and hefty servings of meat and potatoes – maybe it comes from living in a colder climate and poorer nation where stews keep you warm and fill you up?


Lamb stew w/ mac and cheese - very paprika-ey

5) Not sure what the hype is about bathhouses? The outdoor swimming pools are great (it’s heated and you can just enjoy the sun and buy a half liter of Stella for two euros), but the indoor pools are just filled with people sitting in warm water. Kinda gross.

Szecheny Bath House



Outdoor swimming pool - inside the bathhouse

All in all, a great trip and a great city – I’d recommend Budapest if you’re looking for something different in terms of culture, but I hear Prague is your better option (I have differing views on Prague since it was cold and rainy during my Prague trip).


If you’re still reading til this point, here’s a quick update on Munich life:


In a cave below a beerhall in Munich

Singing/Dancing on tables

Work has been keeping me pretty busy with conferences, team dinners, and planning for next year’s revenue targets. I went to a few beerhalls (I feel like that’s all I do here) and the real starkbierfest was great – a lot of dancing and singing on tables (German and American songs). The weather has been amazing; something I love about Europe is the culture of sitting in the sun no matter where you are. Restaurants all have outside seating (even if it’s on a random-no good view-sidewalk) and people randomly park themselves outside buildings. Alrighty, that’s the update on my life.

Next blog, Greece and Istanbul! Have a fantastic Easter!

Blast from the Past

Apparently I can’t stay still…after everyone left Munich, I got a bit antsy and decided it’d be a great idea to go to the Netherlands and revisit some old stomping grounds.

Revisiting the stranger turned friend: I flew in Thursday night and actually stayed with Anne – the Dutch woman from three years ago who saw me wandering hopelessly with a ton of luggage in hand trying to find my Rotterdam apartment. While I hadn’t spoken to her in years, I thought it’d be a nice gesture to come visit and bring a few gifts to show my extreme gratitude for her kindness and family’s welcoming me with open arms when I was a student. We didn’t do too much: caught up on life (in the past two years, Anne wrote a book and her husband started his own catering business and a new job as a counselor), played w/ her two daughters (one who can understand more English than I do Vietnamese probably – made me feel really dumb), hung out and ate vegetarian food (if I had their family cooking for me every day, I would seriously consider turning vegetarian). Loved seeing them again – they are truly some of the kindest people I’ve ever met! They even packed me a take-away meal, complete with Capri-Sun on my way out.

Weekend adventures in Amsterdam: So I met up with Dan for the weekend in Amsterdam; we somehow managed to really only do things I had never done in Amsterdam. It’s weird going back – it is definitely dirtier than I remembered (maybe it was the cloudy weather or that I am just more aware of my surroundings now?). It’s still a beautiful city full of canals and great restaurants; definitely still one of my favorite cities in Europe, but I now see why the city is known for its sex and drugs – literally saw “coffeeshops” along with other drug shops and sex shops everywhere!

Of course, there’s so much more to the city than that though. Dan and I were able to tour the Heineken Brewery – it’s super thorough, interactive, and high-tech (even had a Kinect at one of the stations)! I highly recommend going if you are ever in Amsterdam. One cool thing I learned there about the Heineken logo is that the “e”s are “smiling.” Take a look for yourself in the next time you drink a Heineken!

Side story: for the past few trips, Dan and I have a theme of saying “Hell yeah, f*ckin’ right,” which is just a line from a song. Anyway, we decided to put that on our commemorative bottles and I definitely got chastised for imprinting “swear words” on my souvenir Heineken bottle – hah.

Other than the Heineken brewery, Dan and I went to a couple of markets and parks and the museum quarter – pretty typical touristy things. The only other real highlight of our trip was our decision to go to a massive rave on Saturday night in Utrecht (Energy: The Network - apparently, the Netherlands is one of the best party scenes in Europe) – a Netherlands city 45 minutes south of Amsterdam. We left our rooms at 11:30pm and didn’t get back until 7am…imagine a giant warehouse full of drug-induced randoms from teens to 50+ in age. The music was unreal, and I was roughly 20 feet away from DJs Tiesto, Hardwell, Eric Prydz, Sander van Doorn – it was insane! Tiesto and Sander van Doorn below.

My body thoroughly hates me for the abuse I put it through - stayed in Munich the past weekend to recuperate!

From Desert to Winter Wonderland

What an insane two weeks it has been – February has truly been non-stop. After coming back from Jordan, I went on a work team offsite skiing and sledding on the Austrian alps. It had been snowing for two weeks nonstop, so the snow was incredible!

First time sledding: Don’t go without goggles, gloves, snow shoes, basically the full gear as you basically eat snow going down - a ton of fun when there is a chairlift that takes you up – steer by digging your heel into the snow with the leg in the direction you want to turn.

Skiing in the Austrian Alps near Ehrwald, Austria: Amazing views; great long runs that weren’t too steep. Know “alles good” if you’re going to tumble down the mountain and worry non-English speaking strangers as many times as I did – in all fairness, the snow was fairly thick and uneven, so it was SUPER difficult to ski without the wider skis meant for the fresher, unmanicured snow. Luckily, I escaped without my team seeing any of my falls!

Woods walking-tour: BE ON TIME in Austria; we were roughly 3 mins late (which we warned them that would be the case) and they went ahead and started the tour without us…luckily we still made it to the end where there was hot wine (a Bavarian specialty called gluewine) waiting for us.

Driving on the highway: You don’t see the speedometer reading b/c we were going over 200km/hr (roughly 115mph) on the highway – amazing non-existent speed limits on many Germany highways! It’s only great when the cars on the road are all BMWs/Mercedes/Audis (ubiquitous in Germany) and can actually all travel at that same speed so there’s no traffic – it turned a regularly 2 hr drive to 1.5 hrs including 5pm traffic. INSANE!
Aside from the ski trip, there was Fasching aka Fat Tuesday in Munich – a public half-day holiday that I definitely celebrated (me with modern art). Strangely enough, it’s like Halloween here in basically all the cities in Europe – people dress up in costumes and party it up; full on drinking and debauchery in the streets!

Finally, last weekend, I had quite a few visitors to host in Munich. Brenna, a college friend’s sister, came to visit along with two friends and Dan Davis. The weekend started out phenomenally with probably the nicest day I’ve had thus far in Munich – we walked through the English Gardens (a giant central park in the middle of Munich), and went through the Olympic Park (where Munich hosted the Olympics about 30 years ago) and the BMW Museum.

We rounded out the day by participating in the annual tradition of Starkbierziet (“Strong Beer Season”). Long ago, one could not eat during Lent and as a result, the Monks created a strong beer (some with the content equaling 16 loaves of bread) that has about 9% alcohol compared to the normal 5% alcohol. The strong beer is only brewed during this season (4 weeks of the year) and is similar to a mini-more-local Octoberfest. Men and women walk around in traditional lederhosen and dirndls and you are expected to drink half-liters of strong-beer at these events – due to the strong beer, the beerhalls close at Midnight during this season.

Would love to tell you that was the end of my night, but we actually went out to a Munich club, Pascha…here’s a picture of the table we got front and center of the DJ Eric Prydz

Apparently, you can be a disaster even after graduating college…I woke up feeling horrendous from Friday, and had to let Brenna and friends go tour a Munich brewery by themselves. I did pull myself together and went with them to Dachau – the only concentration camp to have been operating throughout the 12 years during WWII / Nazi reign in Germany. The concentration camp was massive and recounts of the stories and suffering were horrific – it’s incredulous to think this happened only half an hour away from Munich 70 years ago and to know that similar mass genocide still exists today.

We searched for happier tourist options for the rest of our trip – I tried to recreate my Jordanian experience by taking everyone to a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner. Dan and I agreed the food really just didn’t come close to the food experiences we had in Jordan – but I think our expectations are a little high. The night ended in partying at Neu Raum -- a giant club with at least five dance floors – I learned from Friday night though.

Unfortunately, we didn’t end the party soon enough as we still didn’t get home until 4am with alarms going off around 6:30-7am to go to Neuschwanstein Castle (King Ludwig II’s castle that the Disney Castle is modeled off), two hours southwest of Munich next to the German/Austrian alps. I had no clue it was so close to the Alps, and even though I was told it was snowing, I didn’t realize there would be snow/ice on the ground…yeah, I didn’t quite wear the right shoes for walking up and down hills in snow and ice. Needless to say, I was a bit grump-grump all day Sunday – I definitely slipped and fell towards the end of our hilly climb to the Castle.

Finally, the weekend came to an end – loved having visitors and have so many great not appropriate for public blogging stories to share.