Blame any typing errors in the shakes. My withdraw from our pseudo-grand tour is causing serious issues for me. I did, however, get to experience once again my very favorite part of returning from a trip overseas.
In the parts of Europe where Doug and I were, everyone speaks English. What they don't speak is American. It makes me beam with joy when I fly into JFK (which is the perfect airport for this experience) and walk up to customs and hear a caustic American accent, that potent blend of too many cultures, speaking a language only tangentially related to the English spoken abroad.
"How you doin'?"
"I'm good." I reply, "Thanks."
"Cool." The customs officer hands back my passport, "Aight, take care, buddy."
15 September 2009
Figuring it out: the personal journey
I noticed a few days ago that I've become a more confident traveler. Zurich was a tipping point.
Three weeks ago, in Copenhagen, I didn't eat a single meal in a restaurant; it was all either take-out or street food. Dining alone kind of frightened me. If I'd found a Frommer-recommended place that was still open (which I didn’t, aside from the really expensive one in the Tivoli Gardens), I would have gone in and eaten alone, miserably, pretending to write or read the whole time, dreading contact with the server.
That's basically what happened last year in Florence and Paris. If not for Arthur and this project, I probably would have survived on gelato in Italy and crepes in France. But you have to eat, and when you play by certain oddball rules, you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone and eat in historic restaurants with sometimes-historic, sometimes-grouchy employees. Eventually, inevitably, you learn that the waiters and bartenders can be interesting people, certainly more interesting than the company of pigeons in the park or Eurovision on television. Even introverts need to socialize. Sometimes it just takes a bit—okay, a lot—of effort. I started to learn that lesson last year, but the trip was short enough that I never fully adjusted.
In Copenhagen, I was still greeting each new day with trepidation, rather hoping that my efforts to find restaurants and sights Arthur recommends (to coin a verb, my “Frommering” efforts) would be unsuccessful so that I could retreat to a quiet park with a bag of pastries.
Of course, a major point of this project, or at least the self-centered point of it, is indeed to get out of my comfort zone and embark on a Personal Journey--to become smarter, savvier, suaver, sophisticated-er, sweeter-smelling, etc. Enlightenment and Self-Improvement and all that treacle. The profound epiphanies are still in short supply--and I'm okay with that; I was pretty happy with life beforehand, thanks very much. (And believe me, if I do figure out the Meaning of Life, I’ll let you know.)
In the abstract, though, in some ineffable way, I have become savvier, more confident, more competent. Certainly in terms of travel.
The change has come in part from the simple act of getting used to life on the road, life in an ever-changing, ever-unfamiliar environment. When you have to figure things out the hard way over and over, day after day, eventually even the hard way becomes slightly easier. You start to learn just enough words to get by, the rhythms of life, the subway systems, all the little markers of becoming at ease with a place . . . and, by extension, yourself.
Much of the credit, though, goes directly to Lee. Before he got here, I never set foot in a bar (on this trip, I mean), and it never would have occurred to me to sit at the bar and talk to the bartender. Our second night together, in Amsterdam, Lee did a shot of some exotic alcohol that was green and evil-looking and, according to the ads posted all over the bar, extremely potent. I looked on squeamishly, nursing my Heineken--the one drink I had that night, I believe--and worrying that, this being Amsterdam and all, someone might slip roofies into my beer, take my passport, and dump me into a canal.
By our last night together, in Zurich, I was demanding to Lee that we go bar-hopping. In one spot, I noticed on the shelf a bottle of Havana Club rum, a liquor that Lee, a bartender when not a sidekick, had never seen before. I presumed it was illegal in the States (Havana means Cuba means embargo), which made it all the more appealing. I informed Lee, in no uncertain terms, that we were doing shots. People who know me just did a double-take when reading that sentence, so perhaps I should confirm: that's correct, I ordered semi-illicit shots of alcohol. With glee.
I'd never ordered a shot in a bar--not Europe, not in the US. It's just not something that would have every occurred to me, to be honest. I'm happy to report that it was delicious: smooth with a nice little kick. A great complement to the various . . . actually, I'm not going to finish that sentence, for fear that you'll think I've become a huge lush. I have not. Promise. I have no desire to be like those women we met in Amsterdam, the ones who traveled specifically to get hammered.
I'm not sure everyone would see an uptick in bar-hopping as progress on my part, but believe me, it is. Or rather, it's a sign of progress, a symptom of it. I'm going out more and over-analyzing less. I've loosened up . . . a bit. Don't worry, I'm still charmingly neurotic and endearingly awkward and amusingly paranoid. There's still plenty where that came from. But the fears are a bit less absurd and a bit more fleeting, and they're tempered by some newfound confidence, a confidence whose very presence I frankly find amusing and astonishing. I have greater faith that things will work out in the end and, more to the point, in my own ability to make that happen.
Thank you, Lee, thank you, Arthur, for guiding me to this point:
Yesterday (Monday), after less than 24 hours in Vienna, I felt like I knew how to navigate the city, not just geographically but culturally. I'd already adjusted, at least to a large degree. I can't tell you how many times I had an internal dialog that went like this:
"Okay, so take the U3 three stops, then look for the big church, take a left, walk three blocks, go over the canal, and the place will be just past the park, on the right."
"Shouldn't you check the map a few more times? Or at least keep it out?"
"Nope. Not necessary."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing? Really?"
"As a matter of fact . . . yes."
"Oh. Well . . . all right, then. Carry on."
Of course, I also had the following thought, as my tram was going past the glorious neo-Classical parliament building, with its grand columns and statues of noblemen on horses: "Man, I have seen this building so many times in Europe. All these damn cities look the same! I am so over columns and horse statues."
So maybe I'm coming down with a minor case of Grand Tour Fatigue Syndrome, too, which is not exactly good news. . . .
Three weeks ago, in Copenhagen, I didn't eat a single meal in a restaurant; it was all either take-out or street food. Dining alone kind of frightened me. If I'd found a Frommer-recommended place that was still open (which I didn’t, aside from the really expensive one in the Tivoli Gardens), I would have gone in and eaten alone, miserably, pretending to write or read the whole time, dreading contact with the server.
That's basically what happened last year in Florence and Paris. If not for Arthur and this project, I probably would have survived on gelato in Italy and crepes in France. But you have to eat, and when you play by certain oddball rules, you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone and eat in historic restaurants with sometimes-historic, sometimes-grouchy employees. Eventually, inevitably, you learn that the waiters and bartenders can be interesting people, certainly more interesting than the company of pigeons in the park or Eurovision on television. Even introverts need to socialize. Sometimes it just takes a bit—okay, a lot—of effort. I started to learn that lesson last year, but the trip was short enough that I never fully adjusted.
In Copenhagen, I was still greeting each new day with trepidation, rather hoping that my efforts to find restaurants and sights Arthur recommends (to coin a verb, my “Frommering” efforts) would be unsuccessful so that I could retreat to a quiet park with a bag of pastries.
Of course, a major point of this project, or at least the self-centered point of it, is indeed to get out of my comfort zone and embark on a Personal Journey--to become smarter, savvier, suaver, sophisticated-er, sweeter-smelling, etc. Enlightenment and Self-Improvement and all that treacle. The profound epiphanies are still in short supply--and I'm okay with that; I was pretty happy with life beforehand, thanks very much. (And believe me, if I do figure out the Meaning of Life, I’ll let you know.)
In the abstract, though, in some ineffable way, I have become savvier, more confident, more competent. Certainly in terms of travel.
The change has come in part from the simple act of getting used to life on the road, life in an ever-changing, ever-unfamiliar environment. When you have to figure things out the hard way over and over, day after day, eventually even the hard way becomes slightly easier. You start to learn just enough words to get by, the rhythms of life, the subway systems, all the little markers of becoming at ease with a place . . . and, by extension, yourself.
Much of the credit, though, goes directly to Lee. Before he got here, I never set foot in a bar (on this trip, I mean), and it never would have occurred to me to sit at the bar and talk to the bartender. Our second night together, in Amsterdam, Lee did a shot of some exotic alcohol that was green and evil-looking and, according to the ads posted all over the bar, extremely potent. I looked on squeamishly, nursing my Heineken--the one drink I had that night, I believe--and worrying that, this being Amsterdam and all, someone might slip roofies into my beer, take my passport, and dump me into a canal.
By our last night together, in Zurich, I was demanding to Lee that we go bar-hopping. In one spot, I noticed on the shelf a bottle of Havana Club rum, a liquor that Lee, a bartender when not a sidekick, had never seen before. I presumed it was illegal in the States (Havana means Cuba means embargo), which made it all the more appealing. I informed Lee, in no uncertain terms, that we were doing shots. People who know me just did a double-take when reading that sentence, so perhaps I should confirm: that's correct, I ordered semi-illicit shots of alcohol. With glee.
I'd never ordered a shot in a bar--not Europe, not in the US. It's just not something that would have every occurred to me, to be honest. I'm happy to report that it was delicious: smooth with a nice little kick. A great complement to the various . . . actually, I'm not going to finish that sentence, for fear that you'll think I've become a huge lush. I have not. Promise. I have no desire to be like those women we met in Amsterdam, the ones who traveled specifically to get hammered.
I'm not sure everyone would see an uptick in bar-hopping as progress on my part, but believe me, it is. Or rather, it's a sign of progress, a symptom of it. I'm going out more and over-analyzing less. I've loosened up . . . a bit. Don't worry, I'm still charmingly neurotic and endearingly awkward and amusingly paranoid. There's still plenty where that came from. But the fears are a bit less absurd and a bit more fleeting, and they're tempered by some newfound confidence, a confidence whose very presence I frankly find amusing and astonishing. I have greater faith that things will work out in the end and, more to the point, in my own ability to make that happen.
Thank you, Lee, thank you, Arthur, for guiding me to this point:
Yesterday (Monday), after less than 24 hours in Vienna, I felt like I knew how to navigate the city, not just geographically but culturally. I'd already adjusted, at least to a large degree. I can't tell you how many times I had an internal dialog that went like this:
"Okay, so take the U3 three stops, then look for the big church, take a left, walk three blocks, go over the canal, and the place will be just past the park, on the right."
"Shouldn't you check the map a few more times? Or at least keep it out?"
"Nope. Not necessary."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing? Really?"
"As a matter of fact . . . yes."
"Oh. Well . . . all right, then. Carry on."
Of course, I also had the following thought, as my tram was going past the glorious neo-Classical parliament building, with its grand columns and statues of noblemen on horses: "Man, I have seen this building so many times in Europe. All these damn cities look the same! I am so over columns and horse statues."
So maybe I'm coming down with a minor case of Grand Tour Fatigue Syndrome, too, which is not exactly good news. . . .
Salute to a sidekick
Lee's gone home to Baltimore, leaving me sidekick-less.
I'll be glad to not spend so much time and ink writing down his witty remarks, but that's about the only benefit of him leaving.
Lee, my friend, danke. The Not-So-Grand Tour came alarmingly close to becoming genuinely grand. I look forward to traveling with you again--you can be my sidekick any time, or I'll be yours. Better yet: equals.
Remember: I'm Brad Pitt, you're George Clooney. We're famous.
Cheers.
I'll be glad to not spend so much time and ink writing down his witty remarks, but that's about the only benefit of him leaving.
Lee, my friend, danke. The Not-So-Grand Tour came alarmingly close to becoming genuinely grand. I look forward to traveling with you again--you can be my sidekick any time, or I'll be yours. Better yet: equals.
Remember: I'm Brad Pitt, you're George Clooney. We're famous.
Cheers.
14 September 2009
Not-So-Flattering Views of Famous Places
I'm behind in my not-so-flattering views posts, so today you get two: Mozart statue in Vienna (look between the two stands) and Bavaria statue watching over the Oktoberfest grounds in Munich.
Switzerland: now at twice the cost and half the efficiency!
Arthur says that it's "strange to be in a country where (a) everything works, (b) everyone seems well-off, (c) all appliances, machinery, telephones and gadgets are more modern than ours."
Switzerland definitely has the reputation of being a land of precision, function, and efficiency. Think Swiss watches, Swiss banks, Swiss Army Knives.
But have you ever actually used a Swiss Army Knife? Trick question. No one has EVER used one. They make great gifts, but if you want actual function, use a Leatherman. Swiss Army Knife blades are laughably small and dull; the other tools are basically useless. I'm sure there might be some situation in which I need a tiny, crappy awl, but it can't imagine what it would be.
The knife is the perfect metaphor Switzerland, at least in our experience: superficially well put-together, efficient, precise. But in reality, not so much.
Case in point: the transit maps. They're a disaster. In other cities (Berlin and Paris, for example), the maps have a relative scale--the distances between the stations are all the same, but the cardinal directions of everything are more or less correct. The maps kind of sprawl in a linear fashion, according to how the city itself is laid out. They make sense.
The Swiss have tried to cram the Zurich transit map into a square, orderly grid. In theory, it's great: it fits in a small space, and if you check the index of stations and see that your desired station is in sector B3, you just find that square on the map. But by trying to force a logical grid on a sprawling, disorderly system, they've ended up with a map that looks like a plate of pasta studded with tiny meatballs.
The pricing of things here also completely defies logic. Most foods are jaw-droppingly expensive. A Big Mac Value Meal costs 11 CHF (their currency is nearly even with the dollar, so that would be about $11). A Whopper, sans fries and drink, costs 7 CHF. A vastly inferior curry in a dive of a restaurant in a dreary neighborhood costs 19.50 CHF.
But go to a swank restaurant in a hip section of the center city and order fondue. It'll be 22 CHF per person--about what you'd pay in the US, but the quality here is better. (Yes, you'll look like a tourist. Deal with it. Arthur insists you have this exotic "food specialty of Switzerland," and it is damn delicious.)
Or head to the bustling lunch stand on the Limmatquai and order up half a rotisserie chicken and a huge, rustic roll. Cost: 9.50 CHF. That sounds about right, maybe even a little cheap, given the quality and quantity. Just don't order a beverage: Lee's 20 oz bottle of Coke, at the same place was 5 CHF.
Totally baffling--as Lee put it, they don't seem to have any idea what to charge for things (although, as I said, for the most part they seem to have decided that prices should be absurdly, whimper-inducingly high).
The city just isn't as orderly and efficient as you've been led to believe. The trains run on time, but good luck figuring out the layout of the central train station and getting to your train in the first place. And please ignore all the graffiti. Oh, and how many dapper accountants did we see? ONE. You think this whole city is full of them. Not so.
Lee and I figured it out, though: the reason everything here is so freaking expensive is that they spend gobs of money on PR consultants to convince the rest of the world that this place is as modern, orderly, and efficient as Arthur claims. Kudos to those consultants; they've done a fine job. I was convinced. Until I came here.
Switzerland definitely has the reputation of being a land of precision, function, and efficiency. Think Swiss watches, Swiss banks, Swiss Army Knives.
But have you ever actually used a Swiss Army Knife? Trick question. No one has EVER used one. They make great gifts, but if you want actual function, use a Leatherman. Swiss Army Knife blades are laughably small and dull; the other tools are basically useless. I'm sure there might be some situation in which I need a tiny, crappy awl, but it can't imagine what it would be.
The knife is the perfect metaphor Switzerland, at least in our experience: superficially well put-together, efficient, precise. But in reality, not so much.
Case in point: the transit maps. They're a disaster. In other cities (Berlin and Paris, for example), the maps have a relative scale--the distances between the stations are all the same, but the cardinal directions of everything are more or less correct. The maps kind of sprawl in a linear fashion, according to how the city itself is laid out. They make sense.
The Swiss have tried to cram the Zurich transit map into a square, orderly grid. In theory, it's great: it fits in a small space, and if you check the index of stations and see that your desired station is in sector B3, you just find that square on the map. But by trying to force a logical grid on a sprawling, disorderly system, they've ended up with a map that looks like a plate of pasta studded with tiny meatballs.
The pricing of things here also completely defies logic. Most foods are jaw-droppingly expensive. A Big Mac Value Meal costs 11 CHF (their currency is nearly even with the dollar, so that would be about $11). A Whopper, sans fries and drink, costs 7 CHF. A vastly inferior curry in a dive of a restaurant in a dreary neighborhood costs 19.50 CHF.
But go to a swank restaurant in a hip section of the center city and order fondue. It'll be 22 CHF per person--about what you'd pay in the US, but the quality here is better. (Yes, you'll look like a tourist. Deal with it. Arthur insists you have this exotic "food specialty of Switzerland," and it is damn delicious.)
Or head to the bustling lunch stand on the Limmatquai and order up half a rotisserie chicken and a huge, rustic roll. Cost: 9.50 CHF. That sounds about right, maybe even a little cheap, given the quality and quantity. Just don't order a beverage: Lee's 20 oz bottle of Coke, at the same place was 5 CHF.
Totally baffling--as Lee put it, they don't seem to have any idea what to charge for things (although, as I said, for the most part they seem to have decided that prices should be absurdly, whimper-inducingly high).
The city just isn't as orderly and efficient as you've been led to believe. The trains run on time, but good luck figuring out the layout of the central train station and getting to your train in the first place. And please ignore all the graffiti. Oh, and how many dapper accountants did we see? ONE. You think this whole city is full of them. Not so.
Lee and I figured it out, though: the reason everything here is so freaking expensive is that they spend gobs of money on PR consultants to convince the rest of the world that this place is as modern, orderly, and efficient as Arthur claims. Kudos to those consultants; they've done a fine job. I was convinced. Until I came here.
By the numbers (part III)
Days on the road: 25
Days left: 15
Cities visited: 6
Current city: Vienna (Wien)
Cities left: 4
Trains taken (not counting subways, trams, and other local transit): 11
Maximum number of trains in one day: 5
Trains we should have taken that day, if the info desk woman in Munich hadn't given us completely erroneous information: 1
Countries Lee visited semi-illegally on that day: 1 (the detoured route took us through Austria, which wasn't included on his Eurail pass)
Comment by Lee as we slipped into Switzerland without event: "This is just like 'The Sound of Music'--I have evaded the authorities and fled Austria!"
Travel days used up on my Eurail pass: 5
Travel days left: 3
Didgeridoo-playing street performers seen: 3
City with best street performers overall: Copenhagen (no contest)
City with worst: Amsterdam
Pastries consumed: lost count. Probably 50-ish.
Panang curries consumed: 3
Way that Panang curry at dive-y restaurant in depressed neighborhood in outer Zurich was probably prepared: from a can
Price of said curry: 19.50 CHF (Swiss francs)
Price of presumably-authentic fondue in fancy restaurant in hip neighborhood in central Zurich: 22.00 CHF
Current exchange rate of CHF to dollars: about 1.05 CHF to $1.00 (that is, nearly even)
Price of a Big Mac value meal in Zurich (not that I had one): 11.40 CHF
Price of a single Whopper in Zurich (ditto): 7.00 CHF
Price of a really good rotisserie chicken lunch, with rustic roll, in the very heart of Zurich: 9.50 CHF
Price of a 20 oz. bottle of Coke at same restaurant: 5.00 CHF
As you will have surmised, amount that Swiss pricing is consistent or seems to conform to any logic: apparently none
Price of a room at the Sternon Oerlikon in Zurich, circa 1963: $3, including breakfast
Price of a room in 2009: 145 CHF, not including breakfast (apparently)
Adjectives Arthur uses to describe said hotel: rustic, quiet, old-fashioned
Adjectives I'd use: loud, ugly, clearly geared toward business travelers with expense accounts and a high tolerance for the greatest interior design hits of 1986
Highest price of a watch seen displayed in a Zurich shop window: 94,700 CHF
Weirdest item seen on a menu: foal
Europe's most popular food, and the most readily-available in every city I've visited: doner kebab
Favorite kebab-stand name: Kebabistan (in Copenhagen)
Second-favorite: Ali Kebab . . . or maybe it was Ali Kebaba (Zurich)
Favorite typo on English sign in restaurant: "menü's" (the rare misplaced-umlaut AND apostrophe double whammy!)
Historic Munich beer halls/gardens patronized: 4
Drinks consumed, aside from beer, that I had not had before: 4 (Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Sazerac, Havana Club rum)
Status of my mother's eyebrows after reading those last two items: arched in alarm
Number of said drinks that were consumed mostly because of the intrigue of imbibing something that is probably illegal in my homeland: 1 (Havana Club, presumably from Cuba; Lee, a bartender, had not heard of it.)
Minimum number of one-line in-jokes that Lee and I established, and which are Very Funny if you know the full context and back history: 4
List of said in-jokes: "the contessa"; "African click language"; "narrative!"; "yeah, we're famous."
Minimum number of instant crushes developed on women on bikes: 138
Number of said women who have spotted me, swooned, and nearly plowed into a canal/windmill/castle/Rodin statue, only to be saved by yours truly at the last minute: ... zero
Number of said women who have even made eye contact: zero
Eccentric pink-fluffy-bathrobe-wearing women approached by in Zurich park, with request for a kiss: 1
Headwear of said woman: plush flower pot hat
Minimum number of cats we were guessing she owned when we first spotted her: 20
Our reaction as she approached us: "It's about a 20-foot drop down this cliff. We can probably make it with minimal injury."
Level of our relief when we discovered that she was basically normal, that the outfit and kiss request were part of a bachelorette party hazing ritual, and that she did not reek of cat urine: palpable
Kisses granted: 4 (2 per cheek from each of us)
Comment to her friends for picking outfit that was just weird enough to be humiliating but plausible (and therefore more embarassing than, say, a tutu): Well done.
Swiss celebrities I can name: Roger Federer (the tennis player)
His native language, to the best of my knowledge: French
Language I assumed they spoke in Zurich, based in this information and Arthur's lack of comments to the contrary: French
Language they actually speak: German with random French and English touches, just to confuse you
Days left: 15
Cities visited: 6
Current city: Vienna (Wien)
Cities left: 4
Trains taken (not counting subways, trams, and other local transit): 11
Maximum number of trains in one day: 5
Trains we should have taken that day, if the info desk woman in Munich hadn't given us completely erroneous information: 1
Countries Lee visited semi-illegally on that day: 1 (the detoured route took us through Austria, which wasn't included on his Eurail pass)
Comment by Lee as we slipped into Switzerland without event: "This is just like 'The Sound of Music'--I have evaded the authorities and fled Austria!"
Travel days used up on my Eurail pass: 5
Travel days left: 3
Didgeridoo-playing street performers seen: 3
City with best street performers overall: Copenhagen (no contest)
City with worst: Amsterdam
Pastries consumed: lost count. Probably 50-ish.
Panang curries consumed: 3
Way that Panang curry at dive-y restaurant in depressed neighborhood in outer Zurich was probably prepared: from a can
Price of said curry: 19.50 CHF (Swiss francs)
Price of presumably-authentic fondue in fancy restaurant in hip neighborhood in central Zurich: 22.00 CHF
Current exchange rate of CHF to dollars: about 1.05 CHF to $1.00 (that is, nearly even)
Price of a Big Mac value meal in Zurich (not that I had one): 11.40 CHF
Price of a single Whopper in Zurich (ditto): 7.00 CHF
Price of a really good rotisserie chicken lunch, with rustic roll, in the very heart of Zurich: 9.50 CHF
Price of a 20 oz. bottle of Coke at same restaurant: 5.00 CHF
As you will have surmised, amount that Swiss pricing is consistent or seems to conform to any logic: apparently none
Price of a room at the Sternon Oerlikon in Zurich, circa 1963: $3, including breakfast
Price of a room in 2009: 145 CHF, not including breakfast (apparently)
Adjectives Arthur uses to describe said hotel: rustic, quiet, old-fashioned
Adjectives I'd use: loud, ugly, clearly geared toward business travelers with expense accounts and a high tolerance for the greatest interior design hits of 1986
Highest price of a watch seen displayed in a Zurich shop window: 94,700 CHF
Weirdest item seen on a menu: foal
Europe's most popular food, and the most readily-available in every city I've visited: doner kebab
Favorite kebab-stand name: Kebabistan (in Copenhagen)
Second-favorite: Ali Kebab . . . or maybe it was Ali Kebaba (Zurich)
Favorite typo on English sign in restaurant: "menü's" (the rare misplaced-umlaut AND apostrophe double whammy!)
Historic Munich beer halls/gardens patronized: 4
Drinks consumed, aside from beer, that I had not had before: 4 (Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Sazerac, Havana Club rum)
Status of my mother's eyebrows after reading those last two items: arched in alarm
Number of said drinks that were consumed mostly because of the intrigue of imbibing something that is probably illegal in my homeland: 1 (Havana Club, presumably from Cuba; Lee, a bartender, had not heard of it.)
Minimum number of one-line in-jokes that Lee and I established, and which are Very Funny if you know the full context and back history: 4
List of said in-jokes: "the contessa"; "African click language"; "narrative!"; "yeah, we're famous."
Minimum number of instant crushes developed on women on bikes: 138
Number of said women who have spotted me, swooned, and nearly plowed into a canal/windmill/castle/Rodin statue, only to be saved by yours truly at the last minute: ... zero
Number of said women who have even made eye contact: zero
Eccentric pink-fluffy-bathrobe-wearing women approached by in Zurich park, with request for a kiss: 1
Headwear of said woman: plush flower pot hat
Minimum number of cats we were guessing she owned when we first spotted her: 20
Our reaction as she approached us: "It's about a 20-foot drop down this cliff. We can probably make it with minimal injury."
Level of our relief when we discovered that she was basically normal, that the outfit and kiss request were part of a bachelorette party hazing ritual, and that she did not reek of cat urine: palpable
Kisses granted: 4 (2 per cheek from each of us)
Comment to her friends for picking outfit that was just weird enough to be humiliating but plausible (and therefore more embarassing than, say, a tutu): Well done.
Swiss celebrities I can name: Roger Federer (the tennis player)
His native language, to the best of my knowledge: French
Language I assumed they spoke in Zurich, based in this information and Arthur's lack of comments to the contrary: French
Language they actually speak: German with random French and English touches, just to confuse you
12 September 2009
The neighborhood that tourists forgot
Arthur divides the entertainment section of the Munich chapter into three sections: "for dancing," "for Bohemianism," and "for theatre."
The dance hall, which Arthur recommends "for shy bachelors," was closed, alas--it's now a furniture store. The bar next door, though, offered something for shy bachelors of a type the "girl-watching"-obsessed Mr. Frommer probably didn't have in mind. It's a bondage bar. I'm sure it would have been a cultural experience in all kinds of ways ... but I decided to give it a pass and move on to see what the Bohemians were up to.
These spots were all clustered in the northern part of town, away from the tourist center. The neighborhood is called Schwabing, and Arthur describes it as "the Greenwich Village are a of Munich ... in some respects, it's zanier and more colorful than anything New York offers."
I'll have to research this further, but my hunch is that post-E5D, Schwabing became a bit touristy. It's near the university--always a draw for young travelers--and about a 20 minute walk from the town center. And if Arthur sent the tourists there, they probably went.
Now, though, Schwabing is that rarest of finds: the place that was likely more touristy in Arthur's day, relative to other parts of the city, than it is today. I walked for blocks and blocks, on side streets and the main drag, and didn't hear English spoken once. There were bistros and hip record stores, guys on skateboards, teenagers doing parkour stunts in a plaza by the U-bahn station, and a cluster of old men playing chess on a massive board, with three-foot-high pieces, in an agreeably overgrown park. No t-shirt stores. No guitarists mangling pop songs in hopes of a few tips. It was utterly beguiling.
On Occam Strasse, I searched for restaurants Arthur recommends, and found none. But the street and the neighborhood were just as he'd promised: quiet, funky, hip, Greenwich Village-like.
I sat on a bench in a lush pocket park and pondered how it is that Schwabing retained--or reclaimed--its charm since the 1960s, avoiding being overrun with tourists and the attendant kitsch. I think I figured it out.
One word, a word that is major tourist bait: Oktoberfest.
Maybe you've heard of it. Little festival involving beer and drinking songs and men in lederhosen and women in drindls and beer and pretzels and schnitzel. And beer. As mentioned in the last post, this is why people come to Munich: for beer with a history chaser.
We'll be missing it by a few days, but the shops are filled with t-shirts and beer steins; the beer gardens and roller coasters (!) are being set up a few blocks from our hostel; the air is filled with the buzz of frantic preparation. They get six to seven million tourists every year for this thing. It's huge.
My theory is that Oktoberfest has permanently shifted Munich's tourism center of gravity to the areas around the train station and just to the south.
Oktoberfest started in 1818, so I know it was going on in the 1950s, but Arthur doesn't mention it. My guess (which I'll have to fact-check) is that it just wasn't a touristy thing back then. Probably only locals, or at least only Germans. At some point in the last 45-plus years, though, foreigners started deciding that passing out in gutters was a fun thing to do in one's leisure time, and Oktoberfest became what it is today: Germany by way of Disney by way of Vegas.
Tourists now stick to the south part of town, where there's plenty of beer to keep them occupied. Schwabing remains, or has become again, a placid-but-funky neighborhood.
So thank you, Arthur, for leading me away from the crowds. That's exactly the sort of unexpected delight that I hoped to find by using your outdated information.
The dance hall, which Arthur recommends "for shy bachelors," was closed, alas--it's now a furniture store. The bar next door, though, offered something for shy bachelors of a type the "girl-watching"-obsessed Mr. Frommer probably didn't have in mind. It's a bondage bar. I'm sure it would have been a cultural experience in all kinds of ways ... but I decided to give it a pass and move on to see what the Bohemians were up to.
These spots were all clustered in the northern part of town, away from the tourist center. The neighborhood is called Schwabing, and Arthur describes it as "the Greenwich Village are a of Munich ... in some respects, it's zanier and more colorful than anything New York offers."
I'll have to research this further, but my hunch is that post-E5D, Schwabing became a bit touristy. It's near the university--always a draw for young travelers--and about a 20 minute walk from the town center. And if Arthur sent the tourists there, they probably went.
Now, though, Schwabing is that rarest of finds: the place that was likely more touristy in Arthur's day, relative to other parts of the city, than it is today. I walked for blocks and blocks, on side streets and the main drag, and didn't hear English spoken once. There were bistros and hip record stores, guys on skateboards, teenagers doing parkour stunts in a plaza by the U-bahn station, and a cluster of old men playing chess on a massive board, with three-foot-high pieces, in an agreeably overgrown park. No t-shirt stores. No guitarists mangling pop songs in hopes of a few tips. It was utterly beguiling.
On Occam Strasse, I searched for restaurants Arthur recommends, and found none. But the street and the neighborhood were just as he'd promised: quiet, funky, hip, Greenwich Village-like.
I sat on a bench in a lush pocket park and pondered how it is that Schwabing retained--or reclaimed--its charm since the 1960s, avoiding being overrun with tourists and the attendant kitsch. I think I figured it out.
One word, a word that is major tourist bait: Oktoberfest.
Maybe you've heard of it. Little festival involving beer and drinking songs and men in lederhosen and women in drindls and beer and pretzels and schnitzel. And beer. As mentioned in the last post, this is why people come to Munich: for beer with a history chaser.
We'll be missing it by a few days, but the shops are filled with t-shirts and beer steins; the beer gardens and roller coasters (!) are being set up a few blocks from our hostel; the air is filled with the buzz of frantic preparation. They get six to seven million tourists every year for this thing. It's huge.
My theory is that Oktoberfest has permanently shifted Munich's tourism center of gravity to the areas around the train station and just to the south.
Oktoberfest started in 1818, so I know it was going on in the 1950s, but Arthur doesn't mention it. My guess (which I'll have to fact-check) is that it just wasn't a touristy thing back then. Probably only locals, or at least only Germans. At some point in the last 45-plus years, though, foreigners started deciding that passing out in gutters was a fun thing to do in one's leisure time, and Oktoberfest became what it is today: Germany by way of Disney by way of Vegas.
Tourists now stick to the south part of town, where there's plenty of beer to keep them occupied. Schwabing remains, or has become again, a placid-but-funky neighborhood.
So thank you, Arthur, for leading me away from the crowds. That's exactly the sort of unexpected delight that I hoped to find by using your outdated information.
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