First full day in Berlin

5/9

Friday.  We got up early because Mike had made breakfast reservations at a restaurant atop the Reichstagg (the German congress).   It is an interesting combination of old and new architecture.  The building was burned in the 30's and bombed during the war and went unused for several decades.  

It was recently refurbished and after the government moved from Bonn to Berlin in the 90's it has been the seat of the Parliament here.  The views we

re beautiful with another gorgeous day.  After a rooftop breakfast with Mike we explored the dome and headed down to the Museum island part of Berlin while Mike claimed to head off to work.  We went to the Alte Nationalgalerie (old national art gallery) and spent a few hours exploring the art 

there.  Mainly a lot of German painters but also a few more famous folks 

like Rodin and Manet.  

After leaving the museum we wandered around old Berlin, stopping at a street side Bratwurst stand.  Andy got a brat and I got a "Currywurst," which is a Berlin thing, picture a brat drowned in ketchup with curry sprinkled on top and you have the concept.  It was worth a try but not a repeat.  The $2.5 euro lunch was still a deal.

We kept on walking and wandering the streets until we came upon the site of "Checkpoint Charlie" the entrance way between the American and the Russian and later the East German sectors of Berlin.  All that's left now are cobblestones in pavement and some signs explaining what occurred there over the years.  They have a little recreation of the guardpost checkpoint complete with a East German and American guards for tourists.  Part of what makes the history of Berlin so dramatic is how recent everything feels.  The wall wasn't built until 1961 didn't fall until 1989.  The reunification of Germany didn't occur until 1990. 

We met back up with Mike after he finished with work and trekked off to a beer garden for dinner.  The one we went to was set in a lovely spot next to a park.  The crowds were heavy and the beer flowed under a canopy of trees.  One of Mike's friends, Andreas, who is married to an American diplomat, joined us.  We ate pizza, roasted chicken and potato salad.  It was great. Getting to know about Germany from a native was a real treat.  We decided to keep the evening going by hitting a beach bar on the way home.  Berliners have these crazy bars with beach chairs and sometimes sand where they pretend they are at the beach.  I guess the beer helps with this illusion.  We camped out in beach chairs watching the tour boats go up and down the river.  The night was still young (by Berlin standards) so we continued on to a cocktail bar Mike knew about not far from the American embassy.  It was a tiny joint and the owner was the bartender.  He played great music and really loved his job.  He also sampled the end results of his concoctions to make sure he got them right.  I felt like we had a wonderful evening experiencing the city at night like locals do.  The conversation was great with my son and my brother and Andreas was a very open, nice and thoughtful German.  I enjoyed hearing about his life and his perspective on his country.  We had our  last round of drinks there and headed home for some good sleep.   

End of Barcelona, Beginnings of Berlin

The final night in Barcelona was spent at a very American-like sports bar by the hotel where we watched the Real Madrid v. Barcelona.  This was a better place to watch the game because the announcing was in English, not to mention that the fans were a bit more docile and my cheers for Madrid wouldn't end in violence.  After a thorough whipping of Barcelona by a score of 4-1 by League Champions Real Madrid, we headed back to the hotel to rest up before setting off for Berlin the following day.

Berlin is an absolutely fascinating city and a definite change of pace from Spain.  Technologically speaking, they seem to be light years beyond the Spanish, and Berlin itself is hip and modern.  We got in on the 8th around 2 pm after a delayed flight and grabbed a train from the airport 

towards Mike's place.  The flight was easy (hence the company name EasyJet), despite the delay and seats that did not recline.  You can't argue with a 40 euro plane 

ticket though.  Mike met us at the train station, and we hopped on the metro to go two more stops to his place.  It was great  to see Mike and know that he was going to be our guide/host for the remainder of our trip.  Mike takes care of you like nobody can.  For those of you coming to visit Mike, get excited for absolutely stunning 8th floor apartment that is comfortable and spacious.  He's in a new building that is techno hip with huge windows and stunning views on both sides of his apartment.  

Mike took us down the Spree river where we embarked on a boat tour that pointed out the architectural highlights of Eastern Berlin, including the parliament building and several museums.  We enjoyed a German pilsner and took in our first glimpses of the city. To my aunts 

and uncles coming in the following weeks, make sure you hold your brother to the high standards on accommodations and cuisine that we ourselves have received.  For example, our first night we were served a incredible dinner that began with a first course of prosciutto on cantaloupe slices, followed by a second c

ourse of duck, potatoes, and white asparagus topped with hollandaise sauce.   This was accompanied by a champagne toast and a nice bottle of red wine. Great atmosphere, conversation, food and drink.  Now everyone coming in the following weeks has a standard to measure their experience by.  I truly hope that your time compares to our exquisite welcoming, but to be honest, I doubt it will.  Mike told us privately that he reserved the best treatment for us.  Our bellies full and some good conversation later, we called it a day.  Tomorrow is another day.

7/5 Last Full Day in Barcelona

We got a late start to our last full day in Barcelona, so we grabbed some pastries and coffee and headed to our first stop of the day - the Barcelona Cathedral.  It was under renovation, so the exterior and part of the interior was draped off.  Nevertheless it was a huge, impressive building with an area for the choir set right in the middle of the church, blocking the altar from much of the rest of the gallery.  Five euros later and we were on the roof, looking over the rooftops of the Barri Gotic, our own neighborhood.  The day was picture perfect with a clear blue sky and gentle cool breezes. 

 

We left the Cathedral and walked a few blocks away to the City’s history museum.  Located in a beautiful old building, much of the museum consisted of taking walkways over excavated Roman ruins and the remains of an old Episcopal Church.  The Roman artifacts went back over 2,000 years.  I found the museum a little dry after looking at several rock walls and excavated clay pots, but it gave me some understanding of how the city had developed.  We proceeded over to another church that was supposed to be pretty good – Santa Maria del Mar.  This church was striking.  It was nearly as big as the Cathedral but had been burned during the Spanish Civil war.  As a result, it was pretty austere inside and the soot from the flames was still visible on the ceiling.  Gregorian chants played while we sat and took in the church.  We both liked it better than the Cathedral and it was situated in a neat little neighborhood, not far from the beach.

 

 Leaving the church, we wandered across a part of town we hadn’t been in before and went back to our stomping grounds.  We thought we’d give the Dali museum a try, but it was something that we could have missed.  It was a small operation and primarily showed photos of the artists and several of his lesser-known works in print.  No paintings at all, although there were several statutes.  We didn’t spend too much time in the place since there wasn’t much there and what there was wasn’t that interesting.  For lunch we decided to hit the tapas bar we went to the other night and unlike some of the other places we had been to today, it didn’t disappoint.  The food was just as good as we remembered and we tried several new dishes.  We could have eaten more but we stopped after a dozen. It was delicious. 

 

Andy wanted to check out more Gaudi, specifically a house he had constructed for the wealthy

Mila family of Barcelona nicknamed La Pedrera (Quarry in Catalan).  I myself wasn’t sure I wanted to see more of his work after spending loads of time at both Park Güell and La Sagrada Familia, but I agreed since we weren’t having much luck with our other picks.  Along the way we ran into the Palau de la Musica Catalana (the Music Hall).  It was a beautiful building and we tried to get in to take a tour but they were sold out.  The glimpses we got to see were impressive and we took the inability to check it out this time as a sign we were meant to return to Barcelona in the future.  After walking a few more blocks we found Gaudi’s La Casa Mila.  A bank bought the building and runs tours out of it.  It was very well done and we both really enjoyed it.  Most of the tour is in the attic of the building, which was a wonderful spot to show off Gaudi’s unique construction techniques, since the cantilever arches, support columns and wild brickwork is all exposed.  Models and videos displaying his work helped you understand several of the themes he brought to hisprojects.  From the attic you climb onto the roof.  It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.  The roof rises and falls and encircles two interior atriums, which bring light down and into all the floors and apartments.  Over a dozen chimneys, each unique, protrude from the roof.  After visiting the roof you are able to go into an apartment in the building.  Gaudi’s design allowed lots of light and he used opaque glass and lots of windows to make the rooms feel large and airy.   None of the interior apartment walls were load bearing soa person could set their rooms up in any configuration they’d like.  The result was very charming and modern for a building, which was started in 1908 and completed in 1920.  It was Gaudi’s last work.       

 

Since it was such a nice day we walked all the way back to our hotel, stopping for some more gelato.  This stuff is really good.  I wonder if you could live off of beer and gelato.  I wouldn’t mind giving it a try. 

 

Upon our return, Andy hooked up the Internet and connected with his friends.  I finished my book and packed for the airport.  We have an early flight to Berlin in the morning and Real Madrid plays Barcelona (a fierce rivalry – think Yankees (Barcelona) and Red Sox (Real Madrid) according to Andy) tonight so we’re going to go to a sports bar to catch the game. 

 

I’m having a great time with my son.  Hope you can feel just a little bit of the magic through this blog.  It’s been a wonderful trip so far and tomorrow I get to see my brother.  Life is very good right now.

 

 

6/5/2008 Barcelona Continued...

6/5/2008 ( For those of you who haven't caught on, the Europeans do their dates day/month/year)

Toward the end of yesterday we headed back to a tapas bar by the Dali Museum that had been recommended to us by our bicycle tour guide. We stepped inside and took a small table with two short seats at the back. Tapas were arrayed on plates up and down the long bar. Each tapa had a wood skewer sticking out of it. The price of the tapa was determined by the length of the stick; the longer the stick the more expensive the appetizer. The prices ranged from about E 1.4 to E 1.7. They had everything under the sun and all of it was good. We feasted on things like eel, salmon, crab, roast beef, tuna stuffed peppers and roasted duck. We stopped after sampling 12 tapas and having a couple of beers. There was a table next to us of three women and one man. They were engaged in a lively conversation and before long had drawn us into it. Demanding that we sing a song from our native land we complied with “Rocky Top” and the responded with a Cataluñan tune. Andy had a great time talking to both of them and gained some insight into the belief that this region should be an independent country that doesn’t need or want Spain. For those of you unaware, Cataluña has autonomy in the nation of Spain. Basically, they are economically the closest thing to an independent country without being one. Catuñans have their own language, different from Castillan Spanish, their own identity and cultural. For this reason, there is a sense of nationalism among many Catluñans. This was the sentiment expressed quite openly by this woman.

In the morning we woke up with plans to see La Sagrada Familia, an incredible cathedral being built in Barcelona, which was begun over 100 years ago. Antonio Gaudi was the principal architect. He was a genius, fanatic, extremely catholic, and a man of great faith and vision. It’s too much to go into in this blog but the building is amazing. Gaudi believed that representation of faith, such as statutes of saints or depictions of biblical import should be on the outside of the church where people can see them and be drawn inside. He has over 200,000 images on the exterior, which is still not finished. There will be 18 towers, only 8 of which have been completed. Two of the three planned facades have been completed, the Nativity and Crucifixion respectively. The final façade, which remains under constructions, is that of the Glory, or Ascension of Christ. The interior still has a long way to go but it is an engineering and architectural marvel. He patterned most of his designs after the mathematical perfection found in nature. We spent hours there soaking it up.

After La Sagrada Familia, we headed toward the beach to another restaurant recommended by our bicycle guide. This one was very nice and looked expensive but they had a lunch special for E 12 that we both got. What a deal it turned out to be. A nice light white wine, bread with olive oil and tomatoes drizzled on top; potatoes, onions and sausage in a white cream sauce; very good gazpacho; broiled sardines; peppers, olives and other pickled treats; a meat stew; paella; and a broiled white fish. All of this was topped off with a dessert of crème de Catalayan (a soft crème brulee). It was absolutely delicious.

We walked off the meal by heading down to the beach and dipping our toes in the Mediterran. We hiked over to a tower by the port and took an overhead cable tram from the port to Mont Jouïc (Jewish mountain). From leaving the tram we walked to the top of the mountain where the 92 Olympics were held. A soccer team still uses the stadium today. The Miro museum and the Catalyan Art Museum are also there along with spectacular views of the city as it rises from the sea. We took a metro from the top and headed back to our hotel, trying to work off as much of the lunch as possible.

Back at the hotel, we caught up with some email and did some reading before heading out for a late night gelato snack. It was another beautiful day.

First Full Day in Barcelona

5/5/2008
We began our second (first full) day in Barcelona by taking a bike tour to help us orient ourselves to what had seemed a quite overwhelming city at first. Our tour guide was French, but she spoke English, Spanish, as well as Catalan (the language spoken in Cataluña of which Barcelona is the Capital.) We toured with a Dutch woman, her daughter, and her daughter’s friend. Being on a bike was great after the exhausting amount of walking it felt like we had done the day before. I know Dad especially enjoyed it. Our tour guide was very informed on the history and context of the city and its architecture. I enjoyed speaking to her about these topics as well as chatting a bit in Spanish as we rode.

After the bike tour finished, Dad and I grabbed lunch at a Wok to Walk. This place is a chain that I had eaten at a couple of times in Amsterdam because it was quick and cheap. The one in Barcelona did not disappoint either.

After lunch, we hopped on the metro up to Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudi on a hill that overlooks all of Barcelona. The park is full of quirky neo-gothic architecture and scenic vistas of the city and the Mediterranean. We spent a few hours just strolling through the park and enjoying the wonderful weather. The park itself was free, however we decided to spend a couple of euros and go inside the Gaudi Museum, a house where Gaudi himself had lived for several years. The place was not large, but it was full of furniture he had designed and was quite interesting.

Finished with the park, we took the metro back towards our hotel in search of a Moritz ( a beer from Barcelona we had read about in our books). We had spotted and International Beer bar near the hotel, and thought it might be as good a place as any to find one. Unfortunately, the bar didn’t carry Moritz, but instead was packed with some rowdy Brits who were throwing a stag party for their mate, as well as a Australian guy who was in Barcelona on business, and a Norwegian electrician who just got off a cruise ship he had been working on. At around 5:30 or 6 in the afternoon the Brits were absolutely smashed, and the Australian was being civil as they verbally abused him down the bar. Whenever he was on the ropes, he pulled his ace from his pocket. The Aussies have owned the Brits in cricket over the last few years. That seemed to shut them up momentarily. Their intentions weren’t violent by any means, and the Aussie was aware that the Brits had a reputation of being loud and obnoxious in bars. The Aussie and the Brits bought each other beers down the bar, and we eventually ending up chatting with the Australian (Mark), one of the Brits (Rob), and the Norwegian (John). All of them were much more intent our getting hammered than Dad and I, and we left them to their tomfoolery after two beers.

Right now we are sitting in the hotel, remembering what we can to post on the blog at a future date, and waiting for 8:00 PM, which is the earliest dinner is served if you want to truly mesh with the culture.
-Andy

AVE and First Glimpse of Barcelona

4/5/2008
Well today we traveled to Barcelona. We got up early to make sure we were packed and walked on down to the train station, grabbing a coffee and neopolitan (a croissant stuffed with chocolate crème and topped with powdered sugar) once we got there. We waited for the 9:30 AVE train to Barcelona. The train was beautiful and new, very sleek and comfortable. Within minutes we were outside of Madrid, enjoying the countryside and listening to music. The train reached speeds of over 300 km/hr (about 190 mph), making a few stops along the way. We were in Barcelona by 1:00 pm., took a taxi to the Rambles (a large pedestrian walkway about a mile long which starts in the Plaza de Catalayana and ends at the harbor) and walked to the hotel.

Once we dropped our stuff the reality of our surroundings caught up with us. Very narrow streets with no particular direction caused us to be lost in very short order. The Romans were in Barcelona and you can still catch glimpses of their presence. Getting hungry, we found a picturesque restaurant and went inside for lunch. We had a wonderful lunch, maybe the best of the trip so far. Appetizers of grilled vegetables and salmon rolls were really good. Then came the paella, the main course. With a bottle of wine, it couldn’t get much better. After a long lunch we started to explore.

The alleys reminded me of Italy. We wandered around and found the Rambles, walking the length of it. We walked down by the harbor, saw the monument to Columbus pointing out to the sea, and looked for a metro to visit the Sagrada Familia (a cathedral that was started over 100 years ago by Antoni Gaudi). After a quick treat for gelato, we headed back to the hotel, stopping at a local market to buy some bread. Andy decided to head to an internet café to hook up with his friends, since the internet wasn’t working at our hotel. I stayed behind and read. Andy made it back and we watched an episode of “It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia” before we went to bed.
-Gregg

The Mailing Adventure, or How to be an ugly American at the Post Office 4/5/2008

We got up earlier than the past day because we needed to send some of my stuff back to the States. Two suitcases were too much to lug around, not too mention the outrageous cost of having an extra suitcase on some of the flights we will be taking. We pulled my over 20 kg suitcase through Madrid to El Corte Ingles (a massive department store think Wal-mart meets Sears). The post office was not open when we arrived, so we st

opped over at a café for a coffee and some breakfast. When we returned, the post office was not very busy and we hopped in line. I had to help a couple of Australian guys mail some things because their attempt at speaking louder and more clearly in English wasn’t very effective.

When it was our turn in line, we realized we would have to unpack the contents of my suitcase and offload it into a box to send home. This took some time, and as we did it the line grew. By the time we finally finished, a Spanish man had come to express his frustration with the clerk, who was extremely helpful. He asked if there was some problem with the network and when the clerk responded that there was not, he cursed him for spending so much time helping the foreigners who

he had wrongly identified as British. Not knowing I had understood everything he said, we paid the clerk, thanked him, pardoned ourselves to the annoyed Spaniard, and went on our way.

After the 2 hours it took to do this, Dad and I were happy to go see some art at the modern art museum, the Reina Sofia. I’m going to let Dad tell you about the rest of the day.

-Andy

We forged on to the Reina Sofia (Madrid’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art). Located in an old hospital, the museum had a special showing of Picasso’s works, from the National Museum in Paris. With over 400 of his paintings, drawings and sculpture, we got to see more Picasso in one place than I ever thought possible. The most popular painting was “La Guernica” which captured the horror of the Nazi bombing (at Franco’s request) of a small city in Spain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Hitler used the war to practice the tactics he would later use against the allies. The painting became famous as a powerful protest against modern war. We spent hours looking at Picasso and also got to see some of Salvador Dali’s work. The earlier works of both artists was interesting, since they were both more traditional.

After all that art, we decided to go see a soccer match. We went to a stadium where Atletico de Madrid plays. Madrid has two professional soccer teams (think Cubs and White Sox). These guys are like the White Sox, playing second fiddle to the much more popular Real Madrid. Nonetheless, they are ranked 4^th in the very competitive Spanish Soccer League A, under Real Madrid, Villareal, and Barcelona. We bought tickets, grabbed a bite to eat and waited for the stadium to open. Once inside we traveled to our seats. Yup, the very last row up. You had to duck below overhead steel beams to get to the seats. Andy forgot twice and banged his head; I made the same mistake once. What this country needs is some good personal injury lawyers, I thought. The sun started to go down and the match began. Atletico scored first and made two more goals before it was over. The crowd was very happy. It was fun to watch a soccer game and have immediate fan feedback as to what were good plays. From our vantage point we could really get a sense of the plays developing and saw some pretty awesome soccer.

After the game we headed back to the hostel. We bought a couple of beers on the way to take back to our room and toast Andy’s friends, Tara, Andrew and the others who were graduating that day. Back at the room we got to video chat with Casey before calling it a night. I’m having a great time traveling with my son. He’s a pleasure to be with. We’re having great chats and seeing some wonderful things. Tomorrow we hit Barcelona.

-Gregg