Berlindon 2015 (Part II - Berlin)

On Tuesday morning, Kerry, her friend Matt, and I flew to Berlin for four days. I viewed my time in Berlin as a research trip, and my list of activites I hoped to accomplish strayed very little from the focus of the Wall. Though I found the Jewish Museum and Holocaust memorials very powerful last time around, there was no time to visit them again on this trip.

Tuesday afternoon the three of us did a little exploring of the area around our hostel in Prenzlauerberg, and ended up eating at Cafe Cinema for dinner. Outside we stumbled upon an alley with lots of grafitti and a cool shop of local art with a gallery attached. We spent some time looking around there, and then I departed to walk over to the Berliner Ensemble, Brecht's theatre, to see The Good Person of Szechuan performed in German. (I saw the sign below along the river on my walk.)

Three and a half hours of abstract German theatre in a very warm room on very little sleep.

I didn't stay awake the whole time, I'll admit, but I did get lucky - the lady at the box office asked if I was a student, and I answered honestly and said no. She asked me how much I wanted to pay then, and pointed out the price levels on the seating chart. Nothing exceeded 30 euros, which is pretty close to $30 right now. Imagine regular orchestra tickets to a Broadway show being $30. Right. I picked an area with 10 euro tickets, and she said "I'm gonna say you're a student anyway," and I said "Well I did go to theatre school, so I kinda am always a student," and she said "I thought so" and handed me a ticket. I went upstairs, to where I had pointed on the seating chart, and an usher said a lot of things to me in German. I smiled and nodded. The house wasn't open yet. I sat and waited. Eventually she said "You speak English, not German, don't you, because I said your seat is downstairs," but she was very nice and explained what the "parket" was and where my seat was, and so off I went, to a 30 euro seat that I paid 9 euros for, and I watched three and a half hours of Brecht in German.

Early this year I saw a production of Good Person at The Public starring Taylor Mac and it was life changing, so I was looking forward to this, thinking I knew the play, but the productions were so different that it was nearly impossible to follow. My couple weeks of duolingo German prep left me with a limited vocabulary of about a dozen words, and the only ones I really caught during the show were "wasser" (water) "liebe" (love) "risjt" (rice) and "frau" (woman). But I'm still glad I went; the scenic design was really interesting and the sound design was exciting because it was so different from what I expected. 

Wednesday I began the day with Kerry and Matt; we all slept in, having gotten very little sleep Monday night before our early morning adventure to the airport. We got food at a restauraunt down the street that seemed, to me, to be disguised as a junk shop, with lots of vintage lamps and typewriters and things covering more surfances than were left bare for eating. The three of us sat at a table with a large hole in the middle filled with legos (the reason it had caught Kerry's eye in the first place). It was a korean place, and we had rice bowls with an assortment of vegetables. Quite good and pretty cheap.

After what was essentially lunch, we headed into the city center. I did most of the navigating, both because I was the one of us who had been to Berlin before, and because I'd downloaded a Berlin metro map that came in handy constantly. Last time I visited, it took me four days before I managed to go in the correct direction on the train every time. This time around, I only went the wrong direction once in four days, and that was on a tram, which I never braved on my last visit.

We started our sightseeing at Potsdamer Platz, where I had gotten my passport stamped four years earlier with all the Cold War-era stamps required to pass from West to East or vice versa, and Matt and Kerry got their first taste of the wall - just a few segments with information wedged in between, and a couple of period-dressed guards available for awkward photo ops. Afterwards Matt and Kerry wanted to see Brandenburger Tor and Checkpoint Charlie, which I chose to skip in favor of some David Bowie adventuring.

I hopped on the subway and navigated down to Schöneberg, where Bowie and Iggy Pop lived together in the mid-late 70s while recording at Hansa Tonstudio. There's a company called Music Tours Berlin that does a David Bowie walking tour, but only on Sundays, so I had to just recreate as much of their itinerary as I could on my own. This mostly consisted of wandering the neighborhood and stopping to drink a beer at Cafe Neues Ufer, a favorite haunt of Bowie's when he lived in Berlin. The walls are now covered in photos and posters of Bowie spanning from his Ziggy days to his more recent tours in the late 90s and early 00s. It surely didn't feel like it must have when Bowie went there, but it was still a good place to sit and read Bowie in Berlin for a while and drink a tall Berliner Pilsner and attempt a bit of conversation in German with the bartender. (I knew enough to ask for my beer in German, and say thank you, tell him I didn't smoke when I was offered an ashtray, and understand how much it cost when I paid; that was about it.)

Kerry and Matt and I had planned to meet for dinner, so I met them back at Checkpoint at Charlie, and we headed in search of food, ending up at Cafe Journale, an Italian place where all three of us ended up ordering the same house special, but it turned out to be delicious so that was fine. I ran out a little early to try and catch another show, a musical about the Berlin Wall that was being performed in German with English subtitles at a theatre back in Postdamer Platz. Turned out I couldn't find it though (or so I thought; I went back the next night in another attempt, and found out it wasn't playing for a few days because of a premiere for Bambi or something). So I went back to the hostel and did some reading and planning for my reamaining time in Berlin.

Around eleven I got a text from Kerry telling me where she and Matt were - communication is difficult when you can only reach someone by wifi, which is not as common for free in Europe as it is in America. So though I was ready to be settled in for the night, I went out to join Kerry and Matt at Bar 39 in Kreuzberg, where we spent several hours drinking the cocktail of the week, called a pink elephant, and swapping stories of our days.

I forget what time we got back - sometime around 2 or 3, I think, and by cab, because the metro had shut down for the night, a possibility I had completely forgotten about as a New Yorker. Fortunately getting a cab in the area wasn't hard, and we were back to the hostel in no time, asleep shortly after.

Thursday I had big plans involving the East Side Gallery, record shops that appeared to be nearby on the map, a stop at Curry 36, the best currywurst in Berlin, and then on to the Cold War Berlin walking tour I had booked earlier in the week. Not surprisingly, I got a later start than intended, but headed straight for the East Side Gallery, where I visited all the art I had seen before. Last time this was the most uplifting part of my trip, because it is where artists made something beautiful and expressive out of something terrible and oppressive. For the first part of my walk, however, I was only very depressed, to see all the grafitti that covered and largely destroyed the works that were so clear four years ago, having been restored two years earlier in 2009 for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Parts of the wall now have a fence around them as restorations are being made again, where first workers get rid of the grafitti and then the artists hopefully come back and touch up their works as needed. It seems painfully ironic to have to put a fence around a wall, now.

Fortunately for me, though, the piece I most remembered from my previous visit had already been restored, though it was still behind a fence. It was the "Curriculum Vitae" section of the wall, which looks like this: 

The roses by each year each represent a life lost in an escape attempt over the wall. (More on the tarot card I'm holding later.)

I spent longer at the East Side Gallery than expected, so I skipped the record stores for the time being and headed over to Curry 36 for lunch. The map I was using seemed to struggle with scale, making the walk I took far longer than I expected and leaving me with less time to eat than anticipated, but I achieved my much-anticipated currywurst mit pommes frites and then rushed back to the train up to Friedrichstraße and a quick walk over to the Brandenburg gate to meet my walking tour.

The Cold War Berlin walking tour was incredibly important research for my play, which takes place in Berlin in the 70s. I've been writing it since shortly after my last visit to Berlin, though I've been stuck on how to move it forward for quite some time. I learned a ton on the four hour walking tour and saw new parts of Berlin and the Wall, and now have a lot more research and work to do to move the play forward in an exciting and complex new direction. The most powerful part of the tour for me was the Berlin Wall memorial, in Mitte, which is several blocks long and consists of many parts. Part of it runs along Bernauer Straße, where a number of escape tunnels were dug, including one about which a documentary was made that I found online a couple years ago. Bernauer Straße has been burned in my brain since I found that documentary on the CNBC website, and now I was standing on it, seeing metal panels in the grass that traced where the tunnels were underground. The memorial includes a viewing platform that looks out on a section of the wall that has been preserved as the Wall was when it fell, so that people can see just what the "death strip" or "no man's land" looked like. I was on the verge of tears for most of this part of the tour.

Another section included a memorial for the people who died trying to escape, and that I was really not prepared for. It's set in part of the former death strip (where a lot of green spaces exist now, since no one could walk there for so long before the Wall was torn down).

I learned on the tour that in the nearby Chapel of Reconciliation, every Tuesday through Friday a short service is given in honoring one of the people named here. So I planned to go to the service on Friday. It felt really important. The Chapel stands near the former site of a church that was situated in the death strip with the wall built around it, until in 1985 "upgrades" to the Wall required the church to be demolished. It was blown up, leaving remnants of foundations and a few building elements that are now preserved nearby.

Our four hour tour ended back at the East Side Gallery, where my day had begun, after which I quickly dashed back off to Potsdamer Platz to make my second failed attempt at the Berlin Wall musical. Annoyed that I had wasted time I could have spent at the record shops near the gallery, I headed back to the hostel to regroup and figure out how to spend my evening.

Fortunately Kerry returned shortly after I did, and we decided to go out together for the night. I closed my eyes and stuck out my finger, and she held up the map, choosing a place we would go explore at random. We hopped on the train and got off in a new neighborhood, though unfortunately it wasn't a great place to find a spot to eat. We did get some nice shots of the TV tower at night though.

Eventually we hopped back on the train up towards our hostel, heading to an Asian restaurant nearby that I had read about on a "hidden Berlin" instagram account. We found it, but ended up going to the Mexican place across the street because it had cheaper cocktails. It turned out to be the right choice as both the cocktails and the food were delicious, plus our server was a friendly guy so it was an all around great experience.

We got back from the restaurant kind of late and I went straight to bed since we had to check out in the morning and I had to be packed and ready to go early so that I could make it to the service at the chapel. I got all my things together and stored them in the hostel's luggage room before heading out for one more day in Berlin, with plans to meet Matt and Kerry back at the hostel around six to travel together to the airport.

My trip back to the chapel included my only wrong turn of the trip, going one stop East on the tram when I meant to go West, but I made it for the service. It was only fifteen minutes long, and in German, but I was able to determine that the rememberance was in honor of Helmut Kliem, who I learned in later research was shot by border patrol when he accidentally drove too close to the Wall. The space was one of the most powerful I have ever been in, and I took some time to light a candle in honor of the lives lost and said a small prayer before heading out to take in more of the memorial.

I continued back to the memorial museum, which we had passed through briefly on the tour the day before. This time I could take as much time as I wanted reading and listening to interviews by people who lived in occupied Berlin. It helped to fill in a picture of what daily life was like in East Berlin, important research for my play, and full of powerful phrases from everyday people.

After spending another hour and a half at a place I'd just been the day before, I walked over to Cafe Nord Sud for lunch, the cheap French place I had fallen in love with on my last visit. Prices had gone up in the four years since my last visit, but the food was still amazing and Jean Claude was still a delight. Before I left I told him I'd been there once before, and thanked him for making such a happy place. He kissed me on both cheeks (he is French, after all) and then hugged me for so long I thought he wanted to marry me or something. 

From Nord Sud I adventured over to the area with all the record shops I had intended to visit the day before. As ever I was betrayed by a map that didn't understand scale, and did a lot more walking than I expected, but it paid off. At Wowsville, I found David Bowie's Low and Iggy Pop's The Idiot, both recorded and/or mixed at Hansa Tonstudios, in Berlin. Buying authentic, vintage records in the city they were made and manufactured in is probably the most hipster thing I've ever done, but for those punks I'm proud of it.

With daylight fast fading I took one more train ride to see Hansa itself, pressing my nose against the glass since you can't actually go into Hansa without a prebooked tour (from the same company that does the Bowie walking tour). Bowie and Iggy both recorded in Hansa Tonstudio 2, a huge room they nicknamed "the hall by the wall" because it had a view of the Berlin Wall from the windows. (I might have been reading the book Bowie in Berlin during the trip.)

It was time to head back to the hostel to meet up with Kerry and Matt, so I got back on the U bahn at Postdamer Platz, only to go one stop and find out our train line wasn't running for a number of stops, up to the one where our hostel was located. It took some creative navigating involving the S bahn, the tram from earlier, and another long walk to get me back to the hostel fifteen minutes late instead of fifteen minutes early. We ended up taking a taxi to the airport since the trains were messed up, had dinner at the airport (German sausage, yay), and then flew back to London and drove back to Kerry's apartment. I'm so grateful for all that I saw and learned during my time in Berlin, and to Kerry for very generously financing my airfare and hostel. She is the queen of cheap travel deals and someone I am very lucky to call my dear friend.

Fin (Days 15 & 16)

Our last day in Paris was a rainy one and we were pretty exhausted so we had already decided we would spend the day in the neighborhood. Both of us felt we'd done all we wanted to do in Paris for this trip, so we had a leisurely morning repacking and having breakfast, then walked around near the hostel. Le Village hostel is in an area with lots of fabric shops, which really interested Mom, so we spent some time looking at fabric and then went souvenir shopping.

Fortunately we really hadn't bought much more than postcards anywhere else (with a couple exceptions from the Harry Potter studio tour), so we knew how much space we had for extra stuff. We got a few presents for family and a few things for ourselves - I hadn't bought anything the last time I was in Paris, and I hadn't started my shot glass collection yet when I was there, so I bought one and a few other things.

As we were heading back to the hostel we passed Le Petit Musee du Chocolat - a chocolate store that could give Honeydukes a run for its money - so we spent some time exploring it. There were lots of colorful sculptures made entirely out of chocolate, including a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. It was a fun little thing to do before we left, and we managed to not buy anything, which was good since traveling with chocolate is not the best idea.

Back at the hostel we ate a small lunch of whatever leftovers we had from various meal purchases - a little Chinese food, some fruit, some cheese and bread. Then before we left I ran up the street to Subway to get us food for later, since we figured we didn't want to have to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. (We were staying at the airport hotel for the night since our flight was pretty early the next morning.) We walked to the train station where we would take a train out to the airport and then catch the hotel shuttle back to the hotel.

But our adventures weren't over.

While waiting in line to purchase our train tickets, we spotted a guy with an adorable puppy. Turned out he was American and was homeless because his roommate didn't like the dog, so he asked if we were leaving Europe and had any coins to spare (since banks won't convert coins, just paper money, even if it's 2 euros). After we purchased our tickets we had a 2 euro coin to give him and as we were playing with the puppy he mentioned that he cut hair and asked if he could give me a haircut. I kid you not. As it had been two months since my last haircut and was going to be about another two months before my next one, this was perfect. He did it right in the station, on a platform. We got lots of stares, but apparently he does this all the time. He's the hair cowboy. Google him. It's for real. He's kind of famous:

So I got my hair cut in Paris, in the train station. His puppy, Nanook, was tied up over by our stuff where my mom was patiently waiting, but he quickly got free and ran over to us. So then it became my job to stand on his leash and keep him from eating my boots while also trying to stand still as Kanu cut my hair. Ultimately it worked out great. I got a haircut, I got it for way less than I could ever get it cut in NYC, he got some money. We got to meet a cool guy and an adorable puppy, and it's a great story to tell.

Kanu and Nanook walked us back to where we would get our train and we parted ways. We were able to catch a train right away to the airport, an express train that got us there in half an hour at that. Then as soon as we got up to where the hotel shuttles arrive, our hotel shuttle showed up (which only comes every half hour). We got to the hotel, checked in, and went up to our room where we ate, as it had now been a while since our last meal thanks to my haircut. Relaxing baths, comfy beds, one more round of packing, and bed.

The next morning we were on the first shuttle back to the airport at 5:15. I hadn't been in this terminal last time, and it was super cool. Very technological, space age aesthetic. There was a weird atrium area that had a bunch of escalator-ramps that all went to different floors and pointed in strange directions and seriously looked like that shot in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when you see all the Hogwarts staircases for the first time. I half-expected them to start changing places while we were riding them.

We were flying Iceland Air home, so we flew from Paris to Rekyavik, basically three hours straight north. I watched 500 Days of Summer, which I actually found pretty depressing, and then found Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1) and started watching that. I was about halfway through when we landed in Iceland.

Our layover in Iceland was only about an hour, but we got our passport stamped since we were heading back to America and then quickly bought food at the only place to buy food in that section of the airport. It was a weird experience, with everything in kronor, having absolutely no sense of how much something cost. We got our food and checked out and it was like 2,500 kronor or something, which meant absolutely nothing to us but felt like a lot. Apparently it was like $18 or something, which was a lot for what food we were getting, but it's an airport.

Then it was time to board our flight to JFK. We ended up seated next to a girl from Iceland, so we got to hear her speak Icelandic with some of the flight attendants. I watched the rest of Harry Potter and was in the middle of watching The Hangover (which I had never seen - I know, I know) when our screens stopped working and they couldn't get them fixed. So mostly I tried to sleep for the rest of the flight.

We landed in New York I think a good 40 minutes early, and then began the next adventure, but that's a story for another day.

One (Museum) Day More (Day 14)

So Sunday was free museum day. We got up early so that we could be at the Musee D'Orsay before it opened, since we figured whatever line we encountered would only get longer as the day progressed (we were right). As you may recall, Ganesh and I made multiple attempts to visit this particular museum last year but did not succeed because the museum was "on strike." What this actually meant was that the museum employees were on strike because the museum, which was supposed to be reopening having just finished a major renovation that added a lot of new gallery space, had not added any more staff to cover this additional area. I think it finally reopened a week or two after we were there.

Anyway, it was definitely open that day, and we got there just before it opened. It took us about half an hour to snake our way through the line that had formed, weathering just a little bit of rain on the way. We first went to see the special exhibition, Degas and the Nude, which was extremely comprehensive (and therefore a little dull for people who don't particularly study penstrokes) and because it included so many drawings the rooms were very dark to protect the artwork. Like going to see bats at the zoo. It was not like the Degas of the ballet dancers, but some of it was interesting. We then headed out to explore the rest of the museum.

We discovered pretty quickly that by this point in our trip, we were getting a little museum-ed out. Consider that in the past two weeks we had been to: the Tate Modern, the National Gallery, the Tower of London, the Reina Sofia, the Prado, the Picasso Museum, and the Dali Museum. It turned out our favorite thing about the Musee D'Orsay was probably the building itself. Once a train station, the museum was created when train traffic became too heavy and they needed a bigger station, so D'Orsay got turned into a place for art. (This is how most art museums get created in Paris, it seems. L'Orangerie was once a greenhouse and the Louvre was actually a palace until Louis XIV decided it was too small and built Versailles.) The museum had gorgeous architecture, particularly including a couple of giant ornate clocks, presumably so people wouldn't miss their trains. We did see some famous works by Degas, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Caillebotte, Pissaro, and Seurat. Pretty cool.

After that it was still pretty early so we decided to take Sam's advice, despite our skepticism, and visit the Hunting and Nature Museum. Sam had said people always doubted him and then really liked it.

We didn't.

There were lots of stuffed-formerly-alive animals, a lot of sciencey things about animal anatomy and bones and whatnot, and some weird animal-themed art. A few rooms full of hunting rifles. Fortunately the whole thing was only really two stories of a not-particularly-large building (probably used to be something else). We laughed it off and headed out in search of food, as we were now both very hungry.

Most places seemed to be closed in the area, but as we were walking back to the metro we passed a Chinese place and bought a few things to try and took them to go. We got enough food for two meals, really, and certainly saved over eating in a restaurant. So then we and our lunch headed back to the hostel. After eating we took a nap and then went to meet up for the Montmartre walking tour.

The tour starts in front of the Moulin Rouge, which is quite possibly the most disappointing landmark in Paris when you see it in person for the first time. It's not half as big, beautiful, or romantic as it's made out to be in the movie. Still, we started there and then wound our way through the streets of Montmartre (not far from the hostel, really), seeing Van Gogh's building where he lived with his brother, the restaurant where Picasso sold sketches of waitresses for food, the only vineyard/winery in Paris (which produces only about 400 bottles of apparently mediocre wine a year), artists' square, and the studio where Picasso and Modigliani lived together back in the day. The main stop on the tour is of course the Sacre Cour at the top of Montmartre (which means means martyrs' mountain). One of the first and now also the last stop on the tour is the cafe that Amelie works in (in the movie Amelie, which I've still never seen), where we got a free glass of wine at the end. Mom and I didn't really like the wine though, and the management decided we weren't allowed to sit down at tables if we weren't buying food even though they weren't busy. I liked the place they used to end the tour better. Last time we were allowed to sit for as long as we wanted and the wine was better. So. Those are my feelings about the Amelie cafe.

After the tour we went back to the hostel for a quick rest and then went out to attempt yet again to see the Eiffel Tower light show. It only happens once an hour on the hour, so we went and saw it at midnight. We took the metro to Trocadero, where you can see it from across the river, and ideal viewing place. As I've said before, and as I warned my mom, I think it's pretty  lame. It basically looks like paparazzi are covering the tower with flashes going off constantly for about five minutes. That's all. But, Mom liked it and she was glad she got to see it at night. So then back to the hostel and to bed.

Tour de Paris (Day 13)

Our second day in Paris we got up and had breakfast in the hostel, which included coffee, orange juice, croissants, and cereal. We sat by a window looking out on the street, at a little table like in a French cafe. After breakfast we headed to do the free walking tour of Paris like I did when I visited last time. I had hoped we might get Arnaud as a tour guide again, but he wasn't at Saint Michele plaza, so we went with a guy named Sam instead. Mom later found out Sam has family in Yankton, South Dakota, where she lived after college. Small world.

Sam was a good tour guide, told us a few different stories than what I learned last time, and it was fun to see so many beautiful parts of Paris again. It got very warm in the middle of the day, but Sam did his best to stop frequently in places with bits of shade. At the end of the tour we went with Sam and some of the other tourists to a French restaurant with meal deals for people who did the tour. Perhaps the best part about the restaurant was the waiter who single-handedly served everyone who showed up. He had the perfect stereotypical French accent and seemed to really enjoy being a waiter. One of the items on the menu was duck, and as he served people he would say "I have a duck, for you, maybe?" and when he was right he would say something like "Wonderful" or "Perfect." He was really adorable.

Before we left the restaurant we got tickets for the Montmartre tour and Mom chatted with Sam a bit. We asked for his recommendations for museums on Sunday because, as it would be the first Sunday of the month, all the museums were free. We decided on the Louvre and he recommended the Museum of Hunting and Nature (Le Maison de la chasse et de la nature). He then directed us back to our hostel via a bus so that we could see some more of the city. We caught the bus and headed back, taking the metro as well (because it's impossible to get anywhere in Paris without changing buses or trains or something) and rested for a while.

Later that evening we went out to visit Shakespeare and Co, my favorite bookstore. Mom wasn't a big fan of the tight spaces (which makes everything a little crowded even when there's only a few people there), but she waited patiently in the upstairs reading room while I looked around and decided what to buy. Finally the store was closing (at 11 pm) and I settled on Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Mom picked out a postcard and we headed out into the Parisian night.

It was Saturday and things were pretty crazy. I tried to navigate the metro to get us to the Eiffel Tower, because Mom wanted to see the light show. We ended up having a lot of train problems and got tired and hungry and gave up and went home. There was a particular hitch getting off the train at one point where we had to go up an escalator, but police were checking tickets at the top so there was a backup. Now, as you probably know, escalators keep moving whether the people in front of you move or not. There was a brief moment of very scary backup as we kept pushing the people in front of us and the people behind us started pushing us. But finally we got home and fell into bed after a long day touring gay Paris. (pair-eee)

A French Day (Day 12)

We flew into Paris Beauvais (have fun pronouncing that one) and then took a bus into the city, which took about an hour. From the bus we took two metro trains to our hostel which was just two blocks away from the metro stop. I was familiar with this hostel because it was the one Ganesh stayed at back when I was in Paris in October. The location, right in Montmartre and so close to the metro, made it ideal. Plus I knew it would be quiet and comfortable, and we had a bathroom in our room which we only had to share with one other person.

Despite the walk being only two blocks to the hostel, we stopped just a few feet from the metro at a little crepe stand and got crepes for lunch. Then around the corner I popped into Dia (the grocery store I regularly shopped at in Madrid) and got us a liter of orange juice for a euro. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got to the hostel (it was only about 12:30) so we sat in the lobby and ate and did some research on what else we wanted to do that day. Mom had a list of free things to do, one of which included a Friday afternoon fashion show at the Lafayette Galleries, the Parisian equivalent of Harrods, Macys, etc. Right before we left, we checked at the desk and our room was ready, so we dropped our stuff off upstairs (taking the tiny elevator one person at a time) and then headed off.

We couldn't find anything about a fashion show at the store, but it was in a beautiful building with a stained glass dome in the middle and, from the top floor/roof, we got a pretty beautiful view of the city, for free. Mom got her first real view of the Eiffel Tower. We sat for a while, took a few pictures, looked around, and then headed down to explore the store. We took some time taking pictures of the dome and then went to the actually gallery, which had a modern art exhibit that we didn't understand at all. A lot of it was cartoon drawings with writing on it, in French, so we were pretty lost. Something involved Kanye West; I don't know.

From the store we decided to walk back to the hostel to see more of the city. Along the way we found a farmers market where we picked up some things for dinner - a potato pastry, artichoke salad, cherries, bread - and looked around a lot. It was all a bit of a challenge since we couldn't politely get anyone's attention in French, so we kind of had to just stand around and wait for people to help us, but it was a fun experience seeing everyone at the market.

Without very much happening, we had a very nice, French day doing things it didn't really seem like tourists would do, most of it without trying. It was a nice easy first day in Paris, and we went to bed early to catch up on sleep before the next day's adventure.

Barcelona, Unfortunately (Day 9)

We arrived in Barcelona (sort of) at Girona airport, which is actually about an hour outside of the city, and took a bus to the Barcelona Nord station where we then took the metro - one stop on one line and one stop on another line - to then walk about ten minutes to our hostel. Along the way we decided to stop and get something to eat because we happened to pass a place with salads (we'd been a bit light on vegetables on our trip, especially in Madrid). I reached into the backpack for my wallet and found it was missing. Yep, someone snagged it in the metro, within 15 minutes of being in Barcelona. Lost: driver's license, debit card, two credit cards, metro card, I think about 20 euros, and my cards for crepeaway and 16 handles, meaning I lost my free crepe and free frozen yogurt that I had worked so hard to earn. :( I also lost the wallet, which was a bummer because I really liked it and my friend Isa gave it to me. Sad because the thief probably just took the cash and maybe my debit card and tossed the rest. On the bright side, I was able to freeze or cancel all the cards before any fraudulent chargers could be made, and I still have my passport. Additionally about 500 of the 600 euros I had withdrawn from my usual ATM in Madrid were with the passport, so we had that too. I do have to figure out how to get a new license though, as I need some form of ID, and I guess I'm in the market for a wallet.

We checked into the hotel and tried to deal with all the card companies, but ended up mostly leaving that to my dad back in the states because my phone only had about 10 minutes of credit left on it and our Internet connection was shaky, which ruled out phone calls via Skype. We tried and it was maddening. It was also hot and humid and the air conditioner in our room wasn't working, so it wasn't the best day.

Still, we tried to make the best of things and headed out to visit the Picasso museum, within walking distance of our hostel which was located right in Plaça Reial, the starting point of the walking tours I did last time I was in Barcelona and the site of Gaudi's only public commission: a set of lamp posts immediately deemed ugly (they're not) and resulting in no further public commissions for Gaudi.

The museum was okay, and we got to see some interesting small streets, but we were both tired so afterwards we ate near the hostel, ironically at an Irish pub with a very eclectic menu, but including a good deal on sangria and paella, which was the one Spanish food Mom still wanted to have. I should mention our hostel technically offered free dinner from 8:30 "until the food runs out" but the food runs out within five minutes. We had actually come back to the hostel and taken a nap after the museum and went downstairs for dinner, waited in line to be served paella of all things, and were about 10 or 15 people behind the final serving. The food at the restaurant was fine though.

Then we tried to go to bed, around 10. Well, our hostel had a bar area on the first floor (we were on the second) and the bar liked to play club-volume music with the bass amped up so that it vibrated my upper bunk bed. On top of that 3 of our 6 roommates were loud obnoxious giant (but really, they were all like six and a half feet tall and muscley) men from I think Ireland, based on how difficult it was to understand them. I found the idea of then trying to fit into five foot long beds funny, but other than that it was pretty unpleasant. The only light in the room was very bright and disturbing when trying to sleep, if you could fall asleep with all the noise in the hallways and coming from downstairs. We thought about canceling the rest of our reservation and finding somewhere else to stay, but that would have meant not having time to take a day trip the next day, so we decided to tough it out.

It was not the best night.

The next day, we made one of our best decisions and left for he day to go to Figueres, w hours by train, to the Dali house and museum.

More on that tomorrow maybe. It's 10:30 here in Paris and we fly early in the morning, and I'm exhausted, so it's time for bed in the very comfy airport hotel room. Aurevoir! (Screw my attempts at spelling in French.)

Oh. In case you were wondering, don't stay at Kabul backpackers hostel if you actually intend on sleeping while it's dark out.

¡Regreso a Madrid! (Days 6, 7, and 8)

Saturday morning we flew very early from Gatwick to Madrid, arriving at our hostel around 12:30. I was disappointed to find at the airport that the airport express bus has gone up in price from 2 to 5 euros. I guess it couldn't stay an outrageously good deal forever. But it got us to Cibeles quickly and then we walked to our hostel, just a few blocks up the street from my apartment building on Huertas.

We couldn't check into our room for another hour, so we walked up and down the street in search of ice cream as it was very warm and we were a bit hungry. My favorite place had closed and the other one I knew of wasn't open at the time, so we walked down to the alimentación under my apartment. The man who runs the place was there and he recognized me, even with my short hair and was so happy to see me! It was a wonderful surprise and he asked about my roommate and if I was studying again or just on vacation. We got ice cream and sat on a bench out in the street to eat it in a shady breeze.

After we finished we walked back up to the hostel and checked in to our four bed room. We had two roommates, girls who spoke something that sounded similar to German but wasn't. It didn't sound aggressive enough and they didn't speak English, and I've never met a German who didn't speak English.

We took a nap while we had the room to ourselves and then walked back down the street to eat lunch (around 4:30, which is late even in Spain) at Los Rotos, the place Brian and I went to twice during his visit. The food was good as always (Mom got to try croquetas) and we had sangria.

Following lunch or whatever you call eating at that time, we dragged ourselves to the Reina Sofia, the contemporary art museum not too far from where we were staying and managed to look around for an hour before trudging back to the hostel and falling asleep. While there we saw some Dali and Miro and of course Picasso's Guernica, one of the most famous works of Spanish art.

The next morning our not-German roommates left. We had breakfast in the hostel, which was just coffee, juice, and toast or cornflakes, and then went to see Alice in Wonderland the Musical (in Spanish) at a theatre about a ten minute walk from Huertas. We picked that of course because then we knew at least my mom could follow the story even though she wouldn't understand all the words. I did my best to explain the songs to her and the plot points that were different. It also turned out to be specifically made for kids, so the acting was all very physical and pretty easy to understand. It turned out to be a good choice and a fun time for only 15 euros each.

After the show we got lunch at a Mexican restaurant I really like called la Mordida and shared nachos with fresh guacamole and some kind of meat and tortilla dish with a yummy sauce. Plenty of food for the two of us, with a very polite waitress who didn't mind my Spanish. It was nice to remember that in Madrid people are very willing to let you try. The girl at the front desk when we checked in talked to me in Spanish at first and then asked if English was better when she saw my US passport, but I told her I needed to practice and kept up with her Spanish explanation of all the hostel policies.

We walked from the restaurant to go see some of the sights in Madrid - Plaza Mayor, el Mercado de San Miguel where we got gelato, a brief tour of the cathedral, the palace (from the outside), Opera, and Sol all on our way back to the hostel. Then it was time for a rest for a while before joining a group of other hostel residents for a flamenco show.

This show turned out to be something created by some of the people who work with the hostels and was a very budget-beginners guide to flamenco. It was in a cave (a brick room under a building, in this case), and there was a singer, a dancer, and a guitarist. I want totally impressed having seen flamenco before, but it seemed enjoyable to those who didn't have any flamenco experience and we got a free (small) cup of sangria, so it was an interesting experience.

We waked partway back with the guy who had led us to the show from our hostel and hen when I found a familiar street we left the group and headed to San Gines, the most famous place for chocolate con churros in Spain. Good dinner, around 11, followed by bed.

Monday we took things slow, spending the morning repacking our suitcases as we were now halfway through our trip. Around 2 we met my friend Alejandro for lunch at a tapas place in plaza Santa Ana, near the hostel and next door to Cien Montaditos, the old favorite. Tapas were just alright but it was fun to try some new things and Alejandro got to practice his English. We got ice cream up the street from the hostel and enjoyed it in the street before saying goodbye and going to take a nap.

That evening we took advantage of the Prado being free at 6 and spent an hour or so seeing all the famous works I could remember anything about. I did my best to give my mom an informed tour of all the greatest hits including Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, and Rubens.

Then came my favorite part of our time in Madrid: dinner with my Spanish family! We met them outside Parque del Retiro and had cold drinks outside under the trees first (Nacho and Jaine mostly played futbol while the grown ups talked) and then we went to a seafood restaurant for dinner around 10. Since we drove in their car, mom got to see lots of different parts of the city. It was really great to see everyone again, we spoke in a mix of English and Spanish to try to accommodate everyone, and hopefully they'll all be coming to New York soon. I'm really glad my mom finally got to meet them, my favorite part of Spain. Perhaps the best part of the evening was when I got to give Jaime the double decker London bus full of chocolates I had brought as a gift for the family. I mentioned that I had a present at the beginning of dinner and Jaime didn't forget. He got so excited when I finally said it was time since he had started to think I didn't really have a present, and was very happy to find candy inside. I told him he had to share but who knows if he will.

When we finished dinner the family drove us back down to Huertas and we said our goodbyes. Even Jaime who was practically asleep in the backseat got out to give me a hug and kiss goodbye. It was such a joyous occasion, I'm incredibly grateful.

And so we headed to bed one last time in Madrid, off to Barcelona the next morning.

Last Day in London (Day 5)

Our last day in London we took our time in the morning to repack our things so we'd be ready to leave for our very early flight. Then around noon mom and I headed to Westminster Abbey for a communion service which meant we got to see the nave of the abbey for free (like I did when I went to the organ recital there in December). We did look around a little and saw where Charles Darwin is buried in scientists' corner. Too bad poets' corner isn't in the nave. All I really want is to see Shakespeare. :(

The service was fine, I like the sharing of the peace. Telling people "peace be with you" seems like a good thing to do. During the communion, since we don't normally take communion, we got a blessing from the (fairly young) priest instead, and I'm down with the whole "light and love of God be with you" idea, too.

After the service we took an unfortunately roundabout way of getting to Harrods and therefore didn't have much time there, but we got to see some expensive clothes, the memorial to Princess Diana, and in the windows outside there were lots of crowns designed by famous designers as well as a replica of Queen Elizabeth's coronation dress (again for the jubilee). Very sparkly.

Then it was time for tea! We had made reservations the day before for us and Kerry to have afternoon tea at St. Paul's because we planned to go to evensong at the cathedral. We ended up having lots of problems with the underground because of signal delays, so we ended up taking a cab and still being 15 minutes late. On the way we got to see some parts of London we hadn't been to though, so it wasn't too bad.

Tea was awesome. Mom and I both had peppermint tea while Kerry had chamomile (bit of a stressful day, she had). They brought over a tiered platter with three kinds of finger sandwiches (cucumber and butter, egg salad and watercress, and salmon and cream), biscuits with clotted cream and jam, and for dessert some little ginger cookies and custard tarts with berries and grapes(?) on top. Three of everything, a mini serving for each of us, and it was all delicious. While we were eating a group of five clergymen came in - among them the young priest from St. Paul's. Crazy.

Crazier still was that all of the sudden we were rushed out at 4:30 - half an hour before their tea times end, because of a function happening in the crypt, where the restaurant was. We weren't asked to pay or told how much we owed or anything, and we kind of hesitatingly walked to the door, but no one stopped us so we left. Three free teas for the price of one taxi ride wasn't so bad. Thanks, St. Paul!

Turns out the priests or whatever and the function were part of the service we were going to - not a regular evensong service at all, but the installation of the very reverend David John Ison as the dean of St. Paul's. We made it through over an hour of long hymns we couldn't sing along to and a sermon and a parade of church officials (and I know what a virger is now) before we respectfully left during the stat of yet another hymn, which wasn't the last.

Mom and I thought about going to the Victoria and Albert museum, which is open late on Fridays, but we were all tired so instead the three of us went to a pub by Kerry's for dinner and a pint. Despite being a traditional
English pub, the place served Thai food, but it was very good and we were hungry, so no complaints for sure. Kerry and I had originally planned to go out dancing that night, but both still being tired, we decided to buy a bottle of Bailey's continuing our tradition and drink at home and take a nap before leaving at 2 am to head for the bus to the bus to the bus to the airport. Yep.

So much thanks and love to Kerry for all her hospitality and for making us laugh and thinking we're funny instead of absolutely nuts. Can't wait to see you in NYC next time!

And then, we were on to Madrid...

Wait, There's More London (Day 4)

After the very exciting day full of walking at the studio tour, we spent the evening relaxing in Kerry's apartment, still trying to catch up on sleep from the week before, and making plans for Thursday and Friday, our final two days in London.

Thursday we went first to get tickets to One Man, Two Guvnors, which has recently come to Broadway but has been playing in London for over a year. The Theatre Royal Haymarket is right near Trafalgar Square, where we got off the tube, so after getting tickets we stopped in at the National Gallery. Mostly we wanted to see the works of van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Gaugin, so we didn't spend too long there before heading out to make our way to the Tower of London.

Trains were a bit of a mess that day and it turned out the two lines we could have taken from that stop to Tower Hill were both not running, so we had to brave the bus and hope to get off in the right place. We made it to the Tower of London and before heading in stopped outside for fish and chips, which I didn't try the last time I was in London, even though I'd wanted to since I saw Spice World when I was seven.

Turns out Mom and I aren't big fans.

So we headed to the tower, which is actually much less tower-y than I expected. None of the towers are very tall, and there's actually twenty of them. So the name is quite misleading. We did a walking tour in the hot sun, learning from a yeoman warder (a beefeater, as they're better known) about executions and tortures and all sorts of gruesome things. Mom's main interest in coming to this particular tourist attraction, however, was to see the crown jewels, so as soon as our tour was over, that's what we did.

In the crown jewels exhibit are several crowns dating back to at least the 17th century and probably earlier. We also got to see the royal regalia Queen Elizabeth II wore to her coronation in 1953. (This year, next week in fact, is the celebration of the Queen's diamond jubilee, the beginning of the 60th year of her reign. She's just four years shy of tying Victoria for longest reigning monarch of England.) Everything is shiny and gold and gilded, brocaded, etc. We watched a video of her coronation. It looked like mostly it involved sitting a lot and holding things - two scepters and an orb - and looking somber while people talked. She didn't look very happy, but I think she was about my age when she became queen, and I wouldn't have been happy about having to act all proper on behalf of an entire country either.

Once we finished with the crown jewels (which also included looking at a lot of really ridiculously fancy gold plates and punch bowls and what have you) we caught a brief theatrical display of two women arguing over whether a judge who had been loyal to King James (can't remember which one) should be hanged for all his decisions to kill people, since James (a Catholic) was no longer king. The acting was pretty bad and the situation hard to relate to though, so it was a little disappointing when the description had sold us on something about betrayal and the war not really being over.

A little more walking around (in which we saw a bunch of crown settings with no jewels, oddly enough, because they frequently reuse them when they make new crowns), and we were both exhausted and ready to go back to Kerry's to relax before the theatre. (6 hours of walking around at Harry Pottor follows by several hours of walking on cobblestones at the Tower of London did our feet no kindnesses.)

After an hour to collect ourselves and rest our feet at Kerry's apartment, we set out again for the theatre. After we were already on the train we found out the station we had used that morning to get to the theatre was closed. Luckily I knew enough to get us to the theatre from the next stop, and we made it to the show with a couple minutes to spare.

When we got to our seats (front row center, oh yes) a band was playing on stage. It seemed to be country music, but British, which thoroughly confused me, and I wondered why that, of all aspects of American culture, was what had made it to Britain. The lead singer had an infectious smile though and the guitarist looked like a young Leo DiCaprio, so I was content despite my confusion. I'm not quite sure how to explain the show - it borrows some plot elements of Twelfth Night, some traditional slapstick comedy, some audience participation that resulted in the lead actor never being able to keep a straight face, and more British country music during scene changes, occasionally with various actors coming out to play random instruments like steel drums or xylophone. At one point the woman sitting next to me got brought up on stage for a lengthy scene and... Well I don't want to spoil it for people who may go see it in New York. In fact I may go see it again to try and figure a few things out.

During intermission the band played some more (numbers sometimes included a harmonica, a washboard, and spoons) and then the show resumed. At the end of the show there was inexplicably a musical number performed by the whole cast. I have no idea why; it had nothing to do with the band. Overall it was one of the weirdest shows I've seen (and I've seen a lot of weird things) but we had a good time and laughed a lot.

Gelato on the street, a man playing a traffic cone like a trumpet, and home again home again, jiggity jig.

Fotos de Roma!

Roman Cross

Trevi Fountain!

Even the cars in Rome are old.

Vino.

Emily's pizza happiness.

Pantheon

Trevi Fountain and gelato!

YAY TORTELLINI!

French toast hostel breakfast. Yummm.

Citta del Vaticano

Funny uniforms

No wearing 1920s bathing suits at the Vatican.

St. Peter's Square

Jesus.

I wore this dress again on Christmas Eve (in Florida) and my dad said "at least you didn't wear that to the Vatican." Actually, Dad, it's exactly what I wore to the Vatican.

Floor.

I love this man.

I was dubious about whether putting this post card in this mailbox would actually get it to my parents, so I took a picture for proof.

Confusing signs.

Guggenheim?

Cathedral

Old things.

Mosaic Floor

Chagall art.

Lighting design dream.

The last one is my favorite.

Just a typical church.

Inside.

Pantheon gelato.

Ooops, we ordered a litre of wine.

Pizza.

Oh right, that.

When we took a wrong turn between the Coliseum and the Forum.

Basically what Rome is.

Art!

Light!

Old Jewish quarter.

Pesto perfection.

Emily's excited about pasta.

For Playwrights kids.

Best gelato.

Picture perfect.

Spanish steps!

Street leading up to the steps, like the Park Avenue of Rome.

This was in a Catholic church but felt so UU.

Peter Brook and the opera.

Opera ceiling.

Opera boxes.

I haven't forgotten.