(no subject)
Well, what ended up happening is that I continued to write about my travels in my MySpace but didnt' cross post it here.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Quick travel update 7/30
Switzerland is by far the prettiest country ever. It is also the most expensive country ever, which extends over to its neighbor of Lietchenstein (sp?), where I am right now. This is short because it costs one swiss franc for every five minutes and because this keyboard is weird and I can barely figure it out. (the z aand y are interchanged, for example). I will try to write more later, but for now, myspace is far too expensive =p.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Travel Update 8/02
I am now at the house of my mom´s childhood friend in Kaiserslautern, Germany (which, incidentally, is right by the air force base at Ramstein.) I have free access to Internet here, so consequently I'll probably write a lot (and it's probably not very interesting).
I guess I´ll write about where I´ve been in the last week and a half. We rented a car in München and drove to a youth hostel in Brönigen, Switzerland (which is right next to Interlaken, if you know where that is). We stayed there for something like 6 nights (I don´t remember exactly) from which we explored Switzerland, which, as I´ve said before, is absolutely gorgeous. The mountains of the Bernese Oberland and the Valais regions make the Sierra Nevada look like anthills. And they're a lot more vibrant; there are a plethora of pictoresque alpine villages anywhere you look (which is a bad thing if you prefer remote getaways).
We did some hiking, which was pretty cool except for the rain. What's funny about Switzerland is that in most places you can hike, you can also take a train or a gondola.
If you ever go to Switzerland, you absolutely have to visit the towns of Mürren and Zermatt. They're probably the coolest mountain places I've been to.
In addition to sightseeing, we also visited the cities of Bern, Geneva, Lucerne and Zürich. Old European cities are always really interesting to visit. Geneva was especiallz cool since I visited CERN (they didn't let me into the Large Hadron Collider, unfortunately) and the Palais de Nacions (sp?).
After leaving Bönigen, we spent two nights in a youth hostel in Schaan, Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is an interesting country. It´s basically the home of some odd crown prince and the surrounding region. For all practical purposes though, this tiny country (country number 22 for me) can be considered part of Switzerland. There isn't too much to see in it, as it's not very big, but it's nice. From there we visited a little bit more of Switzerland and the Western Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions of Austria.
Then we drove to Bonn where we visited the house of Sarah Marzi (she was an exchange student to McQueen 03-04 if you don't know who she is). My sister is actually there right now (she's staying there for a few days).
In Germany we've basically just visited the cities of Köln (a.k.a. Cologne), Koblenz and Trier. After we leave Germany, I think we'll spend some time in Austria in Salzburg and Vienna and then drive back to München so I can come home.
Wow, you must have been really dedicated if you read to here ;-)
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Home again...
Current mood: Jetlagged
Well I flew back into Reno late last night (or maybe it was this morning...it was around midnight, so I'm not sure) after a 23-hour, 3-plane journey from Germany (we couldn't find a ticket on the plane from Munchen to San Fran, so we had to fly Munchen to Boston, then Boston to San Fran. And for the record, I don't like Boston's Logan airport at all. Good thing I didn't choose to go to Harvard =P. Also, while I was in the Boston airport, I was watching CNN and they were reporting on all the runway incidents that had happened recently at Boston airport. Oh, the irony. Anyway, I digress).
So, after we left Kaiserslautern we went to Salzburg, a beautiful Austrian city where absolutely everything seems to revolve around Mozart, who was born there. My father and I were wondering how one cafeteria we saw on the street dared to name itself after Wagner instead of Mozart in Salzburg. Salzburg has two giant hills (well, they're not really hills since their sides are cliffs, but they're not really tall enough to be mountains) in downtown, with strategically placed castles and monasteries on them. Its pedestrian section is extremely vibrant but also full of horse drawn carriages hoping to attract tourists, which make the downtown area smell (the horses don't appear to be toilet-trained =P).
We also visited Grossglockner, the highest point in Austria. There was a nice road leading really close to the peak and it was extremely beautiful there. Except I was sick so I was wearing like 4 layers. The marmots are really cute.
Then we went to Vienna. Vienna has an extremely beautiful downtown, especially the Rathaus (Rathaus is the extremely appropriate German word for city hall =P.) We also got suckered into attending a classical concert for 26 euros each. The music was almost exclusively Mozart and the Strausses. They had waltz dancers and opera singers too. The concert was fine, but how they managed to fit 500 gullible tourists in that small room, I'm not sure.
In Vienna, we also visited the Schonbrunn Palace and took tours of the inside. I never really liked visiting palaces, they seem extremely unlivable (and thus better suited for museums). The Schonbrunn reminded me of a slightly less extravagant Versailles. What was funny is they had portraits of all 11 daughters of Hapsburg Queen (or Princess...or Duchess...or something like that) Maria Theresa (or maybe it was another one, I didn't keep all the names straight). Every single portrait looked exactly the same. I thought they were all of the same person. Yay inbreeding of royalty!
To my dismay, I was unable to find a statue of Schrodinger in Vienna (I was wearing my "Schrodinger's cat (is)/(is not) dead" shirt at the time). We did see a bar named Schrodinger's from our car, but we didn't stop.
After leaving Vienna, we went back to Munchen so we could fly back home (except for my dad, who flew to Romania for a math conference). We visited downtown Munchen too, though it wasn't particurarly nice.
You know those Holiday Inn Express commercials that were on TV once (they might still be for all I know, but I don't watch TV anymore)? They go something like "I'm not a [insert profession here], but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Well, in Munchen, I found them to be completely wrong. We stayed at an "Express, by Holiday Inn" (which I'm guessing is the German equivalent to a Holiday Inn Express) and I couldn't sleep at all. The bed was extremely uncomfortable and it was too stuffy or cold or hot or something. Anyway, the not being able to sleep at all that night worked quite well with the 23 hour journey the next day. Yeah. I'm done now.
But yeah, the main point is I'm back. So we can hang out =P.
Click to make it bigger
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Quick travel update 7/30
Switzerland is by far the prettiest country ever. It is also the most expensive country ever, which extends over to its neighbor of Lietchenstein (sp?), where I am right now. This is short because it costs one swiss franc for every five minutes and because this keyboard is weird and I can barely figure it out. (the z aand y are interchanged, for example). I will try to write more later, but for now, myspace is far too expensive =p.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Travel Update 8/02
I am now at the house of my mom´s childhood friend in Kaiserslautern, Germany (which, incidentally, is right by the air force base at Ramstein.) I have free access to Internet here, so consequently I'll probably write a lot (and it's probably not very interesting).
I guess I´ll write about where I´ve been in the last week and a half. We rented a car in München and drove to a youth hostel in Brönigen, Switzerland (which is right next to Interlaken, if you know where that is). We stayed there for something like 6 nights (I don´t remember exactly) from which we explored Switzerland, which, as I´ve said before, is absolutely gorgeous. The mountains of the Bernese Oberland and the Valais regions make the Sierra Nevada look like anthills. And they're a lot more vibrant; there are a plethora of pictoresque alpine villages anywhere you look (which is a bad thing if you prefer remote getaways).
We did some hiking, which was pretty cool except for the rain. What's funny about Switzerland is that in most places you can hike, you can also take a train or a gondola.
If you ever go to Switzerland, you absolutely have to visit the towns of Mürren and Zermatt. They're probably the coolest mountain places I've been to.
In addition to sightseeing, we also visited the cities of Bern, Geneva, Lucerne and Zürich. Old European cities are always really interesting to visit. Geneva was especiallz cool since I visited CERN (they didn't let me into the Large Hadron Collider, unfortunately) and the Palais de Nacions (sp?).
After leaving Bönigen, we spent two nights in a youth hostel in Schaan, Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is an interesting country. It´s basically the home of some odd crown prince and the surrounding region. For all practical purposes though, this tiny country (country number 22 for me) can be considered part of Switzerland. There isn't too much to see in it, as it's not very big, but it's nice. From there we visited a little bit more of Switzerland and the Western Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions of Austria.
Then we drove to Bonn where we visited the house of Sarah Marzi (she was an exchange student to McQueen 03-04 if you don't know who she is). My sister is actually there right now (she's staying there for a few days).
In Germany we've basically just visited the cities of Köln (a.k.a. Cologne), Koblenz and Trier. After we leave Germany, I think we'll spend some time in Austria in Salzburg and Vienna and then drive back to München so I can come home.
Wow, you must have been really dedicated if you read to here ;-)
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Home again...
Current mood: Jetlagged
Well I flew back into Reno late last night (or maybe it was this morning...it was around midnight, so I'm not sure) after a 23-hour, 3-plane journey from Germany (we couldn't find a ticket on the plane from Munchen to San Fran, so we had to fly Munchen to Boston, then Boston to San Fran. And for the record, I don't like Boston's Logan airport at all. Good thing I didn't choose to go to Harvard =P. Also, while I was in the Boston airport, I was watching CNN and they were reporting on all the runway incidents that had happened recently at Boston airport. Oh, the irony. Anyway, I digress).
So, after we left Kaiserslautern we went to Salzburg, a beautiful Austrian city where absolutely everything seems to revolve around Mozart, who was born there. My father and I were wondering how one cafeteria we saw on the street dared to name itself after Wagner instead of Mozart in Salzburg. Salzburg has two giant hills (well, they're not really hills since their sides are cliffs, but they're not really tall enough to be mountains) in downtown, with strategically placed castles and monasteries on them. Its pedestrian section is extremely vibrant but also full of horse drawn carriages hoping to attract tourists, which make the downtown area smell (the horses don't appear to be toilet-trained =P).
We also visited Grossglockner, the highest point in Austria. There was a nice road leading really close to the peak and it was extremely beautiful there. Except I was sick so I was wearing like 4 layers. The marmots are really cute.
Then we went to Vienna. Vienna has an extremely beautiful downtown, especially the Rathaus (Rathaus is the extremely appropriate German word for city hall =P.) We also got suckered into attending a classical concert for 26 euros each. The music was almost exclusively Mozart and the Strausses. They had waltz dancers and opera singers too. The concert was fine, but how they managed to fit 500 gullible tourists in that small room, I'm not sure.
In Vienna, we also visited the Schonbrunn Palace and took tours of the inside. I never really liked visiting palaces, they seem extremely unlivable (and thus better suited for museums). The Schonbrunn reminded me of a slightly less extravagant Versailles. What was funny is they had portraits of all 11 daughters of Hapsburg Queen (or Princess...or Duchess...or something like that) Maria Theresa (or maybe it was another one, I didn't keep all the names straight). Every single portrait looked exactly the same. I thought they were all of the same person. Yay inbreeding of royalty!
To my dismay, I was unable to find a statue of Schrodinger in Vienna (I was wearing my "Schrodinger's cat (is)/(is not) dead" shirt at the time). We did see a bar named Schrodinger's from our car, but we didn't stop.
After leaving Vienna, we went back to Munchen so we could fly back home (except for my dad, who flew to Romania for a math conference). We visited downtown Munchen too, though it wasn't particurarly nice.
You know those Holiday Inn Express commercials that were on TV once (they might still be for all I know, but I don't watch TV anymore)? They go something like "I'm not a [insert profession here], but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Well, in Munchen, I found them to be completely wrong. We stayed at an "Express, by Holiday Inn" (which I'm guessing is the German equivalent to a Holiday Inn Express) and I couldn't sleep at all. The bed was extremely uncomfortable and it was too stuffy or cold or hot or something. Anyway, the not being able to sleep at all that night worked quite well with the 23 hour journey the next day. Yeah. I'm done now.
But yeah, the main point is I'm back. So we can hang out =P.
Click to make it bigger