Joachim's Travel Blog
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Pictures! I finally posted some pictures, which you can see at this location. They're not that well labelled but it's a start.
Today I post from Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates. I thought I would spend my time here in the airport but it turned out much better than that, praise be to blessed St. Anthony's holy vocal apparatus.
Turns out my stay here was 19 hours, not 9 as I had originally believed. And it further turns out I don't need a visa here, coming from the US as I am. So I decided to get a (pretty expensive) hotel room and spend a day in Dubai.
It's not such a bad town. I basically toured the shopping district, which consists of hundreds of little stores, each dedicated to a single product. The handbag store carries 300 different handbags. The bangle store carries 50 types of bangle. The wristwatch store stocks 10,000 wristwatches (most of them Rolex, apparently). It was actually quite difficult to find anything to buy at all! I finally broke one of my two hundred dirham bills by picking up some headphones. I skillfully bargained the seller down from ten to eight.
I then proceeded to get completely ripped off by a local boat guy, who charged me 40 dirham for a half hour ride. Not a bad price in itself, but when the locals cross the river, they do it twenty to a boat, so I'm sure they pay less than a dirham each. No matter, though, for I am a fat rich American.
It's Ramadan here so I didn't get to eat or drink anything all day. I just kept walking and looking at the toy robot stores, the china dress stores, the fabric stores (always carrying at least 20 shades of black of course). The weather is gorgeous. They said the high today was 29, which is about 85 in real degrees. It's sunny, obviously, but the sun isn't too hot. The streets are laid out so you're usually in the shade. There's a nice cool breeze blowing in off the ocean, which is a bright and clear blue in color.
I just took my first step into the rest of the world. Flight 96 from Roma Fiumicino to Dubai. The first sign of trouble was the gang of thirty indians flocking around the gate area. They eventually alit on the counter and all started waving their boarding passes around. I do not know why they did this. The expressions of the counter staff were distinctly reminiscent of those of the Boers just before they got overrun by Zulus. I noticed for the first time that the concept of a line has no meaning to Indians. They prefer to ambush the counter operator using stealth. As I write this report after a day in Dubai, I have been "deliniated" every single time I have attempted to stand in a queue.
Poor Indians. They seem to be to the rest of the world what Americans are to Europe. Loud, obnoxious, badly dressed. Worse still they come in packs. Nothing could be worse than a plane full of them, unless it were... a plane full of old Italian women on tour! Yes, my plane was more or less evenly split between loud, badly dressed Indian men and garrolous, angry Italian women. As one might imagine, most of the flight crew spoke neither Hindi nor Italian. It was a circus. When I went to ask for a glass of water, the attendants in the galley were so relieved (that I was asking for so little and had gotten out of my seat) that they began recounting the horror in detail. Seats had to be raised, extra food procured, drinks of various types located and brought in the middle of other service. Worse still, there had been some fighting, and despite the captains repeated protests in several languages, much smoking in the lavoratories. In addition to all this, it was impossible to control the situation because half the cabin's inhabitants were standing in the aisles. I just tried to stay in my seat, watch the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and not learn too much Italian geography from my elderly neighbor.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Today: Venice! Honestly, I didn't really expect too much out of the city. I'd seen it in movies, and everybody told me it smells like sewage. But as soon as we got there (it takes half an hour to go there by train from Padua), I realized it was something very special. I've hardly ever seen a street as small as the largest in Venice. The place is a maze of tiny warrens and alleyways. It's fantastic - a perfect model for human habitation, if you ask me. When you finally do get to St. Mark's square, the immensity of the open space is awe-inspiring. This is a fantastic city.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
I spent most of my first day in Padua walking. Alkan and I had some coffee at the snack bar near his office, where I met his friend Francesca, and after that we parted ways. I mostly just wandered around the city all day. I spent some time at Saint Anthony's church and at some of the other well-known sites in the town. I am now an expert in the exciting life and times of Saint Anthony, and I have personally seen his tongue. I believe its miraculous powers are what allowed my further travels to be successful, but more on that later.
After all the walking, Alkan and I met up again and headed for the local pizza place. Great stuff - similar to New York style. When that was done we headed home and had a few puffs from the nargileh, aka hookah. Ok, let me just tell you, gentle reader, that that is one seriously awesome instrument of pleasure. I have never enjoyed smoking tobacco in my life but this was fantastic.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
I am in Padua. It was a slightly longer trip than expected, but I made it. The sleeper train was awesome, although we started very late. Apparently some guy got run over by a train somewhere in northern Germany, and the whole system got backed up as police and rail inspectors examined the site. Our train had to wait for passengers from another train and so left two hours late, at around 1:30 am.
In the meantime, I met and talked with an Italian guy from the next room over. Turns out he's from Padua so he knows a lot about it, and he gave me some tips. I guess he travels a lot on business between Verona and Munich. That distance isn't very great, but he moves between two countries when he travels it. In that sense it seems a lot cooler than flying out to California, even though the distance from America's east coast to the west is tremendous. I think it would be cool to be able to bounce from country to country like they can here in Europe. Well, actually I have been doing that and I think it is cool!
So the train trip worked ok, although the train didn't go to Padua after all. I ended up in Verona and, at the behest of my berthmate, I spent the morning there. He was German but lives in Verona, so he dropped me off in the main square on his way home. That would be the Piazza Bra for those of you who have been there, by the old Roman arena.
Well I spent about six hours walking around the city, so I didn't see altogether too much, but what I saw I enjoyed immensely. The streets are fantastically beautiful - narrow, sometimes tiny alleys with pretty, slightly decayed Italian houses packed together on either side. Many of the streets are too small for automobiles (it's pretty interesting sharing a street which with sidewalk is only twelve feet wide with a bus) but they're never too small for the ubiquitous motor scooters. There were hundreds of these scooters, and people everywhere were buzzing about, round helmets gleaming, scarves waving. I got there early so I was the only one on the streets for quite a while. The city is particularly pretty in the morning, although I must say the people make the place and once it gets going for the day, it's a beehive of activity.
I saw the duomo and another church, but really my favorite view of the city was that of the opposite bank of the river from the inner bank river shore. Castel San Piedro and what I assume to be the Cloister of San Girolamo stand proudly atop two hills just on the other side of the river, and the soaring trees and neatly trimmed greenery around them just make them look perfect. It is a vision of the land tamed and of man and nature at one. In that it reminds me of Austria, but here the setting is urban, even though it still feels very natural.
So then I caught a train down to Padua and here I am now, in Alkan's office at the university writing my blog. I'll be here for three days before I proceed to India, and hopefully I'll get to blog about each one of them.
Monday, November 10, 2003
I ended up spending a third day here in Munich since I was having so much fun with my roommates. They desperately wanted to see the Alps, so yesterday while we were at the main train station, I went to the counter and asked for a ticket to "the mountains". I was given a ticket to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Today we went.
Well the mountains are beautiful. I have some pictures which I hope to get online but so far I haven't yet had the time to do it. Perhaps I will be able to jack in tonight. From the main train station at Garmisch we discovered a cogwheel train that travelled to the Zugspitze, which is apparently the tallest mountain in Germany. And we took that train. The scenery on the way was incredible - green pine forests clinging to the sides of soaring vertical cliffs of granite. It was just stunning. We enjoyed our time there very much.
Anyway, now I am back in Munich and typing in my blog. When I got back to the train station I bid farewell to Dawnell and Kate and went to the ticket counter, desperately hoping to find some kind of sleeper train to Padua. I did! These Europeans think of everything! So now I just have a few hours to kill before my 11:30 train takes off.
Sunday, November 09, 2003
Today we spent in a somewhat more somber mood. We visited the Dachau memorial site. Well, it was much like what you'd expect - interesting and informative but certainly also depressing. It felt good to go, though. Afterwards we visited the Olympic district, just in time to see the stadium empty out from the big Dortmund vs FC Bayern München game. Dawnell and I hung out for a while at a local "sport cafe", the owner of which seemed from the photos to be on a first name basis with Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. Cheesy for sure, but the beer was great and they were open late.
Last night I was awakened by my two roommates as they returned from a long night of palace viewing. We talked a while, and when they mentioned they were going to the Deutsches Museum the next day, I asked if I could accompany them. They agreed and today we headed out in the morning.
The museum was actually a little dull. I don't reccomend it. We decided, from the state of many of the interactive exhibits, that Germany is the Land Where Everything is Broken. Well no matter - we still had a good time and I got to act as translator in a few instances, which I enjoyed.
Now last night I had my first taste of real German beer. I got a pils at a little Turkish snack shop with my shwarma. But today I really got more into the swing of things. On the way back from the museum, we stopped in at Paulaner im Tal, where I introduced my erstwhile companions Kate and Dawnell to the wonders of German cooking. There was schweinebraten, bratwurstln, sauerkraut and, for me, wurstln 'sauer art', that is, served in a vinegary broth with onions and pickles. I know it doesn't sound like much but somehow they made it taste excellent!
While eating at this bar, we had an inevitable meeting with some of the drunken local inhabitants. Munich bars are very friendly places, especially if you are female. These gentlemen invited us to, of all places, Munich's famous "Hofbrauhaus". What a scene! It was just what you might expect from an Oktoberfest party - a huge hall filled with tables and these tables filled with singing Germans, themselves filled with beer. And soon we were too. I mean drunk, and yes, singing. Everyone in my party was forced to learn some of the critical elements of the German languange, such as "gemütlichkeit", "prosit" and "gzuffa!"
