I regress: Saxony (the most southern province of former East Germany) and Bohemia (the western half of the Czech republic) were my next destinations on my January European tour after Berlin. Apart from being great destinations in central Europe, somewhat distant relatives who’d visited Arizona a few years ago and friends from Middlebury awaited me [...]
Archive for the ‘Winter Travel’ Category
Berlin: Prices, spirits, and thumbs–up, up & up (Jan 7-9)
Posted: January 17, 2010 in Germany, Winter TravelTags: "complimentary", AirBerlin, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, breakfast, Checkpoint Charlie, currywurst mit ketchup, free press, gypsies, Holocaust Memorial, hostel, Jewish Museum, Meininger Hostel, museum, passport control, Reichstag, spankings, WiFi
Bottom line: I love Berlin. Or maybe it’s just Europe. Or maybe it’s just not-Russia. Even though spending in the Euro zone is excruciating painful when a simple bottled water at 1,50 EUR really means 2+ American buckeroo’s, I’ve come back to the (more) capitalist system with a new (and happy) acceptance of inflated prices [...]
Moscow: Dictators, authors & theatre critics (Jan 5-7)
Posted: January 17, 2010 in Russia, Winter TravelTags: big bell, big cannon, Bulgakov, departure, fooling the Kremlin, Gogol, holiday, house museum, Inspector General, Kremlin, Lenin, Moscow, museum, Novodevichy Cemetery, Russian Christmas, theatre, Tolstoy, waxy figures, WiFi
Jan 5. State power day. Woo! Filled with a late breakfast (usually the broiled potatoes Ryan had made, long-overdue Honey Nut Cheerios with milk and OJ–simple delights I hadn’t had in months), I arrived at Kremlin walls just after 12 noon, where the line to see Lenin’s Mausoleum (free) was being told that they probably [...]
Moscow: 10 million plus one in 2010 (Jan 1-4)
Posted: January 16, 2010 in Russia, Winter TravelTags: bad omens, Brad Pitt in Russian, Catholic church shopping, Church of Christ the Savior, food, friends, garish monuments, Georgian food, House on the Embankment, Izmailovskii market, Mondays, Moscow, museum, Peter the Great, phones, police, Russian champagne, shopping, Silent Night, Tretyakov, Tsereteli
Moskva. Bottom line: my feet hurt. Yes, great metro and bus system, but stepping out of every metro station and glancing around would hardly give a traveller the right idea of the city. Thus, walking can’t be done without, and so, walk I did. Jan 1. And the decade begins. Streets quiet (except for the [...]
Holiday: Christmas and Y2K+10
Posted: January 9, 2010 in Иркутск, Holidays & Tradition, Winter TravelTags: 5 minutes, Christmas, cold, friends, holiday, impromptu decorations, Kazanskaya station, Midnight mass, Moscow, New Years, Red Square, The London Pub, tradition, Trans-Siberian, WiFi
Wrapping up the end of a semester, year, and decade in Russia came with a few idiosyncrasies, challenges, and definite high points. Hardest of all was being away from family and friends in the comfort of my grandparents’ living rooms, wishing that my Christmas and New Year’s could be white. But, the trade-off turned out [...]
