I got back to Malmö in the morning, made my way to Malin’s place and promptly collapsed on the bed – but not for long. We had a lunch date with Marie at the special, top secret sushi place where I got the best present of my trip – a jar of salt licorice candy (no, that’s not the special part) with a custom label, words by Malin, art by Marie. It’s awesome! And it will hold a special place on my mantle for years to come, candy still tucked safely inside because, let’s face it, unless you grew up with the stuff, salt licorice is some of the nastiest gunk on the planet. We were joined at lunch by Martin, an engineer (and part time aspiring magician) who has helped Malin with props. He had just started his holiday and so had some time off.

Malmo fest

In fact, Martin and I decided to hang out for a bit that night and hit the opening festivities of the Malmö festival – an annual street fair/music fest/craft show which takes place all

Me and a giant lamp

over town. So we walked and talked (we also visited the science fiction bookshop so I could get a new book) and took pictures. I said good night fairly early, though, since I had to pack for my flight to Reykjavik the next day as well as finish grading papers.

That next day came early and was trying to figure out how I was going to get everything into my backpack. There were times it didn’t look like it would all fit, but eventually, it got there. In the morning, I also called my friend Ida (you remember her from the post way back in June entitled “Where Were We…”  ) who was back in Copenhagen. See, she had gone home to Ecuador for a bit and just happened to be back when I was there and she had asked if we could get together. So when I called her, we arranged to meet in Copenhagen at 6:30. Quite cryptically she said “come hungry.”

So I finally got everything into the pack, hoisted it on my back, and caught a ride to the train station with Malin and Sonny. It was nice to be able to say good-bye to both of them (we thought Sonny might be working). They are such a great couple and they made me feel so welcome and at home during

All packed up and ready to go...

all my time in Malmö. I can honestly say my journey would not have nearly as successful if it hadn’t been for Malin and Sonny (and Marie – Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgggh)! Anyway, they dropped me off, I jumped a train and headed off to meet Ida (remember, it’s pronounced with the short “I” sound – Eeda). I was running a few minutes late so I went still carrying my pack. We met in front of Tivoli Gardens and Ida immediately suggested what I had been thinking, that we walk back across the street and deposit my bag in a locker for the evening. Not only was it more practical, but she made some reference to the fact that it just wouldn’t do to bring my 24.7 kilo pack to where we were going for dinner. And as I would find out, she was right!

After dropping my pack, we headed back into the city proper. There was a Pride Fest concert going on in the square and I followed Ida through the throngs of thongs. When I asked where we were going, she said I’d see. We did, however, have a bit of a walk ahead of us. On the walk, we caught up on where we’d been, what we’d been doing (mostly me, because she had gone back to work) and what was next. Finally, we got to a harbor and the view was spectacular. Remember how I said I was proud of myself for not seeing the Little Mermaid while I was in Copenhagen? Guess what? That’s exactly where Ida brought me and that mermaid, she ain’t so little.

She sits high in the middle of the harbor, staring plaintively out over the ocean, waiting for her love to come back. It really is a beautiful piece. I stared for a second before Ida said “Come on, we have a boat to catch.” She explained that she had wanted to surprise me and so had called in a favor and pulled some strings and fibbed slightly about my American reporter credentials, but she managed to get us a table for dinner in one of the most exclusive restaurants in Copenhagen – Hans – located in the head of the Little Mermaid!

We had to take a small ferry boat to get out there, a trip of mere minutes – which was a shame because the boat was so nice and well appointed. I found out later, if there’s a back up at the restaurant or if you’re very early, they’ll serve cocktails on the boat and turn it into a pre-dinner cruise. But we were on-time and our table was waiting so no cruising for us. Next time, if there is one. So the boat drops us off at a dock which is hidden from the dry side of the view, and we are directed into a faux cave. From inside, things look bigger than you’d think – you can’t see where the statue joins with the rock which betrays the fabrication of the whole thing. Unfortunately, and I’ve complained about this before, but there was no elevator, so, after checking in at the base, we had to climb the 80 or so stairs to the top.

When we finally reached the main floor, the restaurant was spectacular. It was dimly lit with the majority of light coming in from the two large windows which corresponded to the Mermaid’s eyes. As the sun set, though, the ambient lighting took over, just bright enough to see but not so bright as to diminish the lights of the city outside. It’s a very romantic setting. Honestly, made me sad Ida and I are just friends (but thankful she called in her favor for me rather than her boyfriend who was coming in the next week). We were seated at a table slightly to the side of the windows (you can’t ask for everything, right?) and shown the menus. Evidently Hans (named for Hans Christian Andersen, the writer of The Little Mermaid tale) is known for its meat-like seafood. If that doesn’t make sense, think of it this way… they don’t do traditional seafood. The fish on the menu isn’t done in filets. Instead, they only work with thick, solid cuts of fish. So the tuna, which I had, is a tuna steak, prepared with beef like spices and a sauce which has to be tasted to be believed. Honestly, this was the best meal I had in my entire trip (figures it would happen on my last night on the mainland, huh?). Ida, who is a vegetarian, had a sampler plate which also was amazing (yes I tried some – but I was still glad I had the tuna). I didn’t particularly care for the mixed veggies, but the mashed potatoes had some sort of base taste I’ve never had before. We asked and the waiter told us it was because they use a blend of yak milk instead of cow milk to make it fluffier (No, I don’t know where they get the yak milk, either).

After the main course was digested, we decided to have desert. Yes, they had tiramisu on the menu, but I just couldn’t order it. The place was too cool to have something like that so instead we decided to split ‘The Philopher’s Stone.’ We were both full and while I would have liked to have tried ‘The Red Shoes,’ the description of which included powdered espresso beans and candied ginger, just seemed a bit too much (and can you tell all the desserts were named for H.C. Andersen tales? The Tiramisu was actually called ‘The Tinder Box’). Of course, what we did order was no slouch. It was a hand churned ice cream (the flavor wasn’t exactly vanilla, it was richer and there was something underneath it I couldn’t indentify, but that’s as close as I’m gonna get) served with a chocolate infused biscotti like cookie. Except the cookie wasn’t hard, it had a soft middle which didn’t exactly taste like chocolate. I’m not doing a good job of explaining it, but it was amazing. Even better was the presentation – It was served in a bowl, with the cookie “standing at attention” and underneath it was a dry ice mist to give off the feeling of a cold Danish morning. Just spectacular!

By this time it was getting late and I had a flight to catch, so we couldn’t stay to enjoy any more of the ambience or after dinner drinks. We made our way down stairs, caught the ferry back to land and headed for the airport (looking back at The Mermaid, you could see a glint in the eyes where the restaurant is, but it was shielded so well you couldn’t see anything going on behind those eyes).

At the airport, Ida walked me as far as she could, to the alarmingly empty security checkpoint, where we said good bye. I boarded the plane, taking an aisle seat and rested for the three hour flight to Keflavik, the main Icelandic

How luggage arrives into Keflavik...

airport about 40 kilometers from Reykjavik, where I had a “guest house” booked.

My trip was coming to an end – two and a half days to go before heading back to Vegas. But I was planning to make the most of them.

Overnight trains leave a lot to be desired. In this instance, I got on board at 7pm and wasn’t going to get off again until 10 the next morning. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing except when you’re in a train compartment with five other people and your legs are intertwined it gets hard to sleep. Add in the fact that people are constantly leaving the train and the sun is coming up and someone forgot to draw the blinds and really, not the best night’s sleep.

On the plus side, though, I did meet a nice guy named Ricardo who bought me an ice cream when we hit the Amsterdam Central

Ice cream friends

Station. He and I had been talking about writing at dinner the night before and then he told me about this special ice cream which sounded like the Dutch version of Coldstone. And it was good, too. But then, after ice cream, we said good –bye, I hoisted my pack and made my way through the Red Light District to my hostel, conveniently called The Heart of Amsterdam, and checked in.

The cool thing about this place is that all of the rooms are named after movies. I was assigned The Wall. Too bad really, since I was hoping for The Godfather, but you take what you can get, right? They have these lockers in the rooms which are electronic, with magnetic keys. They seem to be pretty secure so I throw my big and little bags in and then decide to go exploring. I found out about a free walking tour which was leaving from Dam Square later that afternoon so I head out.

Dam Square is the big central square in town, bordered by the city hall building on one side and a very phallic like sculpture on the other. In between is a huge open area where street performers, living statues and hot dog vendors all fleece tourists out of

The monument in Dam Square

hard earned Euro. I wandered around a little bit while waiting for the tour to start. Branching off from the

The sign makes the scene

square were a bunch of streets all filled with souvenir shops and fast food restaurants. The main road which divides the square leads directly from the Train Station and goes right past Madame Tussauds (which had one of the longest lines I’d see there).

Finally the tour started and the guide was a guy named John from the States. It seems like a number of the tour guides I saw in foreign countries were native English speakers, which I guess would be a great job for an ex-pat. We got a little bit of history while standing around the sculpture and then started walking in earnest. We saw a piece of art which was imbedded in the ground (completely anonymous, too – no one knows where

Sculpture in the ground

it came from, who did it or what it means). We wandered through the red light district, which has been around as long as the city itself. It started as an economic thing. Since Amsterdam is a port city, sailors would come to town and need a place to spend their money. Girls seemed a good option so they started regulating it. Of course, just to make sure both sides of the coin came back to the local economy, they built a church right across the street. Those poor sailors got it coming

John leading the tour

and going (to hell)!

And then there’s the famous “coffee shops,” places where you can buy marijuana in a variety of qualities and quantities. Do be perfectly clear… buying, selling, smoking or growing pot is still illegal the police just choose to look the other way. See, Amsterdam prides itself on its liberalism and general acceptance of everyone and everything - but they are also practical. Looking the other way on pot lets them focus on keeping the harder things off the streets. We could learn a lot from these people. Of course, the ultimate irony is that in the current, politically

No smoking... tobacco

correct, healthy atmosphere tobacco is not allowed in the coffee houses but pot is! Odd, I know.

Anyway, on my tour, I met Iwola, a recent transplant who was working her way across Europe from Poland a month at a time. She’s a photographer and we ended up meeting up later that night for dinner and book shopping. Since she’d been a town a few days longer than I, she knew the really cool places. We found this little side alley where a guy had a bunch of carts set up with all sorts of books in all sort of languages. I picked up a couple of old scifi pulps and a text on the supernatural in fiction and we spent WAY too much time looking at the photos in old kids travel books trying to determine the dates (cars and clothes were good, but not always the most accurate, indicators – we got really geeky when we started discussing the quality of color saturation in the printing).

I made it back to “The Heart” just as dusk was falling. Thankfully, I booked into a place where they didn’t care about smoking (yes, of all the places I stayed, Amsterdam hostels had to specify their drug policies) so I ended up not having to buy anything. I got some great contact highs sitting in my bed and typing. Much mellower than the days when I actually did the stuff myself

me and Cassie

(which was twenty years ago, so the statute of limitations has dropped off). I did meet Cassie though. She was in my room (gotta love mixed dorms) and we made plans to go out the next day.

I didn’t get up early enough that next day to actually enjoy the hostel provided breakfast but when I did get up, Cassie and I hit the ground running… er… peddling. See, in Amsterdam, biking is the way to go and there

Invisible Man sculpture

are plenty of places around to rent bikes. However, it took us a while to find one since neither of wanted to ask for directions right off (we knew where we were going) and by the time we realized how lost we were, it was more of a challenge to actually just find the place. I explained how I normally would ask but now it was a point of pride. I told her “I’m the gayest straight man you’ll ever meet” to which she replied “That’s good, ‘cuz I’m the straightest gay girl you’ll ever know!”

We finally did (and the guy gave us a great deal) and we headed out to SEE Amsterdam. We rode through parks and by canals,

Bike tricks

almost got hit by cars and even got lost once or twice. Of course, getting lost is the best way to really see a place. You get into the back alleys and out of the way spots. It’s one of the reasons I

A couple of dicks...

like to just wander. You don’t really get a chance to actually experience a city until you get off the main roads and tourist centers. So we did. We also hit Amsterdam’s Erotic Museum and she bought me a space cake (pot laden pastry – which, I must say really didn’t affect me at all).

That night was more of the same, but the next day… that’s when we discovered the REAL Amsterdam.

I can’t believe I forgot the best quote from my evening with Emanuel! At some point in the conversation, when we were talking about various cities and I had made mention of the fact that Los Angeles wanted your soul and Las Vegas wanted your money, he said San Francisco (where he was from) wanted your heterosexuality. It didn’t take a lot of detective work on my part to very quickly deduce that he was, in fact, gay. Now, this isn’t a big deal, obviously, but it did lead to the wonderful exchange where I told him it was a shame he was gay since he was missing out on the beauty that is Scandinavian women. At which point I was put in my place with a well-timed “Scandinavian men…mmmm hmmmm!”

Anyway, my last day in Stockholm and I was anxious to get to it. The first thing I wanted to do was get to the money museum, since it had been closed the day before. So I walked down the hill towards the town center, past the weird statue of a hand that I didn’t quite understand, and made my way to the palace. Okay, across from the palace. The museum was actually kinda neat, different than the one in Helsinki in that it didn’t have nearly as much text to read and a bit of a different slant, which is one of the reasons I really wanted to see it. The day before, over in the palace, one of the exhibits, right before the portrait hall, was on the various orders and medals the kings all wear. You know, you’ve seen those portraits and the guy in the tux is covered with sashes which have dangly bits all dripping down, right? That’s how you know he’s the king (contrary to what Monty Python

No... I don't know which order this was for either...

may say). So all those metal dangly bits are various orders the king belongs to and there are hundreds of different ones. I think the Swedes really enjoy their orders because it seems like every monarch created one or changed one or made himself the grand high poobah of one. There’s the order of the sword and the order of the lance and the sword of St. Michael the brave and the Order of St. Bailey the Courageous and the Star of St. Riley the Cute (I’m just using these as examples, aside from that first one I’m not sure any of them actually exist). I was fascinated by these and wanted a book explaining what they all were and how you got them and what the signified and all that but the only book they had was in Swedish (inconsiderate much?) and cost like 700 Kroner (like all Swedes are made of money – although if you got one of these Orders of the House of Fultonduenas medals you could probably afford the book to explain why you got it in the first place). They did tell me, however, that the money museum might have a book such as I was looking for since it was run by the department of engraving which makes the medals to begin with. So I’m excited.

First floor was a nice history of money, lots of displays with information I couldn’t read and thousands of neat looking coins. Second floor, though, we got to the medals and sure enough, there were a bunch. I took a picture of one I’m still trying to figure out. They also had the world’s heaviest coin up there. I lifted it. It was indeed heavy… about 20 kilos! And it’s square. I learned

Biggest. Coin. Ever!

all about square coins and how they are stamped in all four corners to show the various authorizing agencies and then in the middle to show value.

Afterwards, I expectantly hit the gift shop, looking for my book. No luck. They had the same selection as the palace gift shop so I will never know how I can become a member of the Order of the Underwood. My loss, really.

From there, I only had one more stop on my agenda – The Judiska Museet (Jewish Museum). This is NOT an easy place to find. I wandered around, map in hand for a good twenty minutes before I

Seriously? Would it hurt to add a LITTLE pizzazz?

finally noticed the little sandwich board sign propped up against the door point the way inside. This took the idea of a small, Swedish museum to a whole new level. It was three rooms, and one of those was the combination entry hall/cafeteria/introductory movie auditorium/gift shop! Of the othertwo, one was devoted to the permanent collection and one to a rotating exhibit, this time on the student rebellion of 1968 as well as the deportation of Jews from Poland after the war and their acceptance in Stockholm (yes, it seems like all European countries were offering asylum to the Jews

Self portrait with stars

after the war) and other places. The permanent exhibit consisted of a number of Jewish artifacts rescued from bombed out temples and the like. It was actually very interesting, but the thing which fascinated me the most were the two displays featuring the yellow “jood” stars.

Leaving there I stopped for lunch. I ordered what I thought was a shrimp sandwich. I was told to take a seat and it would be brought out. I was thinking that’s strange. This was something I pointed out in the window, shouldn’t be that hard to slap it on a plate. Oh yeah, and they failed to mention it came with tea or coffee until AFTER I’d paid for my Cola Light! Anyway, I’m sitting outside, enjoying the beautiful day, drinking my tea and coke, when the girl brings out a salad fit for a king (or a member of the Royal Order Of The Moveable Type). It was great! And I didn’t realize I’d been craving a salad until I took my first bite and then I just devoured the thing. I wish now I’d taken a picture of it, but my (admittedly weak) description will just have to do.

The Old Town

Heading back to the hostel to pick up my bag, I did one last card attraction, this elevator to a restaurant (it normally cost 40 Kroner). Like I said, it was a beautiful day so the scenery was

Beautiful day in Stockholm

spectacular! I got my bag and headed for the station. The journey started off just fine, but then, like on the way to Munich, there was a problem with the track so they were going to stop the train, put us on coaches to get us past the problem then back on another train and away we go.

Except…

Except there weren’t enough coaches to get everyone to the other station so I ended up waiting (with a pleasant group of fellow travelers) for about an hour for a bus to arrive, then another hour to get to the pick-up station and then we all waited… and waited.

Look at that delay...

All told, the train was almost 5 hours late. Instead of getting in just before 23:00 it arrived at 3:30am. Instead of getting met by Sonny at the train station and getting a ride to Malin’s house, I had to take a cab with a guy who told me it was his first day on the job. Yes, I felt like I was on Star Tours!

And when I did get to Malin’s, I woke her up (no keys) and then promptly fell fast asleep. It was good to be back in Malmö.

When I had gotten in the night before, there was someone new in my room. Now, when staying at a hostel, this isn’t an unusual thing. In fact, it’s part of the fun of hostelling, meeting the new people. There was a couple in the room as well, they had been there the day before as well and I had spent a few minutes chatting with them, Very nice, from Australia, having trouble reconciling that each of them wanted to do different things with their days on holiday. I mention this only because it might come up later.

Anyway, I get up the next morning and I see a guy in my room, the new guy I mentioned, except as I watch, he’s hoisting my bag on to his bed and going through it. As you can imagine, I’m slightly alarmed. But then I realize it’s not my bag. It doesn’t have my green locks on it, which are fairly distinctive. It’s also slightly smaller than my bag. But of course, in these situations, you take any opportunity to strike up a conversation so I say to this stranger “I thought you had my bag.” He laughs and says “I know, isn’t weird.” In perfect English. Ah…I think to myself. He might be an American! And I was right. His name was Emmanuel and he was indeed from San Francisco. We start chatting and hit it off great (it also turns out we have a LOT of the same gear, thank you REI). We have breakfast together and it turns out he’s got to be at the train station for a 21:00 train to Copenhagen and wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his day. I had some ideas of what I wanted to do with mine, but I went with him to the station, helped him get his bag sorted away in a locker and then we agreed to meet up for dinner later that night.

I took this opportunity to do what you MUST do when in Stockholm… I went to the Nobel Museum. Nobel, as you’ll recall,

The Nobel Museum

invented dynamite. He also invented a whole lot of other stuff and factories to produce it all. He was a true manufacturing giant. When he died, though, he thought he’d give back, so he create a trust to fund an award given to the best and the brightest in several different fields every year. And, just to piss off his countrymen, he told them the winner didn’t have to be a Swede! And so we now have the Nobel Prize and, like so many other museums in Stockholm, it’s nice and small and free with my card! They have a permanent display of the various winners (Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Typewriter is there!) and a revolving display of different things.

The guy invented TNT - do you really want food from his pantry?

When I was there it was a display of marketing centered around atoms. It was odd, trying to figure out a way to sell science to the mass market. I think they did a pretty good job. Now, the downside of these museums is that most of them don’t allow photographs so we’re gonna light on the graphics this time.

So afterwards, I was starving so I grabbed a hot dog and coke light from a street vendor and sat on a bench to rest my feet and eat before going to the next museum. Before too long, a couple sat down next to me, joking this was the diet coke bench since we were all drinking Light (which is one of the European Diet brands of Coke. The other is Coke Zero). Naturally, we struck up a conversation and guess what? Jews from back east America! Marty and his wife (I wish I could remember her name, I’m sorry). We ended up sitting there for an hour, talking Jewish heritage, talking parents and children, talking theatre (they were both directors in New York). Really one of the great, random encounters on which good travel is based.

So I walked them to the main shopping street, said goodbye and I headed to the palace. I wanted to see the inside of one of the last remaining active monarchies in Europe. Granted, this one is only a figurehead and the palace is only used for administrative functions, but still… So there were four things to see in the palace and since my card covered all of them, I was sure I was gonna see them all. At first I headed for the royal apartments, but it was recommended I wait for the guided tour so instead, I went to the

Changing of the Guard

underground parts. This was the site of the original castle, with the original walls, which had burned down in the 1600s. Once I finished up there, it was upstairs to the apartments where I did go on the guided tour. I saw where the heads of state eat and learned all about the regimented balls (the timing is very precise as to when the members of royalty enter and exit – I’d say it was Swiss precision, but that’s a whole other country). After the apartments I took a stroll through several hundred years of monarchy portraiture. Some of these people were very handsome and some…

Guard's been changed

well… some I’m sure were the product of inbreeding and could probably play either part of dueling banjoes with no sense of irony whatsoever.

Then came the rooms I wish I could have brought Riley Addison to… the crown jewels. For different functions and at different ages there were crowns made for the members of the royal family. There were also swords used for coronations and cloaks used for ceremonies, but the crowns were the big draw. They were really beautiful and covered in jewels and gemstones and gold. Just amazing.

Leaving there, I walked across the cobblestones to the Mint Museum but by that time, it was already closed so I ran around to the fourth section of the palace, the antiquary, and had a quick look see through the statues the previous kings had collected. The most impressing pieces, I thought, were a collection of muses. All nine of them. I’m fascinated by the idea of muse and so I was drawn to these pieces. If I’d had more time I would have stayed and studied them longer. I think when I get back I might do a bit of research in that area.

I had about an hour to go before I was to meet Emmanuel for dinner so I hopped a tram back to the hostel (free with card!) dropped off some stuff, then hightailed back to the opera where he was waiting for me. Turns out he didn’t do nearly anything he’d planned, but he did go shopping and found a fabulous outfit! So we wandered around, looking for a place to eat. Eventually we passed a TGI Fridays and he thought it’d be ironic if we stopped in there for a drink, so we did. One drink turned into two,

Retailers know Pride Fest is in town

which turned into nachos and we just had an amazing conversation, We talked about the Australian couple in our room (he didn’t think they were going to last long as a couple, either – very odd dynamic they had) and he asked me some rather thought provoking questions about travel and attitude. See, he was just starting a month of traveling by himself and was nervous. I helped put him at ease. Eventually, we got hungry and found a place for dinner, where the waiter

Emmanuel and I

was a riot and who actually yelled at Emmanuel for leaving a bad tip (but did it in a nice way since it was an honest mistake – we rectified the situation and gave him a decent tip).

We made our way to the train station where he got on towards Copenhagen and I grabbed a metro and headed for home. I still had a number of places to see and my card didn’t expire for 36 hours.

I’m SO embarrassed. How could I have forgotten, in the excitement that was Berny’s, the clock on the wall, the piece de résistance, which ran backwards? Ah well… I’ll fix it in post. Maybe. Anyway… after the exciting events that were The Bridge, what else was there to do but eat dinner? We went to a little Italian place called Rosso. It was a fun place and while the service

At the Italian Restauraunt

wasn’t great, there was some nice eye candy for Jussi and I (we think one of the girls may have been Berny’s other daughter, who escaped to the mainland and was starting her own business). There was also a great conversation between Jussi and the waiter about the cost of ice in a drink – which sounds funny but in some of the places I visited, it could be absolutely real! As it was, there was a lot of laughter and in the end, Jussi wasn’t charged for the ice.

The next day Tiina and I again headed to the mall, did a little bit of shopping, had a chocolate dipped…something… which didn’t deserve the adjective chocolate dipped then met up with Antti.

Weird Finnish door knockers

He was tired so he went home for a nap while Tiina and I took the car and took in more of the sites of Vaasa (like the university library) then went home to prepare for the evening’s guests. See Tiina and Antti have some friends who were working with a group of foreign students who were on an exchange program to study Finnish. The idea was for three of these students to come over and speak Finnish for an evening to kinda get the conversational thing going. This was all well and good, but for the fact that Finns don’t really talk. Remember when I told you about me in the elevator? Yeah, it’s like that.

So the students show up and Finnish starts being flung. I am as useless as a Prague train station attendant in this conversation so I politely head up stairs to write. After I do a little blogging, I go back downstairs amidst huge lulls in the conversation and, being me, I fill them. So after an hour of speaking Finnish, we all spent the next two hours speaking English and talking American politics (and I extolled the virtues of a day trip to The Bridge).

Wednesday, though, Wednesday was the day for Powerland!

The wonder that is Powerland

Powerland is an independently owned amusement park, located in the middle of nowhere, built because the guy who owns it wanted his own park. It’s the largest park in the area and is a mix of the parks we’d been to already. So again, Antti had to work so it was me and Tiina going for rides and adventures. Antti would join us later. Of course, since we had to drive Antti to work so we could have the car, this meant we were WAY early for the park. So we went for breakfast to this little golf resort where everyone thought we were on our honeymoon (since, evidently, that’s the only reason a young couple would be in a place like this) then, since we still had some time, we went and visited Tiina’s parents.

They were just delightful and didn’t speak a word of English (okay, not exactly true, they could follow along slightly but not a whole lot). And, being a mom, Tiina’s had to make us breakfast. Remember, we’d just come from a buffet where we ate our fill, and now we were being plied with ice cream and fresh strawberries and coffee… I was so stuffed I nearly rolled out of the place.

And then, finally, we got to the park. Inside, there were different sections, like an Old West area (and let me tell you, there is nothing more bizarre than seeing a statue of a John Wayne style cowboy speaking Finnish in an obviously John Wayne accent.) and a modern army area and…well…it wasn’t really that defined. I say army but that’s just because in the middle of a stretch of

Tiina

walkway there was a military vehicle for no apparent reason. It seems the guy who built this place just does stuff because he wants to. And why not, it’s his money, he can do as he pleases, right?

Tiina is a roller coaster girl so we immediately head off to big, scary looking contraption called Cobra or something like that. It’s one of those that pulls you back into a completely vertical position, lets you go, send you through loops and boomerangs and stuff and you end up again in a completely vertical position, only this time, facing the wrong way – so you have to do the whole thing again backwards! Sweet! Of course, as we sat down in the car, the safety restraint didn’t want to lock in right away so I was looking quite panicky, much to the amusement of the people waiting behind us in line.

Needless to say, I survived – and had a good time. Remember that phrase, though, because there are times fast approaching when that was not the case. From there we went to a great Wooden coaster which again, had no really discernible theme and yet,

"Why did I travel for this?"

for some inexplicable reason, amidst the wood and old-tyme look, had a big red, white and blue banner proclaiming Las Vegas! Your guess is as good as mine. This was one of the best wooden coasters I’d been on in a long time! It had some really nice curves, a couple of moments of airtime

Wooden coasters are cool!

and drop which Ghost Rider at Knott’s Berry Farm couldn’t touch (You hear me Bailey? This is one you would have loved! If we’re ever in Finland, I’m bringing you here).

So now, two big coasters down, we’re deciding what to do next. I’ve already explained I don’t do the spinny rides since I get sick. Not scared, mind you, but physically ill. My stomach just can’t handle it (although according to Mythbusters ginger helps, so next time I go to an amusement park, I get ginger pills first!). I suggest the really lovely Ferris Wheel, thinking that might be a fun way to see the park and have a

Doesn't his look like fun...

bit of a relaxing break. Tiina, on the other hand, thinks the Booster is the way to go. Let me explain

Booster!

the Booster: hell on a spindle arm! The idea here is that you have two sets of freely spinning seats on either end of a rotating arm. As the arm turns around a central access, the seats describe a circle and rotate around their own access, so as they are coming over the top of the big arc, they might still be somewhere near the bottom of their own arc. Does that make sense? Watch the video if you don’t get it. I am SO not 100% about this one, but Tiina assures me it’s not as bad as the spinny ones, so, reluctantly, I agree. We get on and get to the top and the big arm starts to spin. It’s not that bad.

Then it gets faster. And the seats can’t keep up with the larger rotation so all of a sudden, there are counter-rotations at work. I close my eyes and start to breathe through my mouth. This is not going well. I don’t mind the heading straight for the ground part, like I said, fear is not a concern, but my tummy is topsy-turvey. Even writing this I can feel myself start to sweat. On the ride,

A stable view from up high

I could feel disaster brewing. I knew I had about three more rotations in me before I gave up the ghost (and that lovely breakfast).

One rotation down and I had cold sweats. But it was breaking. Slowing. By the time of the second rotation of my countdown, we came to a stop at the top of the arc, swinging lightly in the breeze. I felt whiter than a Laplander at the beach but Tiina…Tiina was

We finally made it to the Ferris Wheel

giggling like a school girl, ready to go again. I sat there (I couldn’t go anywhere else) and just tried to catch my breath. By the time we got down, we had to go and pick up Antti. He needed the car for a client errand. We got him, he dropped us back at the park and then made plans to meet us a bit later.

Food was in order now, whatever energy I’d saved from breakfast had been expended by the Booster so we tried to find a place to eat. This was the longest line in the park. No matter where we went, it was an hour wait for bad amusement park food. In the end, we had expensive burgers and were pretty tired of being there.

Before we left, though, we went over to the go kart track for a look-see. These are not your father’s go-karts. These are

Gokart shadows

quasi-professional deals, with some serious speed and helmets required. Unfortunately, they were not included in our park pass ticket so we just stood on the sidelines and watched. Then Antti had a surprise for us: Tickets to a Girls Finnish Baseball game!

Finnish Baseball is completely and utterly unlike American Baseball in almost every respect except for the fact you hit a ball with a bat and you run to a base. I can’t even attempt to explain it. The pitcher stands to the side of the batter and throws the ball straight up. The batter hits it and then runs to a base, but the bases are set in a zig zag pattern and not in a diamond and everyone bats and you’re not out if a fly ball is caught and…and…and…and we only stayed two innings. I tried to get into the spirit of things, rooting for our team, but I only ended up pissing off a guy in front of us who moved after a few minutes of my raucous applause. Oh well.

Afterwards, on the way home, we stopped by Antti’s parents summer place where I met them and turned myself into an American

Antti's folks with Tiina and Antti

delicacy for the mosquitoes. Then it was back to the apartment for a quick sauna (only the three of us and yes, the boys were nekkid) some laundry and packing for Turku the next day.

The ferry to Helsinki was uneventful, save for a very expensive buffet. At one point I tried to find a comfortable place to sit and maybe sleep for a few minutes, but discovered all the good spots were already taken by folks who were already sleeping! That appears to be the thing to do on the early morning crossing. Pulling into the Helsinki harbor, though, I saw the most brilliant

Summer house

thing – a tiny island with a tiny house on it! I found out later this is a traditional summer house and all the Finns either have one of their own or have friends with one so they go there for several days to several weeks in the summer.

I’m learning that Finns tend to spend the winter, dark months living like zombies, annoyed at the world, locked away inside their own places and thoughts. But come summer, they light up like fireworks, enjoying the sunlight, listening to music and generally enjoying each other’s company. It is really, from my understanding, a tale of two worlds.

So anyway, off the boat, heavy pack loaded on and meet Jennica and Tommy at the dock. Jennica, as you’ll recall, I met in Prague and Tommy is her significant other. He had taken the morning off work so they could come get me in the car to take my stuff back to the house and then he was going back to the set (he makes TV/Commercials) and Jennica and I were going to wander.

Which is what we did!

We started out by taking a tram back down to the waterfront and having a traditional Finnish breakfast of meat pies and apple

Jennica at the Rock Church

donuts. The atmosphere reminded me of Café du Monde in New Orleans but the food was certainly different. The meat pies were just that, a pastry filled with a minced meat and spice concoction which was quite tasty, once I got over the fact it wasn’t a donut. The donut, though, was a donut and that was all good. The place we ate was where Jen used to work so we got the royal treatment (and considering the President of Finland, who lives across the street, has eaten there, that’s saying something).

The fountain by the harbor

Afterwards, we did indeed wander. We hit the fountain (yes I made a wish and no, I’m not telling you what it was) which is a central meeting point, we walked up the stairs to a large church and we went through a park called the Esplanade which had statues and monuments for writers and poets! We even went to a museum where, for some inexplicable reason, the exhibits all had something to do with marriage. There was a chupah set up and a chair with a crown on it (I couldn’t resist sitting in the chair and putting the crown on – I’d

King Jaq

already done the chupah thing).

Honestly though, we just wandered and talked. Every now and again Jennica would point out something or I would ask a question, but for the most part it was just hanging out with a friend. We did, however, run into The Pink One (see, I’m not the only one who gives their friends epithets). The Pink One is one of Jennica’s oldest friends and she met us for lunch and then for drinks

The Pink One (like I could resist)

afterwards. A very funny girl! And she was wearing pink (how she got the name to begin with).

I must say, though, there’s this weird fascination in Finland for naming businesses after American cities. We ate lunch at Memphis, had drinks at Texas and passed Amarillo down the street. You never realize how much of your culture is exported until you hear the Friends theme as a ring tone on a cellular phone.

The next day, Jennica had to go to work but we made a plan to meet up at the statue when she was done. This meant I had the day to myself. What did I do? I did what you do in Finland – I got on a boat and went to see a fortress!

The fortress is called Suomienlinna (which is, quite literally, Finland’s Castle). It’s on a series of six islands in the Helsinki harbor and not only does it have a rich and varied history, but it also has the only remaining submarine in the Finnish navy (they had 6 at one point but after WWII had to get rid of them all – I think there were plans to move them to SuomienDisney but in the end

The Vesikko Submarine

they were scrapped). There was also a toy museum on the island, but they didn’t allow pictures. I did, however, buy a card game where you had to collect cards to make a little blonde haired, blue eyed family and the bad card, the “old maid” if you will, was a little black boy. I had to get it.

The castle itself held a distinguished place in Finnish history. It was never finished, it didn’t quite

Re-enactors showing how things used to be...

do what it was supposed to do and in the end, in it’s one major battle, it surrendered. Over the years, though, various governments have owned and operated it, changing the armaments, updating the

Guns on the island

catacombs. Now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a prison (the inmates are used as groundskeepers).

After taking the Ferry back to Helsinki, I met up with Jennica in the Esplanade. We listened to a live band for a few minutes (whose name I really can’t remember and they really weren’t that good) before heading off to meet Tommy and then get fixins for a barbecue that night. On our way, though, we decided to stop for ice cream. Let me stop and take a few minutes to talk about ice cream in Europe…

It’s everywhere! If I get fat over here, that’s why. No matter where you turn, if there is a crowd of people, there is an ice cream stand. Usually, it’s one unit of currency for a single scoop in a waffle cone (i.e. if they have Euro, it’s a Euro or two, if they have crowns it’s a crown, etc…) Sometimes there are more flavors than you’ll know what to do with, sometimes, like in Finland, they have just a few. But anyway you cut it, there is ice cream whenever you want one, and when they’re everywhere, you want one all the time! So Jennica and I wanted an ice cream. We hit the stand and the way the cost breakdown worked you could get one big scoop or two little ones for the same price, We both chose two little ones and then went happily on our way. About now, you’re wondering, why is he telling us about getting an ice cream? Be patient. As we’re leaving the stand, Jen hands me a napkin. I look at her, and she responds by saying “I don’t think you’ll need it or anything…”

Those of you who know me know what’s coming next, don’t you?

Yup. No sooner is the napkin in my hand than the top scoop of ice cream is falling down the front of my shirt while I scramble to catch it before it hits the ground. Which I manage to do. Of course, my jacket is a mess, my hands need the napkin and Jennica is laughing hysterically, but I still have my ice cream!

For another thirty seconds.

I take three more licks (and don’t get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop) and the whole thing goes sailing off the cone, forward so there’s no chance of survival, and into the dirt. My altruistic attitude instantly becomes one of “well, I guess someone doesn’t want me to have any ice cream.” Jennica feels bad, certainly, but she still has hers so we continue on. We get about 50m when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes a lokki (that would be Finnish for seagull) who dive bombs her and takes a chunk out of the top of her ice cream. We stop so she can scrap the residue off, lokki are disgusting critters after all, and she is not about to eat where it’s landed. We are both laughing at this point, me without an ice cream and her’s cut down in the prime of its half-eaten life. Basically, we are off our guard. I mean seriously, how much more can happen in once little trip with an ice cream cone?

Turns out lokki are not only disgustingly dirty, they are also incredibly crafty! While that first one distracted us, got us to relax,

Jennica post lokki attack!

its fellows came in on a sneak attack a few minutes later, this time taking out the whole cone, knocking it right out of her hands! Honestly, if they had opened season on lokki right then, Jen would have taken out a dozen with her bare hands. Of course, just to prove the point that they were NOT going to stop us, we went and each of us got another cone (single scoops this time, we might be filled with hubris, but we’re not crazy!)

Continuing on, we made our way through the Plague Park (yes, they have a park named for victims of the plague. The big church in the middle of town? Doom Church. The Finns are not a jolly people, despite the fact Santa allegedly lives in Finnish Lapland) and finally meet up with Tommy. The idea is that we are going to meet up with Jen’s sister then go to her parent’s house (they’re out of town) to get their car and have the

Doom Church

BBQ.

Everything goes smoothly until we get to the house and Jennica realizes she doesn’t have the keys to get in. No worries – quick change of plans. Instead of open flames and outdoor beer, we’re going to go back to Jen’s place and Tommy is going to put his culinary expertise to work. And he does. We have reindeer sausage, some kind of pork filet and a marinated chicken (heavy on the meat here). For dessert, Tommy makes some sort of chocolate/banana concoction which like heaven in a (burnt) peel. Despite never finding the keys, I’d say the evening was a complete success!

Let’s start with a little geography lesson. Tallinn is in Estonia, which is the northernmost of the Baltic States and it is a port city, about 80 kilometers from Helsinki, Finland. It is north of Riga and Vilnius, which are both capitols of the other two Baltic States and all three were, at one time, Russian properties. Okay, got that out of the way. Now, on to my day in Tallinn.

So my first day in Tallinn was quite wet. It was raining, but not a constant downpour nor an annoying, but

A bear in the rain...

manageable drizzle. No, the rain here was more of a hard drip. It was enough to get you wet and keep most people off the streets, but not wet enough to let you feel comfortable staying in the hostel and watching something from their pitifully weak selection of DVDs. So instead, I ended up in a bookstore, writing blog posts. I did also help an American couple figure out Euros as opposed to Estonian Krowns and their relative values. They were in from a cruise ship and somewhere along the line had gotten Euros in their change and it was perplexing them, loudly, to no end. So after about 20 minutes, I offered assistance. It was gratefully accepted and a few minutes later, they left and I was able to continue writing.

When I had written all my posts, I was going to try and upload them, but even though the bookstore had free wifi, I couldn’t access it. Seems the only way to get a password is to text to a certain number then they text you back the code. Everything here is done with mobile phones. These are some high tech folk here. They invented Skype (and they’re very close to Finland, home of Nokia!). So I knew I’d have to upload back at the hostel – I just wasn’t ready to go back. I was hungry.

Tallinn is an interesting place in that it seems fairly new to the tourist game but they are attacking it full force. They have a great old town and are starting to get some tours organized. They also have theme restaurants. So on my way back to the hostel, I stopped in at the Peppersack for dinner. The wait staff was all dressed in medieval garb (I particularly liked the girl with the, I’m sure, period tattoo on her arm) and took a look at the menu. I figured I didn’t do anything exciting today and we’re going to have to have something to write about, so the food it was. I ordered a duck breast in raspberry sauce, which was quite nice and then I saw, right there on the menu, lamprey. A lamprey, for those who don’t know, is a small, eel like creature with lots and lots of teeth and when it attacks, it latches on and sucks your blood out. So what the heck, I figured I’d try it!

You know what, it doesn’t taste like chicken. Nope, it tastes like eel. And I don’t like eel. So I had two of the five pieces and concentrated on my duck, which I finished heartily. Then it was back to the hostel and a night of uploading pictures and starting my online class.

A Tallinn street scene

The next day, though, I went and explored the town. It was sunny and much nicer out. I took a couple of bus tours to all points of the compass, which was good and bad. The bus tours, with headsets in all languages, are fine, and the big selling point, about being able to hop on and hop off at the various stops is cool, except when the bus only comes every 90 minutes! So when I wanted to stop and maybe go up the TV tower

TV Tower

for the view, there was nothing else around and waiting for 90 minutes for another bus? Not so much. So I snapped a few quick shots, heard some stories (like how the Estonians garnered their independence from Russia by singing) and headed back to town. This wasn’t a bad thing since I was supposed to meet Piret, my savior of Sunday night, at Old Hansa at 14:30.

Old Hansa is the original of ye olde tyme food shoppe places in Tallinn. The menus (which I couldn’t afford to buy since they are wrapped in leather and yes, are for sale in the gift shop) are all done up with medieval drawings and all the food is designed as if you were visiting a tavern the king himself might visit. It was great! And since this is a food

Old Hansa

post, I decided to try something I’ve never had before – Bear! It’s a dark meat, a bit gamey, but still quite nice. It was in a lovely sauce. And before that, Piret had

Piret and I

ordered us some appetizer samplers which included jellied tongue (yes, I tried it) and some sort of beef with horseradish sauce. After I finished my bear, Piret and I talked about dessert. She said the apple pastry was to die for but but took 15 minutes to bake and she had to go to a meeting, so if I wanted it, I was on my own.

How could I refuse?

The bear I had for lunch

So I ordered it, said goodbye to my companion and started talking to the couple sitting next to us. Then the dessert came. It was huge and delicious and would have been worth going to Tallinn just for that. I didn’t mean to eat it all, really. I even offered some to my neighbors (after seeing mine, though, they ordered their own) but in the end, I cleaned my plate.

My waitress came over and told me I had eaten the best meal in the house – the best meat dish with the best dessert and there were not many who could do that. So I joked and asked if she could write that out for me, in Estonian, so I could

Me and the wonderful waitress (I never did get her name)

prove it.

A few minutes later she asked if I could hang out for a bit and talk to my neighbors because there was a certificate coming for me. When it finally came, it was brilliant. It says something to the effect of “on this day the great man accomplished what few have been able…” I don’t know exactly since not only is it in Estonian, but it’s in Olde Estonian script, handwritten and (I think) has been embellished. I say I think because when I went to thank the girl who did it, I told her I was going to frame it and she took it back to make it prettier. I haven’t seen the final version since it’s rolled up and carefully packaged.

Me and Veeli, who made my scroll

After that, I toured a bit more, took in some sights and then headed back to pack up. I had an early morning ferry to Helsinki and I didn’t want to be late.

Day two in Zagreb was slightly confusing, since I kept thinking it was day three. The overnight trains, while good for saving money on lodging, play havoc with your sense of time in a place. As it was I got out of the house late and headed down to the town center. I went into the visitor information center, found out there’s only one tour in town and it leaves at 10am every morning. Since it was well past that, I figured I’d hit it the next day and today would be a day for exploring on my own. The visitor center was helpful in that respect, handing me a walking tour guide, in English. There were actually two tours inside, one for the “upper town” and one for the “lower town.” The upper town looked slightly more interesting and would possibly take me past places I’d been the day before, so at least I’d know what those places were. So, guide book In hand, I headed off.

I was doing really well, too, until I came to stop number 4. Stop four mentioned that if you were to look to your right, you’d saw parts of the new town, and that this was the way to the zoo. Well… it was a Sunday, nothing was open museum wise, so I thought I’d give the zoo a shot. I finally caught a bus and got off at this huge park (the oldest park in Croatia, as well as the largest). The zoo only took up a small part of it, but I figured I’d go see.

First thing, in the middle of the small lake which separates the zoo from the rest of the park, there’s this silver sculpture which looks like a sea monster. I’m hooked right there and try to take a picture which looks good. I fail. Then, as I’m walking around, I notice the sculpture following me around. It’s a kinetic piece and moves in all sorts of interesting ways. Not nearly as cool as the balls in the BMW museum, but still impressive.

So I go inside the zoo and it’s okay. They have a pretty nice selection of birds and lizards, but it’s the little rodents which really excite me. I spent a good twenty minutes playing hide and seek with a river otter – he would come out of the water and walk up to the glass and look at me, then run away again. When he wasn’t doing that, he was swimming in a little stream in his enclosure, trying to catch fish from the school also inhabiting the stream. It was incredibly cute watching him swim with his paws out, missing the fish! And the meerkats kept posing for photos like good zoo representatives.

Mostly though, it was younger person’s zoo and I was there on a hot afternoon, so a lot of the animals were asleep or in hiding. The one funny thing they had was an enclosure for “Homo Sapiens.” You could get inside the cage yourself!

After the zoo, I finished the walking tour, including a jaunt up the stairs into the tower where they fire a cannon at noon every day. This is so the citizens can set their watches and has been done at noon every day for over a hundred years (except a slight period during the mid-40s).

Back at the Hostel, we watched the Eurocup final and I got the inside scoop on a place called Plitvicka Jezera (Plitvice Lakes). It’s a huge system of lakes and waterfalls that was supposed to be absolutely beautiful. I met these two Swedish girls, Annika and Cecilia,  (who had taken my bed, but that’s another story) and told them about Plitvicka. They decided to come with me. So the next morning we headed out to catch a bus.

The bus ride there was interesting to say the least. It would stop, randomly, and people would get off. No luggage, no nothing, and just start walking towards the nearest house. Since none of us spoke c Croatian, we were all highly amused. We thought the ride was supposed to take around 90 minutes, but it ended up taking 2 and a half hours. We finally got there, though, and it was spectacular!

Seriously, as my Croatian coffee shop friend would say, words don’t do it justice and pictures only flatten it out, but I’m gonna post some anyway so you can at least get a taste.

I will say the walk was amazing, too. There were these wonderful wooden boardwalks set up through-out the primeval forest and lakes, so much so that I felt like I was in a Ray Bradbury story.

When we got back to the hostel (after a nice Croatian version of a Mexican dinner) we headed straight for bed. Today I’m resting and writing since I’m on trains and touring for 26 hours starting at 9pm tonight. When next you hear from me, I should be in Vienna and talking about ice caves…

The first day in Munich started slowly. I got up and showered, finished my blog from yesterday and then posted it. While I was doing that, I had a little friend hanging out with me – a bee! It was just walking around my computer, being all cute and fuzzy. Whenit felloff the counter and landed on its back, I put down my finger, it grabbed on and I put it back on the counter. Eventually it flew away. Then I headed down to the train station to meet Jim. We took our own little walking tour of the city, seeing the HofBrau Haus (which looks just like the one in Vegas!)and generally taking in the sights.

One of those sights, in the window of the Hard Rock Café, was a sign for a 4^th of July party featuring a band called, get this, Vegas. I just can’t get away.

Since we didn’t know what we were gonna do, we went into the tourist information center, got a map and decided to hit The Rezidence (the former palace of the King of Bavaria). They had two tours, one inside the residence itself and one of the crown jewels and other ornamental things. We did both. It was funny, though, when we went to get our audio wands for the tour, the guy working saw Jim’s New Zealand shirt and asked him about it. When he found out Jim was from there originally, he told us he had just been there on vacation and proceeded to show us pictures of his vacation!

The most interesting thing about the Rezidence, though, was that it had been almost completely destroyed and then rebuilt into its former grandeur. There was a lot of talk about the furniture and the rooms, but we were more interested in the artwork so after a while we started skipping things. The jewels were quite cool, though, and a lot of reliquaries were represented (things built to held relics, including one which at one time held four pieces of the original cross).

Afterwards, we ate – and I don’t want to get off on another rant about food here, but Bavarian food kinda scares me. Things like suckling pig knuckle and sweet meats were proudly on offer. Both Jim and I ended up having bratwurst, potato salad and pretzels (they serve pretzels as bread here). By the way, bread during your meal is NOT free here. In fact, nothing is free here. If you want butter for your bread, that’s extra. And the bread? They’ll bring it out and set it on the table, even if you don’t ask for it, and you’ll get charged for it. Just an important safety tip.

Anyway, after dinner we still had some time so we thought we’d try and find the BMW museum. It wasn’t on the map but Kamilla had told me where it was and I thought I remembered so we went off and had an adventure.

When we found it, we walked up to pay and were told it was free to celebrate the grand opening! See this was a new version of the museum and it was opening day. We had no idea! And let me tell you, it would have been worth it even if we’d had to pay! It was awesome! It was a state of the art place (Jim kept saying it was science fiction) with interactive displays, modern art and more cars and motorcycles than you could shake a crank shaft at. The Skids in me was going nuts! They had five engines lined up with headsets hanging down in front of them. When you put on the headset, you hear the sound that particular engine makes while starting and revving. Their gift shop leaves something to be desired, but at least I didn’t spend money there.

We headed back and I said goodbye. Jim is heading off to Rome tonight on an overnight train so I’m back to being on my own. Probably better that way. Was thinking of going to Dachau tomorrow but I’m just not in the mood. I’ve extended my stay here in Munich by two days so I’ll have time to do it on Tuesday. Tomorrow I think I’m gonna go to the Duetsche Museum tomorrow and then Castle Neuschwanstein on Monday.

So my last day in Prague was again spent in the company of Marcus, Jenni (who wants me to let everyone know her name is actually Jennica) and Jim (whose other friends call him unspeakable names which we won’t reprint here unless there is huge public outcry and a petition under the Jaq Freedom of Information Act). Anyway, we decided to walk around the city, see the Palace and do whatever came along.

But the Palace was our first stop. Well, not exactly. Our first stop was the train station where I took WAY too long trying to book a ticket to Munich. That was one of the two things I needed to do during the day. The other was get some more souvenirs and mail a box home (filled with said souvenirs). So my little gang (and yes, we looked like a United Nations version of Reservoir Dogs walking down the street – in slow motion even because of all the walking we had done the day before) was very patient with me delaying them and once I had my ticket sorted, we headed off towards the Palace.

Naturally, we got off at the wrong stop so once again, out came the trusty Lonely Planet and once again, Jenni was our fearless leader in getting us to the Palace and the Cathedral or St. Vitus. Now, as you’ll recall, I’ve already been to the Palace on my city tour so it was up to me to fill in knowledge gaps and point out things my guide told me (I felt like I was passing on the wisdom and knowledge of generations of Pragians – or whatever they’re called). Once we were through with the Cathedral, we all opted for a bit of a sit down and maybe a light refreshment. We found a place inside the Palace walls, chosen for the dessert special which sounded fantastic, and sat. I decided to have a chicken wrap, as did Jim and Jenni. Marcus chose a focaccia bread sandwich and we each had a beverage. Why, you may be asking yourself, is he going into so much detail about a silly lunch? Well… after last night’s adventure with the nice rude waiter, we’d been having discussions about service and the lack thereof and sure enough, this little place didn’t disappoint!

When the meal came, four plastic sealed items were deposited on our table, like the kind you’d buy from the refrigerated section of a Seven-11. Drinks were also set down and before we could even comprehend the fact we had just purchased pre-made meals the waiter asked us if we were paying together or separately. When we answered “separately,” the guy immediately told us how much each of us owed then stood there until we paid. I wish this was the worst of it, but no… the bus person took away our plates as we finished, even if no one else was done and then, as a final push, she took Jenni’s plate while Jenni was STILL eating! We had to laugh about it. Of course, the reason we had stopped there to begin with was for the dessert, so Jenni and I (being the dessert twins) decided to split it. It was advertised as a mash of strawberries with ice cream and something else… when it arrived, though, it looked nothing like what we were expecting. It was a strawberry puree with a lump of ice cream in the middle and we figured the whatever it was I forgot was mixed into the mashed strawberries because it was nowhere to be found.

This started a trend of weird food things through-out the day for us. Sure, I could talk about trying to get down off the Palace hill and me going to find a post office to mail my stuff home, but that’s boring compared to our food adventures.

When we decided to sit for 45 minutes and take a little boat ride in the river, part of the reason we went was they offered free ice cream, beer, lemonade, coffee and tea…except it was only one of the beverages and the ice cream was a cheap chocolate dipped bar. The boat ride itself, though, was nice and relaxing.

Then came dinner. We found a little out of the way place and we all ordered traditional Czech foods. At least we tried to. The menu was written in three languages, Czech, German and English. So each item had the description first in Czech in big, bold letters, then in German in smaller, regular script and finally in English. None of us spoke Czech, but Marcus, as you’ll recall, speaks fluent German, so he was looking at both the German and English descriptions of each dish to try and determine, exactly, what they were. I ended up ordering a sirloin dish with a cream and raspberry sauce. Of course, when it came, it was three thinly sliced pieces of beef smothered in some sort of raspberry infused gravy and topped with a huge dollop of whipped cream. It was like dessert and dinner all rolled into one… a Willie Wonka experiment gone awry! Jenni had ordered boiled potatoes along with her main course but when the food was brought out, she got fried potatoes.

“I ordered boiled potatoes,” she said

“We don’t have boiled – you get these,” came the surly response.

Again with the Eastern European view of the world – you’ll get what we give you and you’ll like it! Then we had dessert, according to the menu, a pancake with ice cream and cherries (and the only reason we knew it was cherries was in the German description it mentioned Kirsche). Naturally, what came out was a crepe, stuffed with chocolate ice cream (no mention of chocolate anywhere) drowned in a chocolate sauce which, if it had any hint of cherry in it, would take a palate the likes of which Tom Colicchio would be envious of to spot.

The difference, though, in this place as opposed to the other places we had eaten, was that here, they weren’t nearly as eager to get rid of us. In fact, once we had gotten our food initially, trying to catch someone’s eye in order to get refills, dessert, or, heaven forbid, the check, was nigh on impossible. The servers would walk past us, close enough we could ALMOST reach out and touch them, but not quite, and completely avoid noticing we were waving frantically to get their attention. I suppose for the Czechs, there are only extremes.

Nothing major happened for the rest of the night (although our grand tally for the day was 15km) and Friday morning, Jim and I headed off to the train (Jenni met us in the lobby to say good-bye). The train ride was uneventful (except for a minor detour where we all piled onto a bus for one station stop to avoid some rail damage) and we pulled into Munich around 3:30. Once I got to the Hostel (which was a fair walk, especially with full kit in the hot weather) I checked in, got set up and went for lunch. When I got back to my room, I met Mike, a student from St. Louis. We talked about psychology for a bit, then I went downstairs, where the wifi works, and spent the evening talking to Kamilla, one of the counter girls, about comparative literature and helping her practice her English (which was much better than having her help me practice German, I assure you).