Copenhagen Sunday Nite 3/12

This is a continuation of the Homeward Bound portion. I also wanted to let you know I went back and filled in the blogs after Berlin with pictures (for those of you who have not checked lately).

Also, if you want to see any of the pictures larger, I think you can just click on the picture.

About 730 we decided we were hungry enough to face the outdoors. We initially went to O'Leary's (took another picture of the bikes
at the Central Station)

However, because of some huge soccer game, O'Leary's was sro; so we waddled over to the Hard Rock Cafe. There was a full moon, the air clear - so I decided to try for a nite shot - one can hardly see the moon

By 10 we were back in the room and WARM.

Homeward via Copenhagen and Seattle 3/9-12

Homeward via Copenhagen and Seattle
Thursday, March 09, 2006

We got on the ferry at 11am, just barely. It’s bigger than the one we took from Denmark and the crossing is more than twice as far and as long in time…..1h45m vs 40m. This ferry is also pretty cool – a perfumerie and a travl shop, both duty free. There are two café’s, one midship and one panaromic; a seafood café and a steak café. All of them, the eating places, are a bit higher than normal but not gouging. You can use both euro and dkk.

Driving again about 1pm and in Copenhagen about 4. The drive was thru farm country, forest and dale, mostly covered with snow….. and flat. There were scattered churches, villages, a few larger towns, and even some deer. The rest/auto stops continue to be fun stops.







After several tries at several full or too pricey hotels, we finally registered and got our luggage into an Ibis about one block from the central station, took the car to the closest parking structure and walked back to the hotel to settle in. It is so cold they should not allow people outdoors.




At about 8 I scurried over to the main station and chilled to the rattling bones stumbled into O’Leary’s at the station – a lively Irish bar with decent food. I had an excellent philly steak sandwich rivaled by nothing in Hawaii…..much tender beef tidbits, the green peppers, much onions, cheese (similar to cheddar but gooier) and a unique twist, jalepeno – most of which I avoided and then, erroneously, I tried them thinking they would keep me warm against the cold – wrong! But, the biggest thing was the size, this baby was huge, you could never ever eat it like a sandwich – you had to cut it up in sections and then take a shot at eating it. It was grilled to perfection – the cook must have been raised in the shadow of the Liberty Bell.

There are hundreds of bikes all over the place, sometimes 30-40 in a place and they are rarely locked. Turns out you just take a bike and ride it and leave it; when you need to ride again, you go to the alley where there are maybe 10-20 and you take another...they just keep cycling. Some are special, personal, so you lock those.

My sister decided that the Ibis was not for her. I concurred. The shower was such that you wanted to wear slippers and not touch anything. Walking on the carpet seemed akin to walking in the farmyard barefoot when I was a kid and I would get switched for doing it. The room, tho, was unusually big and room to lay everything out and they had a good internet set up. So, I got on and after some browsing found a place called the Mercure, a sister ship of the Ibis corporation, aka, ACCOR – which owns many hotel chains, including Motel 6 . Ibis is known for bare boned, inexpensive rooms but they have always been clean…so this place was a surprise.

Got on the internet, made the new reservations and looked at some mail, chatted with Stella but soon tired and was sound asleep by 12. Won’t admit it ever, but as I fell asleep I think I wished I was home already!

Friday March 10

We were up and packed into the car again by about 930 and we took a test run to the place we drop the car. While on the test run we got the car washed and it looks great again but more importantly it has all the salt and chemicals washed off, including under. Came back to the hotel and the room was ready so we settled in. The room is very nice, typical 3*, not as large as the Ibis, but clean, clean, clean.

We half ran half walked to the central station – it is sooooooooooooooo colllllllllllld as Liane would say!!!!! Ran right by a Hard Rock, and found a pizza/salad buffet ($9) that looked good and after verifying there were no feathers involved, we had lunch. Guess I had missed pizza as I did pretty good, even ate some greens, peas and corn to keep the rule maker happy. The best version they had was a sort of Hawaiian style, second best was the pepperoni and the vegetarian was fairly good. The crusts are a bit different, not thin, not fat, not crispy, not doughly, sort of in between all of them….with a coka lite, tho, was ono.

It’s 3pm and I’m in the room catching my blog up, arranging my clothes so I can get them all set for the flights home. Maybe a nap.

It was just too cold to go out again – about 15 degrees maybe less with the wind – so I worked on the blog – adding pictures. Don’t know if I’ll do that again, turns out it’s a lot of work and sometimes can take forever moving pictures into the blog with the internet connections. Anyway, it’s been fun.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Was up and walking out to the site across the blocktowards the Stroget (the very long pedestrian mall_by about 945…this was after a breakfast of scrambled eggs (no feathers), bacon, 4 juice, 3 coffee, 2 danish, and some cheese. The blast of cold air as we left the hotel was numbing, but ever the hardcore shopper, I trudged on. Kathi quit after about 30 minutes claiming the wind was too much for her – at that time, turns out it was about 15f with the wind. It was full blue skies tho so I knew it had to warm up to at least 20f…….i think it made 22f independent of the wind factor.

I walked the entire Stroget and up to the Israel square (turned out to be nothing)….walked several of the side streets also and some of the Gamla Strand, a street running along one of the inland lakes in the city. Mother Hubbard on the Gamla Strand?










Another interesting site were some erotic sculptures with this sign

At about 130 I was so happy when I found a Chinese Buffet – think Buffet 25. It was not bad at all and it certainly hit the spot!




There are hundreds of all unique shops and some of them really have fun names It's fun to see all the kids out and around and they think it's normal, of course to them it is normal and perhaps even a warm day, there sure is a lot of blue skies.

Don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've not seen a single Starbucks since leaving Berlin....and in Berlin there was maybe one or two, I think. And "Desperate Housewives" is popular in all the cities we've visited......and it's not uncommon to see expensive furs on girls wearing huggers, heels and levi's.


It’s about 4 now and I’m back in the room thawing out – warm is good!!!!!


Sunday, March 12, 2006

The weather was beautiful when we got up and out from breakfast. It’s sameo cold but totally blue skies.

Today was Carlsberg Brewery tour.












The most impressive thing was the collection of 16,000 different beer bottles collected over nearly 300 years. The tour was self-guided so it was great –











we even got to see the horses,
more or less the same as the Bud horses except more of them. Horses in the German and other European breweries have been used forever and still are.









The funniest thing about the tour were the PUBLIC restrooms for men and women.

We then went to see the Little Mermaid. Wow was it cold over there by the water.














Now back in the hotel thawing out and enjoying sun glowing thru the window as I type.

About 730 we waddled over to the Hard Rock Cafe and the skies were clear, a full moon, the air crisp (pfftttt it was frigid) so i tried to grab the moment for eternity - the moon is so small compared to realitya href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5398/962/1600/a%20hard%20rock%20niter.jpg">


Also got one more shot of the mass of bikes at the Central Station, half of them mysteriously removed on Sunday afternoon and a posting that the rest would be removed nest week.

Back to the hotel and to bed by 10.

At about 730 we decided we were hungry enough to freeze so we bundled up and waddled over to O'Leary's - turned out to be standing room only because of a big soccer match so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. The night was perfect, full moon, clear skies, crisp air (pppfffffffffffttttt, it was frigidly life threatening). I tried to capture the moon and the HRC sign for eternity but alas, you can hardly see the moon. On the way back to the hotel I took one last picture of a portion of the massive number of bikesat Central station.



Back in the room and WARM by 10.

The Road North March 7

The Road North

Prague to Dresden
Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Today after breakfast we loaded the car and headed for Tierezin – a WWII concentration camp that was called the Paradise Grotto....about one hour north of Prague, on the way to Dresden. It is out in the dingles and took awhile to find and it was snowing on and off the whole time about around 33-34 all the time. We finally found it around 1030 and after a 2 hour walk around we were back on the road north….thru the snow. The passage to Germany (a mountain pass, skiing, etc) was super busy with trucks,probbaby can't seem them but there are from one edge of the picture to the other, ahead of us, sometimes as many as 20-30 trucks going our way on a 2 lane hiway that we could only pass every once in awhile…so the going was slow….and yep, snow and cold!!

We had intended to go further but made it only as far as Dresden. Yep, we will sort of go north the same way we came south. Our plan is to be in Rostock Thursday nite for the ferry on Friday to very close to Copenhagen. Tomorrow nite, who knows?

Right now we are in an IBIS and it’s nice to be inside as it is cold and still snowing! At about 8 we went down for some dinner, in the hotel. I had intended to have goulische mit brot but they had something called “nudelengratine” that sounded very good and it turn out excellent. Picture noodles, tomato, onion, mushrooms, mixed with a spicy cheese and then baked – it was ono with just the right amount (for me) of fire.

I went happily to sleep about 3 hours later.

Dresden to Rostock
Wednesday, March 8

We were on the autobahn to Berlin by 930 – after breakfast of egg salad, kosher pickle, liverwurst/tongue, one hard roll/apricot jam, gouda and emmental cheese, 2 orange juice, 2 coffee and 15 pills.

We stopped in an area called Spreewald – pastures, forests and many canals traversed by everglade type flat bottom boats/poles, usually a female Sorb – a CZ and Polish people. Turns out this is a group also targeted by Hitler to eradicate. Also, the area is the Schloss Lubenau – owned by a count who was a conspirator to assassinate Hitler. He was executed, his family had to flee to Portugal. After reunification they returned and reclaimed their property and now the family operates the schloss as a very nice 4* hotel with great restaurant. The whole area is more or less idle now with the season running from April thru late October with summer being a time to avoid because of the heavy crowds. The woods of the Spreewald are said to be full of ‘darky” spirits and there is much lore surrounding the area.

At about 2pm we had returned to the autobahn and traveled to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp just north of Berlin. This camp was in operation from 1933 and was “the best” according to Himmler. It was the administrative head of all camps and was the most notorious of the SS camps right up to the end of the war and this was continued by the Russians (as part of E. German/Berlin from 1945-60). It was only in the early 90s that the mass graves of many thousands of prisoners were found. This was not a Jewish exclusive camp, rather one that was targeted for homosexuals, gypsies, dissidents, Jehovah Witnesses and others, including Jewish. After the war, soviet soldiers who contracted sex diseases from Germans were interned here as well. The area (the model only got about 1/2 of the total camp)



of the camp was massive. As aside -my imagination?? -- when I was viewing one of the guard towers there was all of a sudden about 2 dozens ravens, the huge black birds, 3-4 times the size of a crow – in a tree right above me – talk about a sudden chill.


The autobahn stops are really nice with showers, childrens play areas (both in and out), buffet of salad stuff as well as the meats and potato stuff …regular sit down restaurants, lots and lots of snack food and drinks….and wonderful backerei….of course I stay away from all the bad stuff!

We left Sachsenhausen about 4 and by 7 we were driving around in the old town of Rostock – with many one way, very narrow, lots of construction blocks, in the dark, everything totally strange – but handy GPS got us to 4 hotels in about 45 minutes – closed, no room, to expensive, no twins and finally, paying more that we had wanted, under 100Euro, we found a 4 star for 115E…….it’s like the Radisson’s, the lap of luxury and it has secure parking and of course includes breakfast. It’s now 830 and I’m writing notes before I forget.

The road north after leaving Sachsenhausen was pretty much boring autobahn all the way. We stopped about 3 times, cokes, gas, etc, and there were many many deer in the fields….all the ground except for the odd patches here and there were snow covered, maybe 8inches…about half fields and half forests.

We arrived in Rostok at night

Tomorrow we get on the ferry from Rostock to Gedser, Denmark and from there just a short drive into Copenhagen where we find a place thru Monday night, turning the car in on Monday, boarding our SAS flight to Seattle on Tuesday….then on Wednesday I fly NW from Seattle to WARMTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I called home to say good nite (for me) good morning for them. i usually get a new or revised set of marching orders so it was no surprise when i was asked "what is it about not eating fried foods" that you don't understand? Are you bundling up when you go out? etc, etc, etc. sheesh, you'd think i was a kid. Last nite, however, was a real problem. I was told "don't eat anything with feathers"

An aside – before I forget yet again, there are various places of urinal sport for men – Copenhagen airport had some sort of embedded fly that would move; German truck stops have a goalie with net that you can shot past; some have a small ball on top of a sort of spring that bounds around as you shoot at it. Great fun.

Another aside – Europe is into wind power, at least Germany is, big time – they are everywhere along the autobahns.


Rostock
Thursday March 9

It's a beautiful day so I took a few pictures of the square across our hotel for a ride on the ferry, nearly 2 hours. Sure hope they have not farmed out the maintenance to the Egyptians! Okay, remembering my new orders about feathers? Okay, fine, i understand the words....so this morning i carefully studied all the cold cuts, fruits, etc, etc, and could find no feathers, so i had some. As i mentioned we are in a 4* hotel so they make an omelette to order - wow, so i order one, tomato, onion, ham, and cheese - then remembering my orders, i say "excuse me, and also, please, no feathers!" so there, my first day with a new order, and so far so good. Laters, now up to the room to get repacked.

Prague March 2

Dresden to Prague
Thursday Mar 2

Before I forget, I should tell you the ‘German’ breakfast = 4-7 kinds of cereal, half of them our kind (cheerios, etc), fruit cocktail (fresh banana, orange, mango, grapes, apples, pineapple), 4-6 kinds of cold cuts incl salami, ham, beef, liverwurst, head cheese, and some unmentionables, 4 or so cheeses and some brie, fresh tomato slices, hard and soft boiled eggs, wonderful coffee, multivit juice, apple juice, orange juice, 3 or 4 hardroll types all with multigrain, some dates, some raisins, etc, croissants, about 3 or so packaged jams and another 3 or so that you spoon into little holders – Holiday Inn added scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage; Radisson had the jp breakfast, a couple of kinds of scrambled eggs, several kinds of sausages, and more kinds of meats and breads and of course, the Swedish pancakes! They all have very very good coffee and also tea. It will be fun to see what the CZ serve tomorrow morning.

Okay, we left Dresden about 10 and arrived in Prague about 1ish. Let me tell you, it’s bad enough in a new large city with lots and lots of traffic to find streets like vine, 44th, broadway or even Kamehameha, but let me tell you about trying to find a hotel in a city with street names like Na Stflovicka, Zlata ulucke u Vorlilmh and Pstrozvicka vlzhu….etc; and the GPS does not work here, no mapping of any of the former communist countries, as yet. Not a lot of people speak English. The names of streets ARE NOT on the corners, maybe 1 in 4, but that makes it really hard. But, I’m sitting in the room typing this, so we found it. Also, there are very few lights at junctions and the streetcars all own the place and pedestrians are all over the place. Just to make sure we didn’t have it too easy, the street we are on, about a billygoatcart wide, is one way and the entry off of Rohanski nabfezl in closed for construction…so, I just worded our way around and went up the street the wrong way!!! When in Prague, drive like the Irish on Saturday nite, all streets are one way and my way.

We settled in and then walked over to old town square, another easy place to remember – hahahahah - STARONESTSKENAM – just so we wouldn’t overload, I picked a restaurant by the same name to try my first CZ meal – goulashes and 2 bacon dumplings, 3 bread dumplings AND ONE RED AND ONE GREEN PEPPER – go figure. But it was very good….it’s basically roast beef with a heavy plain meat sauce (lots of it). We were safe in the restaurant as they had garlands of garlic at the entrance and the back hall.

Previously we had walked the square, very large, and took pictures and gooped the people and nosed around in the shops. They have the eggs, and the figurine within a figurine stuff, Bavarian crystal, lots of wood carvings, and of course variations of stuff like you find everywhere…just different names and looks. I am still looking for something sort of uniquely CZ. Berlin had their logo and the wall; Paris the tour Eiffel, etc. Bavaria the woodcarving and the castles, etc. There are lots of kiosks selling local foods – a variation of the Berliner, corn, wafers (I’ve yet to try one), hot mulled wine (also not tried as yet), gelato, etc. There were about 4 restaurants with outside seating right in a row, and they were nearly full of people eating outside – the temps at that point had fallen to about 30. There is evidence of the stasi everywhere, although no obvious to untrained eye. Now that I have lost my number one ally, Darren McGavin, we are risk with werewolves more than ever.

On the way to Prague we passed thru a ski area with lots of people on the hill and lots of chalets, little ski village. We were pulled over at the CZ border but after about 5 minutes he came over and gave us our passports and waved us off – nothing else.

Prague
Friday Mar 3

By the time we were ready and had breakfast, it was nearly 930. Kathi called about shipping the car and there were a couple of bumps (since solved) so she went back to the room to make more calls and I continued on the way.

First was to catch the metro (underground) from Republicky Namestra to Karlova Namestra, switch to a tram, fixed rail trolley and go up to the top of the hill above the castle. First, the underground is modern, efficient, clean and fast – even the escalators are seemingly twice as fast as the other ones (stores, etc) – to allow for this speed the entry and exit flat areas are about twice that of our escalators and the more normal escalators. The most noticeable difference from other undergrounds I’ve been on, no (or very very little) graffiti. Also, the trolley is efficient even tho the equipment is much much older. I essentially rode the trolley from Ala Moana Center to Waianae and then back and continued on to Hawaii Kai….Hawaii Kai is where I got off and visited the castle. The church, St Vitus, is awesome and the stained glass windows were beyond anything I’ve ever seen. The castle is a fully operational head of government situation – the presidents offices are there and all the way down to the IT people. The castle area is likely the largest in the world. There are many areas within the castle complex that include visitor only attractions but there are more or less alongside the huge working area (and very old) buildings. One of the more interesting areas is called Golden Lane, an area that was built long ago with the castle walls, actually part of the walls, for the goldsmiths to the kingdom…the area was at one time used by royal guards and before the restoration of the castle at a later time, had fallen to be a slum area. Now, restored, there about 30 shops that sell all manner of items = aimed at both tourists and locals (beautiful marionettes)…the shops are small such that 10 in a shop means no one can move….in some, 6 was a crowd.

By about 4 I was finished with these adventures and ready to head back – tired AND it was bitter cold. My sister and I quite magically met up in the castle as I was leaving St Vitus and she was going in (about 130) so we toured together the rest of the way.

An aside – every where in Europe the horn is an oft used “tool” of driving but it seems to me that Prague leads the way, at least as to where we have been this trip.

Another aside – in all the places we have been, except smaller towns, etc, during the day the totally crowded places are #1 ice cream and #2 McDonalds…..in fact, any where there is a McDonalds, it is totally crowded.

We came back to the room via metro even tho it was not efficient, requiring several transfers, but it was underground and even tho cold, and it was not the bitter cold it was on the surface. To make it even more fun, it was snowing the entire time. After a short warming up in the room we went out for dinner about 7 and decided that something close to the hotel was of more importance than what the food was – we lucked out and found a very good local place – rabbit, venison, and all manner of other really good stuff – some requiring a one day in advance order. I stayed simple and had baked country pork with red cabbage
and sauerkraut with bread, bacon, and potato dumplings for the ample amount of sauces. It was delicious.

Saturday
March 4, 2006

Slept in a little late; didn’t leave hotel until 1015 – went to old town and wandered the shops. We ended up actually sitting in one of the outdoor restaurants right in front of the astrological clock – we were next to a heater and sitting on heated thick seats. I finally tried the heated wine, eyeccccckkkkkkkk!!!! The striking of noon was not near as neat as the glockenspiels in Munich or Salzburg…no real comparison, so I suffered the wine for nothing.

We waddled very leisurely across the Charles Bridge, other than the castle, the number 1 site. There are shops of vendors on the way to the bridge and many “out in the open” vendors on the bridge, all with license. There are many statues on the bridge and fantastic views of the castle and Prague in general, also back to the steeples of the old town. There were small sightseeing boats on the river as well as many ducks and a couple of swans. Also, the people watching is great. After crossing the bridge, I walked in many of the little shops in the small town below the castle, again also people watching and enjoying some coke at McDonalds – also some French fries – the excuse was to get warm and a coke with ice – sounds weird I know.

After crossing back across the bridge, about 3, I went on my own and wandered far and wide, all the way to Wenceslas Square and the pedestrian shopping malls and then finally back to old town square and finally to the hotel by 6….I was pooped and frozen!

At about 8, after thawing, we decided to try the restaurant in our hotel – La Boca – and it was very crowded, with a football team from Scotland drinking up the suds after winning their afternoon game with Prague team. They were speaking a form of English but I understood very little beyond the basics. I had a spaghetti dinner with some tomato soup. The spaghetti was very cheesy with tomato, paprika and two pieces of steak, each the size of a playing card and little thicker – but it was good, we did not have to go out in the cold.

Prague
Sunday, Mar 5

Didn’t get up til after 8 and so now, with breakfast pau, it is already 930. I think my cold has finally decided to leave me alone as I mostly slept all night for the first time in two weeks.

Today we spent in the Jewish part of town….Kathi busily went to the sights and in the synagogues, etc, while I just sort of wandered around keeping warm. There was an interesting statue if Franz Kafka and although I really kept my vigil up, Golem still snuck up on me when I was walking home alone about 7pm in the dark and more cold than awake.

After leaving Josefov I went on my own over to Wenceslas Square and the pedestrian shopping malls with all the big name stores and the grand old Europa Hotel. The sun would come out every so often and it would actually feel warm and comfy for awhile. It was on the walk home from this exploration that Golem almost got me (above).

At about 5 I decided to try some goulashes again – that stuff is really good and this time it was the best. 6 dumplings, a pot hanging over a candle with a dipper, full of wonderful gravy, thick and spicy but not the hot spicy, with about 5 pieces of roast beef that required no knife. The dumplings and the gravy were so very good. I have never tasted any food of this sort which is this good, anywhere in the US.

Back in the room, watching CNN by 9.

Prague
Monday, March 6, 2006

After breakfast we walked over near Wenceslas Square to walk thru a street market – about 100 stalls with everything from strawberries to the always present marionettes….and the prices were good….just wish I had lots of room to bring things home, but alas, an area little larger than 2 boxes of Kleenex is all I have for little things.

I then walked across the Charles Bridge to little town while Kathi went to get her car washed. The walk was fun as I sort of meandered on a new route of twisting cart sized streets, all cobblestones, with a new sight around every corner. Little shops, etchings on the walls, flowers in the windows, and life going on mostly away from the tourist areas. The little shops include groceries and other things needed day to day by those living in the area.

At about 1 we met up near the McDonalds and walked thru the backstreets until we found the Lennon wall = a graffiti wall that the communists would keep cleaning off and it would magically reappear with some of Lennon’s famous little sayings and lyrics dealing with antiwar, etc. After CZ freedom the wall has now expanded to include many more graffiti remarks.


We then went up the Petrin Hill funicular with the famous views of the city but, alas, the viewing tower was not open so we walked down the hill looking at the various views of the city and a quick look at the magic shop that is really weird….lots of darky stuff, I think Golem lurks there somewhere. It is not magic in the normal sense, it is dark magic, satanic, etc. ….. so I hurried down the hill and back to the little town area and yes, to McDonalds – mostly for the Toileten.

We were back in the room by 5 and relaxing.

At about 730 we went to a jazz and blues place with tex-mex, creole and so forth. Was actually pretty good and I guess Monday nites are ladies nite as there were several large parties of girls only, all in the 40s and 50s….drinking up and having a great time.

I had a pulled pork sandwich ala Cuba with tomato, lettuce, onion and on a really good sort of rye bread, not quite rye, but pretty good. We tried to listen to the jazz but it was not my cup of tea and my sister was not all that excited with the music either, so we left and went back to the room about 9.