"I Like It, I Love It"

I love travel, but hate the hassle of dealing with the airlines, let alone the taxi drivers and the people who are supposed to help you get transportation!

A week and a half ago I went to Madrid to attend a conference.  Darn.  In order to minimize time away from work and keep down costs I booked a flight with discount carrier Ryanair.  The price was right, even with having to take a train to the Moroccan capital at Rabat.  My info said that I could take a tram from from the train station to the airport.  Works for me.  Or does it?  Let the fun begin...

I get to the one Rabat train station that is supposed to link to the airport and ask the guy in the booth for a ticket for the tram to the airport.  Nope.  Another train?  Nope.  Gotta take a grand taxi.  Oh, how I love doing that!  I hope this isn't the case, and if it is, that the price isn't exorbitant.  I don't know what the market is in these parts.  I ask a few different taxi drivers how much it will cost to get to the airport.  The answers are the same - 200 dirhams.  Seems a bit pricey for what I know isn't too long a ride.  I happen by a guy who looks like a local, and who seems to be speaking pretty good English.  He confirms what the the guy in the booth across the street said about transit to the airport.  I ask him what the going rate for a grand taxi is, and he says don't go over 200 dirhams.  When he ascertains that I an American living in Morocco, he asks if I could speak to a group of American tourists he is leading.  I tell him, if he goes across the street to where a taxi driver is sitting in his vehicle and comes back with a price of less than 200 dirhams, I'll tell them anything he wants me to.  150 dirhams later, I address a group of older ladies...who are from the very same area I am!  Small world...

Ryanair advertises itself as the most on-time carrier in Europe.  Not so today.  Then, I have the usual adventure of trying to get from the airport to my hotel.  I am very comfortable speaking Spanish, and I knew my hotel was within walking distance from a major transit stop.  I know how to read a map, but when I'm trying to confirm the seemingly simple route I needed to take, the guy at the ticket booth is telling me I'm mistaken.  Worse yet, I can't respond the questions that should be as easy for me as A-B-C.  While I'm being spoken to in Spanish, my brain is wanting to reply in French.  Consequently, nothing is coming out, and the guy is looking at me like I'm a simpleton.  A kindly man nearby manages to explain the hard-to-see complication to me, and I am finally on my way.

I get in late (by Jack standards - Madrid is just starting to kick up its heels) and call it a night.  After the conference the next day, I walk from my convenient location to some of the city's big attractions.  I decide to go see the world-famous art collection at El Museo del Prado.  Though, the pics you get today are from a pair of nearby buildings:

The above CaixaForum Madrid is a landmark building, a former electrical power station now a museum and cultural center.

It is not actually a museum, but every bit worthy of the adulation it gets.

Spain has a deep love affair with ham, as do I.  Hey, if loving ham is wrong, then I don't wanna be right!  I can't tell you the depths of this affection.  It's almost like Kent and Kansas ;)  Anyway, this kicked off a wonderfully long evening bouncing merrily along from one tapas bar to another.  I love pork!!

After the conference ended the next day I made my way to the airport for another (delayed) flight another 150 dhs taxi ride (same guy from 2 days earlier - he said he would be there to greet me, and was), a train ride where I managed to successfully change trains and last, but not least, there was the gauntlet of taxi drivers at L'Oasis train station barking like mad dogs from behind a railing, all waiting to get you into their petit taxi and invent new ways to separate you from your money.

Two days later winter recess is upon us and off to Lisbon I fly.  A slight delay (shocking) and my TAP Portugal is off to the Iberian peninsula.  A bus and a train later I in a place outside the city center for the next 3 nights.  He is a little primer on the capital of and largest city in Portugal...

Lisbon is one of Europe's oldest cities, with roots to Phoenician times.  Built on 7 hills, I was enthralled by the view from the airplane of this ancient metropolis at the mouth of the Tagus River on its way to the Atlantic.  Romans and Moors had their turn before Catholic monarchs ascended to rule.

November 1, 1755 was All Saints Day in Portugal when a cataclysmic earthquake destroyed 85% of Lisbon.  (Tsunamis had an impact all the way to England, Seville, and from Tangier down to Agadir in Morocco).

The rebuilding of the devastated city involved razing the destroyed area and building well beyond the previous borders.  Close to the water instead were built a pair of grand squares as part of a visionary plan that modernized the medieval town.  The first plaza, at a section called Rossio, was the first part of the city center that I got to see when I took public transit into the heart of the city.  I could see the Castle of Saint George from the train station:

This is a most historic area that I spent an entire day wandering around.  A pic:

The second, plaza Comercio is at the mouth of the river Tagus and includes the remarkable arch Rua Augusta:

From the arch:

The third photo shows in the distance the statue Christ the King, inspired by the famed Christ the Redeemer one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  I didn't quite get close enough for a good pic, but here is one from online facing back toward the Lisbon area:

I love that thing.  It is closest to an area of Lisbon called Belem, another very important area, where all the great explorers of the Age of Discovery set out from.  The Tower of Belem a former fortified lighthouse, is a big landmark.  It was when I was in the neighborhood on Monday:

The Jeronimos Monastery is perhaps the signature building in the area.  Today it houses the national museums of archaeology and maritime history.  Only an aerial view does it justice:

There is also the awesome Monument to the Discoveries:

I spent much of 2 days just wondering about, trying to ignore the vermin trying to peddle me pot and coke.  I finally snapped at one scumbag, and he took off when I screamed at him that I didn't want his drugs.  The terrain and the bold use of color made for nice vistas.  The rest of the attached pics are just random shots I liked.  Nice enough place, but seemed dead, no energy at all...

A flying priest...

The exteriors of many buildings were covered in tiles

A friendly animal rights protester.  I wanted to tell her that I love animals, also - grilled, preferably...

She wanted me...

BOOM!  Photobombing a street performer...

TAP Portugal tried to postpone my original return flight by 1 day.  I did their homework for them and said I'd go for same day to Marrakech, a 3 hr train ride from Casa.  The flight is further delayed, the train is late, takes too long...and then the phalanx of cabbies at the train station.  I slept very well last night...

Adios for now...

"Are You Ready For Some (American) Football?"

Miss ya, Hank Williams Jr.!  Tonight Super Bowl XLVIII will kick off around 11:30 pm Casa time.  Ugh.  I remember watching my first Super Bowl in January of '77 when in XI the Raiders whipped the Vikings and Jack "The Assassin" Tatum did his best to decapitate Sammy White.  Oops, not allowed to talk like that in today's NFL, but I digress...

Anyway, I haven't missed one from that time and I am not going to start now, my current location notwithstanding.  Last year the Consul-General was kind enough to host us expats at his beautiful and historic home at the Consulate.  If you read this blog a year ago, you may remember that the residence Villa Mirador was where Churchill stayed during the first Allied wartime conference some 70+ years ago.  That was really cool!  The getting home at 4:30 am part?  Not so much...

This year, the U.S. Marines who provide security for the Consulate have been kind enough to invite us over to their nearby pad, creatively named the 'Marine House'.  It's never uninteresting being an American who is Roman Catholic living in an Islamic nation.  With no disrespect intended toward my Moroccan friends, one nice thing that makes life go over a lot easier is that there are some ways Americans and other English-speaking expatriates can socialize here, from the Churchill Club to Dar America.  There is also a worldwide outfit called InterNations - it sponsors chapters in big cities around the globe and these chapters host monthly meet-n-greets.  I joined the Casa chapter last year; when I actually attend a gathering (no comments, Kent!) I'll let you know how it is...

I assume that tonight the bar will be open and the game will be projected on a wall as one was at a happy hour there earlier this season.  Should be a fun time!  It's getting close to lunchtime - I'll finish this up after the game...

...OMAHA!  OMAHA!  An audible was called, and I went with friends downtown to the apartment of teachers at another American school in the city.  Met a bunch of people and had a nice time.  We left at halftime because some people were getting sleepy (cough, Kent, cough).

Since the game is as over as Philip Seymour Hoffman (too soon?), I'm hitting the sack early.  Pitchers and catchers soon!!!

2013 Holiday Travels - Amsterdam

  Amsterdam is the capital city of the Netherlands, its financial center, and is its largest city, with approximately 1,000,000 residents.  (It is not the seat of government, which is the Hague)  I can't say this with any authority, but I would dare to say, and will, that Amsterdam is the Netherlands' most interesting city as well.  Low-lying Amsterdam has roots reaching back to the 12th century (and more canals than Venice!), and has a glorious history as a center for wealthy traders.  World wars never really affected it, so Amsterdam has largely been free to do its own thing - making money - while developing a well-earned reputation as a haven for "progressivism", defined here as tolerance and acceptance of non-conformists and their ideas/activities.  Amsterdam is a fascinating blend of old Europe and what is becoming the new world.
  I will freely admit I wanted to come to Amsterdam for 2 reasons, and they were NOT the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House (though both excellent places to visit)!  I wanted to see pot-smokers and prostitutes in public!  Simply, I wanted to experience a very different cultural vibe.  I did visit a coffeshop (that is one word, in English, NOT to be confused with 'coffehouse' or 'cafe', which are they say they are).  I also did tour the Red Light District.
  Some notes: Marijuana is technically illegal, but this is largely to comply with international treaties.  It is (increasingly) tightly regulated.  I went to two of them on my walking tour: Dampkring and Grey Area.  The former is where a scene in Ocean's 12 was filmed, and the latter is a favorite of Woody Harrelson, Snoop Lion and other weed-loving celebs.  Both establishments are former multiple-time winners of the Cannabis Cup.  Yes, there is such a thing.

  Some fun stuff:

  The former palace (above) was where Louis Bonaparte resided for a time after his big bro Nappy made him king.  Luigi (his given name) tried be a good guy and learn Dutch.  Unfortunately, when he stepped out onto the palace's balcony to announce himself as king, he instead said 'rabbit".  Easy mistake to make, but he was tagged thereafter as the Rabbit King.

  The XXX on the city flag and coat of arms does NOT refer to the city's adult industry!  It goes back 500 years, probably referring to Saint Andrew's cross(es).  This building housed a woman's prison.  Instead of cutting off body parts someone figured maybe there was another way to rehabilitate criminals.  The sculpture is amusing because it shows what happens if you're bad (the beating on the right) and if you're good (weaving, while petting an animal).  The men's equivalent had a basement which flooded, and you had to work at bailing water to keep yourself afloat.  If you were particularly unmotivated, you died.

 A deflector, to deter men from peeing in corners

  To wrap things up, Amsterdam is a pretty cool city; I wouldn't mind going back sometime.  To answer the inevitable questions: no, I did not smoke dope, and, no, I did not patronize a brothel.  Though, a young German woman did grab my, um, you know, while on the streets of Berlin, but that is another story...

2013 Holiday Travels - Berlin

  Berlin is the capital city of Germany, and with 3.5 million people, it's also the largest city in the country.  I heard more than once that Berlin is a very "international" city, with inhabitants having come from over 190 nations; it has always had a very cosmopolitan makeup, dating to before the birth of Christ.  Fast forward to the 20th century...

  After the First World War, Hitler brought his act north and Berlin became the capital of the Third Reich; after the Second World War, the heart of Berlin was a shambles.  The city was then divided among the victors, in a similar fashion as the country as a whole.  To illustrate:



  The fun wasn't done yet.  In 1961, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) surrounded West Berlin with a wall, which did not come down until 1989.  East and West Germany were united in 1990, and Berlin again was a capital city.
  I was born in 1969, and have always been a keen student of politics and history.  In related news, I'm also a geek.  Anyway, I work with many colleagues who were literally in diapers when Germany took its present shape.  I try to tell them that this not-that-old man nonetheless remembers a time not that long ago when the world was a vastly different place.  I can understand my parents having what I'll call nuclear attack fire drills in their school buildings that had bomb shelters; I can understand why the Cuban Missile Crisis legitimately scared them to death.  Coming of age in the 80's, I was still fully able to understand the geopolitics of the planet's 2 superpowers.  That's just the way things were.  I couldn't believe when I was in college and the Berlin Wall crumbled.  I never imagined it could happen.  To wit: Rocky 4 may be a jingoistic farce today, but it well represented the times when it came out in '85.
  Fast forward again - a WW2 bomb claimed lives yesterday as it detonated in a town near Bonn in Western Germany when it was disturbed at a construction site.  Apparently, unexploded ordinance from that time is found fairly frequently (though usually without fatalities).  That, of course, is a history lesson that Germans could do without.  What about the period of roughly 35 years after the war?  It is understandable that the Berlin Wall initially took a real beating; a lot of it soon became roadway and fodder for other construction projects.  Then, as the number of remaining sections dwindled greatly, many people wanted to keep some of it as an historical reminder.  Very recently, there was a big kerfuffle about moving a strip for a commercial project.  The builders had the go-ahead, but had to do their business under the cover of darkness in order to evade protesters.
  On a lighter note, Berlin is a city with a relatively young population with people from all over the globe.  It has a great array of museums.  Some of them can be found on Museuminsel (literally, Museum Island).  The best-known is the Pergamon Museum, noted for its art and architectural collections highlighting ancient Greece and the Middle East.  The Topography of Terror and the Berlin Wall Memorial are open-air sites and can't-miss.  The DDR Museum was good also.  The three gave great insight to what the Nazis did and what life was like in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany).  I was steered away from the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  Here are some photos of Checkpoint Charlie and of the wall, in original and new locations:

Sign at Checkpoint Charlie

An American soldier (photo, top-right) is forever on guard

A long stretch of the Wall in its original location

It was difficult to comprehend that I was looking thru a gap in a once-divided city.

 At a design studio

Selfie outside a hotel

The Brandenburg Gate

 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

view from within

  Interestingly, "everyone is getting a memorial" in Berlin.  The Jewish people are the most noted victims of the Nazis, but not the only ones.  I saw a sign for a homosexual memorial, and was told that the handicapped, etc. were also "getting theirs".

 Hitler's bunker...

...was underneath this courtyard playground

On a final, more playful note, this hotel by the Brandenburg Gate is where Michael Jackson infamously dangled his infant son from a window :)

Auf Wiedersehen!

2013 Holiday Travels - Pt 3 - Prague

  Prague has an important history that dates back to the 9th century.  It became a home for Bohemian kings, some of whom sat as emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 14th century, New Town was constructed as an extension of Prague's historic center Old Town, and still exists today.  Later, Prague fell under Habsburg rule, and in 1918, after WWI, it became capital of Czechoslovakia.  The city was virtually unscathed by WWII.  After the fall of The Wall, the city's population surged to almost one and one-quarter million, and became capital of the Czech Republic after the split into two countries 20 years ago.  The West has since discovered Prague, and made it the top tourist city in Central Europe.  This is the scene I encountered Christmas night as my train rolled in from Vienna.

  When it comes to cultural features and spectacular architecture, in my opinion, Prague is almost right there with Vienna, and I will argue offers more in terms of celebrating its history .  My mind is still enthralled with what I've seen the last several days.  Where to start?  Well, I guess Prague Castle overlooking things here is the rock star:

  It is enormous; probably no other ancient castle is larger.  If Prague Castle isn't the feature attraction, then I suppose Charles Bridge, in the foreground would be.  It doesn't look like much until you get a lot closer (below); the statues lining both sides are fantastic!

  Just one example of what I guess are a couple dozen:

  I can't put a number on how many beautiful churches and other historic buildings I viewed.  From what I've learned, the Gothic-style Tyn Church is maybe the big dog:

  Apparently, the Astronomical Clock is famous.  Yawn.  My Munich tour guide said that a major travel publication recently named the Glockenspiel the 2nd-most overrated tourist sight in the world.  In the top spot was this:

  Whatever.  My personal favorite, though, was the Municipal House, a civic building and concert hall.  This is a Googled image of the Art Nouveau wonder:

  Oh, wait this is what I originally saw:

  My camera can't do justice to what my eyes saw.  I turned a bend, then caught myself moments later with my jaw dropped, mouth hanging open.  You just had to be there.  Instead of two days, I wish I had two weeks for all of the fascinating museums.  I would really need that long.  Maybe another year.  Onward to Berlin!

2013 Holiday Travels - Pt 2 - Vienna

  Vienna is the capital of Austria, and with about one and three-quarter million people, its largest city.  Celts (not from Boston) first settled there approximately 2,500 years ago, then Romans some 500 years after.  In time, Vienna became home to the rulers of the Habsburg dynasty, the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, among other entities.  It is renowned about the globe for its musical and other artistic contributions to the world.  Then I showed up.

  First-class train travel is the way to go!  I didn't have a choice but to purchase it when I bought my rail pass, but I'm glad I did.  4 hours passed by very quickly and comfortably on the way in from Munich.  I picked up some more euros, got my bearings and took a tram to my hostel, and it was a very nice one.  I crashed and woke up to the day before Christmas.  The city was pretty dead, and I chose to walk the Ringstrasse.  It is a 5km circular road surrounding the inner core of the city, something like a beltway, but it has a unique story.  The Ringstrasse was constructed to replace city walls erected during the 13th century.  It is a boulevard, and it was built for show, but there was a practical element to it, too.  Napoleon III of France had shown that wide streets couldn't be effectively barricaded by revolutionaries.  The things you learn...

  As I mentioned, the Ringstrasse was a vanity project.  The idea was to demonstrate the glory of the Habsburg Empire.  For better or worse, they succeeded, big time!  The following photos are of some of the principal structures along the way:

the Vienna State Opera:

Academy of Fine Arts (twice rejected Hitler):

Parliament:

Rathaus (Town Hall):

Burgtheater (Austrian National Theater):

University of Vienna (founded 1365):

Votivkirche (Votive Church):

Weiner Borse (Stock Exchange):

Urania (Observatory):

Österreichische Postsparkasse (Postal Savings Bank):

  There are other palaces and wonderful green spaces.  The city is gorgeous!  Next stop: I go to "Czech" out Prague (insert rim shot) - I'll be here all week, folks!