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Europe

Touchdown in London

Hey everyone – Here’s just a short message letting you know I safely touched down in London this morning. On tap for today: Westminster Abbey, Cabinet War Rooms, Parliament Square, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye (really big ferris wheel). Probably some other thing as well, but my body thinks it’s 4am, and I got 2 hours of sleep, so I’m probably forgetting some things.. But I’m here and ready to go! Weather is about 50 degrees, and a little rainy.. London.. go figure..

Day Two

Another successful day in London. Spent the late morning and early afternoon at the tower of London, and then Leicester square, Piccadilly circus, the national gallery (saw lots of impressionist paintings.. which were very cool..) then saw the musical ‘125th street’ (after walking in circles trying to find a place to eat dinner.. ended up at the subway (sandwiches) next to the theatre (that we didn’t see the first time…) It was about the Apollo Theatre and bringing cameras into it about 40 years ago maybe. I really enjoyed it. spent time close to midnight around Piccadilly Circus on the way back to the train station.. the last one home was at 11:49pm. now we’re back home, and about to go to bed =) One more day in London before we go to Paris!!

Day Three – London

“Hurry Up and Wait” Nothing is open on New Years Day. There was a parade that was fun to watch for a good 2 minutes though.. Well, some guys went down early to try and see the changing of the guard, but it didn’t change today. I wasn’t with that crowd (but I wasn’t the only one), but I did get to Trafalgar square in time to see some of the parade and meet up with the others. From there we tried to go to the British library, but by the time we got there we found out that lo and behold it was closed. (the website had no mention of this last night mind you..) We called St. Paul’s Cathedral then, and it was closed also. So, we headed back to Leicester square (pardon my spelling.. most of it is probably off) to get some food. We ate at a place called Wagamamas. It’s an oriental noodle bar that is a really ‘hip’ place to eat in London. So hip, that our waitress had a mowhawk, and she took our order on her palm pilot. the food was excellent. From there we split up, half went shopping, half went to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (which was open.. we called).

When we got there, the tour began, and our very British female tour guide was telling us how the building was built authentically (it was a remake of the original which is long gone). How it had 12,000 pegs in the timber to keep everything together. 20 minutes later, she was repeating herself somehow, but this time they only used 9,000 pegs.. To this day we have no idea what happened to the other missing 3,000 pegs. After that we went home. We have an EARLY train to catch tomorrow to Paris, and we have to leave the house at 4:50, yes, that’s AM, to make it to the train station in time for check in and whatnot. Anyways, time for bed. I might not be able to hit the internet till we get back from Paris (Saturday morning), so you might not hear from me again until then! Cheers

Back from Paris

I am back from Paris, safe and sound. Apparently there were two attempted pickpockets on *me* while in the Paris subway system. Both were foiled as I don’t carry anything valuable in my outside pockets.. well, maybe a map. Dang Algerians (ask my Mother about that one.. )

Paris and Amsterdam

Hey Everyone – It’s been a while.

Where I am: Amsterdam internet cafe

How I got here:

The group went to Paris on Jan 2, on the 6:19 Eurostar (Chunnel). We stayed 30 minutes away, so you can imagine how early we had to get up =( Once we got there, I headed for the station’s restroom, named “McClean”. I also ended up with my first (in a while) experience with the language barrier. See, in Europe a lot of times they will charge you to be able to ‘go’. Throw in having to get change for a 20 Euro (in coins mind you.. sure they have 2 euro coins, but it’s still a lot!) and it made for an interesting experience. I have an incredibly limited knowledge of French, but it’s *amazing* how much of it came to me while I was talking to the attendant trying to get into the restroom!

First we did St. Chapelle. It has large stained glass windows. Now, I grew up in a church with huge amounts of stained glass, so normally I’m like ‘yea, whatever’. But this was incredible.. there were no walls.. just stained glass. Notre Dame was next, and it was just as big as anyone would imagine.. best of all it was free to get into!

From there we did the Champs Elyesse and went to the Arc de Triumph. While sitting in the underpass waiting for everyone a family walked by with one of them wearing an Auburn sweatshirt. One of our guys said War Eagle, then they responded, then the rest of us said it.. before long we broke into the fight song.. just kidding, but it turns out their daughter (who was with them) was a senior at Auburn in something like Nursing. It was really cool.. Even in France you can’t get away from Auburn! Next was the Eiffel Tower, and while the third level (top) was closed (I can only imagine due to the gusting wind that day) the second level was high enough for me.

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Next day we went to Versailles, and then back to the Lourve.

Spent the evening on the Champs Elyeese again and went up to the top of the Arc De Triumph. (were just happened to be there, and had museum passes, so it was free). Great view!

Coming back to London the following day, it was snowing in Northern France we got off, dropped our bags at Waterloo, and ran to see the matinee of Les Miserables. It was hands down the best threatre production I’ve ever seen. We were nosebleed beyond belief, but it was still great! Harrods and the Hard Rock Cafe followed (the only place in Europe that will give you free refills on Coke.. and they are about $5 to start with! I’m really not kidding.. sometimes Coke was more expensive than the meal!) Walked through Green Park to Buckingham Palace to look at it at night, and called it a day.

More to Follow.. Don’t know how much time I have left at the internet cafe.. don’t want to loose the message!

Paris and Amsterdam part 2

Sunday we got up and headed to the British Library. The oldest known copy of the new testament is there along with other things. Next was Camden Market in London. For the Atlanta people, think Little Five Points.. but weirder and scarier. Next came evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a service with mostly singing, which was beautiful. From there we ran to the British Museum and saw the rosette stone before it closed. Wandered around Piccadilly Circus, and headed home for the last day in London.

Monday we got up and headed to the airport. Now, I didn’t remember exactly what time my flight was, but I had an idea. So obviously I missed my flight to Amsterdam. It was no problem though as they just put me on the next one. they didn’t even charge me for it! (Big time plug for EasyJet here!)

I arrived in Amsterdam and went to the hostel. It is a Christian hostel so it was awesome. They even handed out a copy of the Book of John to everyone who stays there. I ate dinner there, and had bible study afterwards. Met some cool people from Illinois. From there, I took a stroll to the main square and back, then I went to bed. It was *really* cold.

This morning I got up, and went to the Anne Frank House, and the Van Gough Museum. Both were very cool. I wandered through Vondel Park, ate lunch and wandered through the red light district. I defiantly did that during the day, and even then it was scary..

I’m about to eat, and head back to the hostel!

Copenhagen

After Amsterdam I traveled to Copenhagen, but I only have pictures for now. I’ll explain more about the city on my second stop.
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<a href=”http://www.griffshp.dynip.com/stewartgrace/europe/copenhagen.jpg”> <img src=”http://www.griffshp.dynip.com/stewartgrace/europe/thumbs/t-copenhagen.jpg”></a><a href=”http://www.griffshp.dynip.com/stewartgrace/europe/koben castle.jpg”> <img src=”http://www.griffshp.dynip.com/stewartgrace/europe/thumbs/t-koben castle.jpg”></a></center>

Norway = Cold

I am in Oslo, Norway right now, and while I don’t know what the temperature it is, it’s colder than Copenhagen, and it was -3 C there.

I’ve done lots of sightseeing since I last emailed. I won’t bore you with the tourguide-esque details, though I’d be happy to tell anyone who asks, it’s just expensive to use the internet in Scandinavia.

Some thoughts and observations from Scandinavia:

In Copenhagen the snow is pushed aside on the sidewalks, and you generally just walk on concrete next to piles of snow. In Oslo, there’s snow pushed to the side but there’s also snow on the sidewalk, caked on and not going anywhere anytime soon. I have rarely seen the sidewalk in Oslo, but I can’t imagine it’s anything to write home about.

People think I’m from here. A great contrast from feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb in Amsterdam, but if I’m not careful to say hello first to people they start talking in the local language, and I get to blankly stare at them while they think I’m nuts. Must be the blonde hair.

At night, there is NO ONE around.. You could get away with murder outside in a large square.. no one would be there to see it..

In both Oslo and Copenhagen the walk signs beep at you.. It is for signaling how much time you have to cross the street, but it’s still weird..

In case you did not know, I am growing a beard. Or to be more specific, I’m not shaving in Europe. It actually looks pretty good at the moment =)

There is hardly a language barrier in Scandinavia, so much so that a lot of things are in both languages. (local, and English) It make it really nice, but the bad part is that they don’t use the Euro. Changing money is an adventure. The Euro was the best thing to happen to European travel since.. ever.

My mother wrote me and said that London got the most snow they had seen in 12 years.. I think it was two days after I left for Amsterdam. Nice timing =)

The keyboards over here have all these weird symbols on them, and things are in different places. Not the letters, but like the ‘?’ symbol.. it takes me forever to type things.. It took me two days to find the @ symbol!! good thing I had an address book…

I think that about covers it for now. I was going to go Fjord sight-seeing today, but slept through my train (8:10am) I need to go find an alarm clock to make sure I can do it tomorrow!

King of the Danish Laundromat

Well, I have some good news and some bad. First the good:

1) I am King of the Danish Laundromat!

You would be surprised how hard it is to do something as mundane as your laundry in a foreign country. After finding the Laundromat, I realized that it was quite a local place, and I don’t think there was a word of English in the entire place. You had to get the detergent, coins for the washers, and operate the dryers all from the same coin operated machine. Now I can make educated guesses at what words mean. for example, Vindu (as in a seating assignment for a train), and Vinter (as in the season), but these words might as well have been in Arabic. So, after making some educated guesses, I got just about everything right, but I did have to ask one of the other patrons for help once as there were no attendants either.. It has been a while since I have done laundry, so it was quite exciting to get clean clothes.

2) The bad news. Just when I think I can read the train schedule, I do something so idiotic that it only confirms that I can’t. I went from Oslo to Malmo (Sweden) yesterday with the intention of getting on a night train to Berlin. The only problem was, I got to Malmo before I realized that the train didn’t run Tuesday nights to Berlin! So, here I am, 10:30pm in Malmo with no train, and no hotel. So thinking quickly, I jump the next train to Copenhagen (30 minutes away) and walk into a hotel (recommended by my guidebook) and get a room. All is well now. The train does run tonight to Berlin, and I am on it. I am about to get dinner and head back to Malmo.

Laundry was the only thing I had on the list to do today anyways, so no loss, but I still though it would be in Berlin and not in Copenhagen. Good thing I still had some Danish Krones left!

In other news, two days ago, I toured the Fjords in Norway. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. So incredible, and talk about clean mountain air! =)

I will head out for now. The Hard Rock Cafe is across the street, and while defiantly American, I might be lured by the promise of free refills (a distinctly American tradition.. Coke in general over here is like 3-4 dollars a glass, and more in Paris!!) I hope all is well with each of you, and look forward to hearing from you!

Finally in Berlin

So after jumping through several hoops, I made it to Berlin this morning. Berlin is one of three cities on the list that I have been to before (last was in the summer of 1995) so there wasn’t much on the list of things that I *had* to do here. Made for a nice day, as I could relax. I took a Berlin Walks tour this morning that covered the main sights, and then I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Afterwards I found a hotel, and that’s been about it. I rested in the hotel this afternoon, and then went got dinner and now I’m at the internet cafe.

Getting to Berlin even last night was still an adventure. The route that the train takes from Malmo is through a boat from Sweden to Germany. So, the train loads up on a huge ship with 18 wheelers, and other cargo trains. Once onboard, we go up to the cafe level of the ship, and I got something to drink. The reason I mention this is because the scenery and specifically the people on this ship looked *sketchy* The best way I can describe it is to take a truck stop, add more slot machines, more cigarette smoke, more weird-o´s, and then make it float. This describes the shipping boat.

After I got to Berlin, I was getting my bag off the top shelf, fell off a small ladder and slammed into my side when I fell into a non-moveable table. Hit my lower ribcage, and it’s been sore all today.. definitely not fun. It does feel better now though.

So, these keyboards in Europe are definitely different than in the US. For one, here in Germany, the y and z letters are switched on the keypad.. that really messes with my head trying to type. I guess the Germans use the z key more… also, all of the symbol keys are rearranged. the ?-*” keys.. yea.. it takes for forever to type.. and I never knew how much I used the y key until I had to think about it every time I needed to use it.

I think that is it for tonight. One more day in Berlin, and then Prague!

Berlin / Prague

Hope everyone is doing well. I’m checking in from Europe.

Thursday I took the Berlin Walks tour of Berlin, and it was great, got to see all the main sights, all in one tour. It even ended at the Checkpoint Charlie museum, the only thing that I wanted to see in Berlin that I hadn’t already. All in all, a very productive day!

Friday I became lazy… It had been a while since I had slown down and taken it easy. So easy that I went to see the newest Lord of the Rings film. Since, go figure, they show most movies in Berlin in German, I had to go to a special theatre where I got to see the movie in “Original Version” . . . Or to me, the regular movie. It was the first time I had seen it, and I loved it. I would like to see the first LOTR again, but I guess that will have to wait until I get back to the states.

While I was waiting in Berlin for the train to Prague, I saw a German train operator sporting a pretty nice sized mullet! (a haircut short in front and long in back…) I guess it’s a world-wide phenomenon.. Fear the Mullet!

I got into Prague last night, and to be honest, was frightened. It used to be a communist country until 1989, and it is defiantly more of an Eastern European country. The guidebook I’m using also had about a 2 page warning about pickpockets, and other bad things that could happen. So I could argue being a little frightened was warranted. I get off at the train station, and the people around don’t do anything to ease my preconceptions. I will say though that the train station in any town is never filled with the upper echelon of society. As soon as I had stepped off the train I had a guy trying to book a hotel room for me..

I get to the metro station, and stare at the metro map for a good 10 minutes. Czech is related to Russian, which basically means that absolutely none of it makes sense to me. You can generally make educated guess at any of the romance languages, but this was so foreign, I watched a couple of other people buy their train tickets, then I just picked a fare that looked expensive enough to work. The metro in Prague and many other European cities, works on the honor system. You don’t have to have a ticket, but they’ll hit you with huge fines if they catch you without one. The good thing about the Prague metro is that it is about as complicated as Atlanta’s Marta. Three lines, and only three stations that you can change lines at. However, where the system succeeds in its simplicity, it struggles to get you near anywhere you actually wanted to go. This also bears a striking resemblance to Marta.. Add that 4 stations are closed due to flooding from last August (It was a *bad* flood, and you can see the water line in some of the pictures below) and obviously the station I want to go to is one of them. I impressed the heck out of myself figuring out the flood part..

Anyways, I get to a station nearby the one I wanted to get to, and start walking. I get to the hotel, relax for a while, and head out to get food. I ate at this pizza place that was really good. It had a waitress that spoke English about as well as I did, so I was very impressed (she was Czech). Turns out the language barrier here has been very minimal. That did it for yesterday..

Today I took a 6 hour walking tour of Prague and hit all the major sights. Fortunately not all 6 hours were walking.

After that, I went to a Czech hockey game. Wow.. what an experience.. Definitely not many tourists there.. (which btw, Prague is where I have seen the most tourists on my trip so far..) The funniest, or most annoying thing is that they had cheerleaders there that were absolutely horrible. I’ve seen better high school routines.. They had five cheers that they did every time a song came on, and then a special one, equally bad as the others, for when there was a goal scored. They sat up and down the isles (breaking countless American fire codes). They also allow air-horns in the stadium there, and I very quickly understood why they are banned in the stadiums in the states.. they are unbearable annoying!

Well.. that just about covers everything! I head to Vienna in the next day or so. Hope everyone is doing well!

Last day in Prague

Hello Everyone –

I told myself that I was going to take it easy today.. but that didn’t last long before I found myself running from here to there for things. It was a relaxing day after all though.

Here are more random thoughts on the Czech Republic..

In Scandinavia, the walking signs beeped at you, well in Prague, they click.. incessantly. They click slowly when it is don’t walk, and then all of a sudden when the walk sign comes on, they erupt 90 miles an hours like an alarm. I will say it’s nice that you don’t have to be looking at the sign the entire time..

I have seen a lot of things in my life, but my hotel has pulled one on me.. BLUE toilet paper! The sad thing is that it’s been the best in Europe. The others resemble thin sand paper.. but I digress..

Ever buy something without thinking through how you will ever get it home in one piece? Yea, I hate that.. (Prague sells many gorgeous puppets, but transporting them is a completely different issue.)

I think the US is behind in this, but everywhere in Europe, there are flat screen TV’s.. I have yet been to an Internet cafe with regular monitors. In Berlin, I even saw a projector in the subways projecting ads onto the wall.. far out..

I head to Vienna, or Wein as it is called here, tomorrow. Hope all is well in the US!

Last evening in Wein

Hello all – I know it’s been a while, but it is hard to find a large block of time where I can sit down and write all of this stuff out. Alright.. The last couple of days.. Got into Wein late Tuesday afternoon and roamed the streets. Got up Wednesday for a little sight seeing and went to meet Carolyn Bryan who is a friend from Auburn who is now a missionary in Steyr, Austria. We took the afternoon getting disoriented, though never ‘lost’, in Wein, only to get back to the major area of Wein to eat do a little sightseeing. Then headed to Steyr which is not too far from Linz for those of you playing the geography game at home. Spent Thursday doing laundry and mailing some things home, as well as eating with another American family in Steyr also serving as missionaries. It was a very fun day of relaxation, and taking it easy. Got up this morning, milled around and headed back to Wein to wait and catch the night train to Venice, Italy tonight.

Spending time with Carolyn was great. I was able to finally see / speak to someone I knew for the first time in about two and a half weeks. However, it threw off my solo traveling. Probably not a bad thing, but traveling solo, I get this mindset where I’m totally self sufficient because I have to be. I lost the ‘I’m alone and I don’t care’ attitude that was easy to get just because I didn’t easily remember what it was like to be around other people. I don’t really know how to describe it… Having said all that, believe me, it was really nice to see a familiar face, and speak to someone who spoke ’southern’! I probably don’t have to tell most of you, but the Europeans do *not* like George W. Bush. Man does that make travel interesting for one conservative American. I don’t go looking to pick fights, but on more than one occasion I have gotten into a political ‘discussion’ with people over here. After traveling for a while now, I have come to the conclusion that if you’ve seen one big European city, you’ve seen them all. Each place has some really cool sights to make it worthy of travel, but after roaming the streets they all look quite similar. Maybe next time I’ll do a better job of mixing small and large towns.

I have a little over a week before I fly back to London to prepare for coming back home on February 3rd. I love Europe, but I am also excited to get back home. There are some things in the American culture that I miss.. for example, ice. There is not a single cube of ice in all of Europe. Another thing I’m not a fan of is buying Cokes that cost as much as your meal. Wine is just as cheep over here. Well, I think it is time for me to head on, grab dinner and make it to the train station in time to head to Venice. I hope all is well with everyone.

Nice is Nice

I hope this message finds everyone well. I am currently in Nice, France by way of Venice, Italy. This will have to be a short message as the French have re-arranged all of the keys on the keyboard making it difficult to type.

Two or three nights ago in Venice, I attended a classical concert of Vivaldi`s Four Seasons. It was incredible and I had a blast, which leads me to believe that I might actually like classical music. What will they come up with next?

I have come to the conclusion that there are only three types of people in Venice: Tourists, people who sell things to the tourists, and the beggars hoping to have money given to them by tourists. It’s a vicious cycle. I hate looking like a tourist, but I did not feel as bad in Venice when I had to pull out the map to stare at it while standing next to ten other people doing the same thing.

I had a layover in Milan yesterday so I decided to run down “The Last Supper” as it hangs there. However, I failed to realize that most of the museums are closed on Mondays. It was a tight time frame anyways, but by the time I rushed back to the train station I arrived just in time to watch my train pulling away. Classic. I just caught the next one an hour later, but it was the slow one that involved a connection. Oh well!

I had lunch today in one of Nice’s decidedly French restaurants. In my best French impression I asked the waiter if he spoke English. He said he did, and proceeded not to use a single English word for the rest of my dining experience. Consequently, “do you speak English” is the only French I know, outside of several common pizza toppings.. Without an English menu present, guess what I had for lunch…

Well, I am off to Monaco now before catching the night train to Barcelona. I will then finish in Madrid before flying back to London for two days, and then flying to Atlanta! The trip is coming to a close, and I have greatly enjoyed it, but I will be glad to get back to the US!

Barcelona

I am wrapping up my travels this week, flying home Monday. I am in Barcelona today.

There is nothing terribly interesting to say this time unfortunately. But I did see “Catch Me If You Can” tonight. Great movie. It was in English with Spanish subtitles.

Well.. I guess there is one interesting story..

I took a night train from Monte Carlo to the Spanish boarder where I was to change trains for Barcelona. Well, for some odd reason I got a cabin all to myself. The next morning, I woke up and realized first that we weren’t moving, second that it was an hour after the train was supposed to get to the destination, and third that we weren’t at a train station. So I grab my bags quickly, scratching my glasses in the process, and run around the empty train. I find someone in the locomotive who backs the train up to somewhere that I can get off, and then I find a rail employee who points me to the station. I get to the station to find it’s not the one I was supposed to be at.. (though it’s not far away). Anyways, I wait for a train to take me to the right station, and I am on my way. It didn’t set me back any as I had several hours to kill before the Dali Museum opened anyways, but it scared the crap out of me.

(note: Even now a year later, if you’ve seen my glasses with a large scratch on them, you’ll know why.)

There’s a story for ya. Well.. That and there are a grand total of ZERO luggage lockers in Monaco. Had to carry my bags around all day when I was there.. Tons of fun.

Hope all is well!

Back in London

Hello –

I made it back to London yesterday, and I am staying with the Smith’s again (parents of a friend from Auburn). We are headed to church here after a while, and then I will go into town for one last look at the National Gallery. I somehow missed a painting that I wanted to see the first time. After that I am going to the musical of “The Lion King” I am excited to see one more theatre production as I always enjoy them. Rest tonight, and tomorrow I fly home to Atlanta!

Spain was great. I probably love the scenery there more than anyone other country in Europe, but some of the trains were a hassle…

I missed two trains to Madrid from Barcelona, and then the third that I was on was an hour and a half late due to weather. After waiting five hours in the train station in Barcelona, and being on a train for nine hours, I had arrived in Madrid around midnight, without a hotel reservation. With the help of some change, a phone, and memories of high school Spanish (because no one speaks English in Spain) and a guidebook, I was able to find a place without too much trouble.

I am looking forward to my last day in Europe, but I can’t wait to get back as well. Hope everyone is doing well, and I will more than likely see most of you sometime soon!

Stewart

January 1, 2003 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

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