Photos from Koln

We are finally at a hostel that offers fast and accessible internet service with USB plugs and (on some anyway) plugs for Karens and my North American memory sticks--which seem to be different than European ones. So Iĺl include a few photos from our time in Cologne. Here is a sampling of what the buildings looked like there, really cute and generally narrow. In Amsterdam, I read that the houses were built very narrowly to avoid a tax...perhaps something similar in Germany existed several hundred years ago?
We visited Legoland in Koln as well. They had a neat program that allowed you to take any box off the shelf and show it ¨virtually¨ in 3D growing off the screen. Neat, though a bit difficult to explain. Karen got a video on her camera.
Here is Willy, Nityla, and Karen standing on the observatory deck of the Chocolate Museum. This is one chocolate museum we did not go into.
The ¨Dom,¨ Germany"s largest cathedral.
Inside the Dom.

Hopefully within 24 hours I can post photos from the last five days as well.

Koln and Bonn

We arrived in Koln about 8:20 on Sunday night and after some wandering around trying to figure out where to reserve our tickets for Amsterdam as well as when and where to get the train from Koln to Roisdorf, where our friends Willy and Nityla live, we finally caught the 9:53 train, meeting them around 10:20 pm. We had a wonderful time of visiting with them that evening...it felt like no time had elapsed since we last saw them six years ago.

The next morning (Aug 2) we got up late and then after a German breakfast (lots of different breads, meat, cheese, nutella, jam) we headed into Koln (Cologne in English--and if you're checking, yes, Koln should have umlauts over the o.) Karen got videos when Willy took us on Autobahn 555...he got up to 195 km/hr in his old vehicle, though he has done up to 225/ hr with a newer car that didn't work so hard to get there. We saw the Dom, the largest cathedral in Germany first, and then proceeded to walk along the bank of the Rhein River, getting a nice view of it from the Chocolate Museum--though this time we didn't enter the museum!

After wandering around for a while, we had "lunch" at 5:30 pm...Bratwurst and beer--Karen tried a lighter beer, I went for the beer and Sprite cocktail. I do not think I will ever develop a taste for beer, but I guess you have to try it when you're in Germany....:) Then we went to the Schloss (castle) and surrounding park where Willy proposed to Nityla and walked around there a while. After that we got a panorama of the city by going up a really tall office tower.

At that point (8 pm) we headed home to relax, do some emailing and uploading photos, and just visit with Willy and Nityla. Then we had "supper" of bread with melted Camembert cheese at 11:30 pm, with wine.

The next morning, they took us to Bonn, their closest city where we saw the house in which Beethoven was born and wandered around, going to the post office so Karen could mail a large Paris poster as well as some postcards home.

We headed back to their apartment, where Nityla made us a tasty Brazilian lunch of rice with white beans, veggies, meat, and salad. We packed up and headed back to the train station to catch our 1:36 train to Koln. Then we had a 3.5 hour journey from Koln to Amsteram.

Next entry: what we did in Amsterdam.

Bruges

'We had an interesting night on Saturday night in Bruges. Our room was right over the bar and outdoor patio, so it was fairly noisy. Then just before 3 am, three men came into the room right beside ours. The one was clearly trashed out of his mind, swearing at the top of his lungs and pounding the walls with his fists such that it sounded like he was going to come through our wall. The other two were trying to calm him down with words such as, ''We're here for you, buddy.'' He pounded around for around 30 or 40 minutes, sometimes quieting down and then picking back up again. We tried to phone down to the main desk, but couldn't get through. Karen was about to walk down, when he finally subsided into silence. Then about 5 or 10 minutes later we heard the retching on the floor and the sound of water as his buddies tried to clean up. The next morning, we reported to reception, who told us he'd broken the window as well.

After a short night, we headed into town for some sight-seeing. We started off with a boat ride around the canals of Bruges...beautiful. Then we walked to the Market Square where Karen snapped pictures of the old medieval town hall and other buildings to her heart's delight. This was followed by a trip down what I call 'Chocolate Row' due to the string of chocolate shops in a row. We dropped some money on some liqeur truffles there. Then on to the Frieten Museum and Chocolate Story where we learned about the origins of Belgian (French) Fries and chocolate. The trip wasn't complete without a stop at the Fry Shop where we sampled some fries with mayonnaise the way the Belgians eat it.
One of the many chocolate shops in Bruges.
Karen gleefully holding up her butter truffles.
At 4 pm, we took the bus back to the train station for our next journey. For a small place, we were rather surprised how many bicycles there were parked there!
And the benefits of travelling first-class on a German train with a Eurail Pass--here is Karen ensconced in our glass compartment (well, glass doors separated our compartment from the rest of our coach anyway) with cushy headrests and a lovely dropleaf table. There were lights that you could turn on and off above you, much like the lights in airplanes. Our compartment had seats for six, but for the duration of our trip, we were the only two people in it.

Our transition from Brussels to Koln went well, but we had trouble getting the train the rest of the way to our friends' house in Roisdorf, so after arriving in Koln at 8:15, finally met them at 10:20 pm. After having not seen them for 6 years, we had a good chinwag for several hours thereafter.

A Few Photos of Stratford

So here are a few pictures of our time in Stratford. This is the Royal Festival Theatre, which is curently undergoing major renovations, scheduled to reopen late this year.
Here is an example of some of the Tudor buildings you see all around town.
Some guy named Nash married Shakespeare's niece, so it is at his house that some university students are doing excavations this summer to learn more about the Shakespeare familz.
Here is the Courtyard Theatre where we saw As You Like It.

Paris

We took the Eurostar from London St Pancras on Wednesday morning, arriving in Paris early afternoon. After finding some lunch, we made our way to our hostel...well, we tried to. Because of the way the streets are differently named on either side of the main street we were walking on, and because we walked on the "wrong" side of the road and didn't see any street names we recognized, we turned around and got ourselves completely lost. Unfortunately, no Parisians could help us, because apparently they do not know the names of streets (other than the main arteries)--it seems they navigate entirely by landmarks. Finally, Karen asked someone to show us where we were on her map, and we figured out where to go. After a good hour of walking, we finally made it to our hostel, hot and tired. The hostel itself was quite lovely. Located on Rue Montagne de Ste Genevieve, it was nestled among many quaint cafes, patisseries, boulangeries, etc. Inside, there was free computer/internet use as well as a fridge and dining room with a few dishes at which to make simple meals, and we had a room to ourselves off a small courtyard with a sculpture at the end.

That night we got to the Eiffel Tower and got some nice pictures of the 5-minute light show that comes on at 10 pm (note: the tower is lit all night, but there's extra flashing lights for 5 minutes).
The lines at 11 pm to go up the tower were still formidable! Karen also had an interesting experience there. On the way there, we passed many people selling keychains of the Eiffel Tower 5 for 1 euro. Karen finally succumbed to one of these merchants. She gave him 20 euros and he gave her 10 back, but was very slow about returning the rest of her change. She pressed him for it, and he slowly gave her another 5 back. Just as she was wondering if she had misheard the price, the French police came running after him. He dropped his merchandise and fled the scene. The cops colllected his loot and dropped the chase. They offered her as many such keychains as she wanted, but not her money back. Friday we saw similar keychains on sale for 2-3 euros each inside the Tower, and confirmed our suspicions that these other merchants are ripping them off the legitimate dealers. One man shouted "5 for a euro," and then as we passed him by, yelled "6 for a euro!" "7....!"

Thursday we spent the day meandering around the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St. Louis. We quickly discovered that the Seine River is a magnet for Parisians all summer long. The city had free lawn chairs for public use, (free) fishing rods and balls available, and "le plage"--a beach that is created by putting many tonnes of sand down on the road by the river (e.g. the road is closed to vehicular traffic during the summer months when it becomes a haven for Parisians to bring a book and read or a picnic lunch. There was a library there for people to borrow books for a couple of hours to read, and various playgrounds and ice cream trucks and things there too.
Notre Dame Cathedral is on Ile de la Cite, and we opted to take the free short-line entry over the paid guided tour that was several miles long. It is a magnificent church and I will post pictures of it when I can. Then we wandered around Ile St. Louis for a bit. Every other building there was a creperie, it seemed. That evening we went on a boat ride along the Seine...saw some lovely stone bridges, the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower among other things.

Friday we hit the Eiffel Tower at 8:30 to beat the crowds to the lineups. The view from the top was quite spectacular, but I also enjoyed the elevator ride up the tower...you're in a glass elevator inside this metal mesh of 15-20 000 rivets and joists and whatever going up on a diagonal incline...different than anything else I've ever experienced. So then we got to the cafe on the second floor and found they were selling "Nutella to Go"...said spread with a few mini-breadstick-shaped biscuits. Karen had to try these, so we munched on our snack on the green turf of the fake garden on the second floor of the Tower.

After the Tower, we headed to the l'Arc du Triomphe, a monument commemorating all of France's wars since Napoleon. The Arch itself is in an island surrounded by 12 streets all leading off it like bicycle spokes, and somehow with no traffic lights or even marked lanes, drivers manage to navigate their way around it. It is a bit scary for pedestrians trying to cross these 12 outer streets, and there is no way to get into the island in the middle (crossing some 6 lanes of traffic, approximately...like I said, it's not marked) except by finding one of two underground passageways that take you under the road to get to the middle.

From there, we headed on to the Place du Concorde, a large Egyptian needle-like monument that is due east of the Arch. This was the opening to the Jardins du Tuileries, a network of beautifully landscaped and maintained gardens interspersed with little cafes and lots of picnic benches, fountains, and sculptures. After eating lunch there, we headed to the Louvre to check it out. It is a huginormonstrosity--encompassing the size of say, half a dozen football fields laid end to end, the architecture is beautiful, with marble columns, painted ceilings, guilded furnishings, and many beautiful sculptures and paintings. After finding out that the price is only 6 euros on Friday nights, we headed home for a few hours to relax. We came back about 7 pm and saw the Mona Lisa and some of the Italian painters from the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as German, Flemish, and Dutch painters (Peter Paul Rubens and Van Dyck are the two names that were somewhat familiar to me). We came back to our hostel around 10 and went to a local cafe that had some nice-looking desserts before coming back to our room for a glass of wine before bed.

A word about Paris transportation--the centre of the city is very well covered by transit options. There are 24 different metro and RER (longer-distance, faster trains) lines bissecting the city. Many of the metro stops feel like you barely leave one stop before you reach the next one. If you know where you're going, you can get places very quickly indeed. However, the signs for the metro were few and far between. Several times, we got on the wrong train because two or three trains going in different directions stopped at the same platform. Paris' train network is very complex and extensive, so much so that buses seemed hardly to run in the city centre. Taxis and buses, so important to the London scene are peripheral in Paris.

Today, we had some delicious egg and cheese crepes (1 each) as well as a dessert crepe each for our brunch, before setting out for a few more hours at our favourite places along the Seine. Then we returned to the train station to set out for Bruges. We left around 4, arriving in Lille for the first leg of our journey around 5. Because our train was late arriving and because there was only 6 minutes between trains, we missed our direct train to Bruges. However, we figured out an alternate way, taking the train towards Cortrai (Kortrijk) where we transferred to another train for the last little bit of the trip. We met two other girls who were also going to Bruges (to a hostel nearby) and a Dutch couple who were very helpful in giving us directions about where to go--far more helpful than the clerks in the ticket office in Lille. So we had a good trip, and arrived in Bruges around 7:30. We took the Welsh girls we travelled with to their hostel nearby before getting to our own. So we have tomorrow to explore Bruges and then we visit several (former IVEP) friends near Koln (Cologne). Cheerio...

London

Monday and Tuesday we toured around London. We started off Monday by taking the ferry from Tower Pier (just behind the Tower of London) to Waterloo Pier. We went up the London Eye, something I enjoy doing every time in spite of the 17 pound pricetag. After that, we met David and headed toward Westminster. We had a picnic lunch in the courtyard of St. Thomas Hospital and headed on to the Houses of Parliament. We were told that it would be a two-hour wait to get into the House of Commons to witness a debate, but only 20 minutes for the House of Lords. As we were running out of time, we opted to do the latter. Then David bid us farewell and we continued on to Maxwell's for dinner. I got a hamburger, something I do quite often at Maxwell's as I don't make burgers just for myself ever. After wandering around Trafalgar Square for a bit, we headed home.


Tuesday, we started off at the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Then we headed back towards the Houses of Parliament where we were able to get into the House of Commons with a relatively short wait. Karen, who has witnessed debates in the Ontario legislature before, was highly impressed with how politely and respectfully the British MPs addressed each other. There was no shouting, no interrupting, but with cordially addressing of "my honourable colleague" (to members of other parties) or "my honourable friend" (within the speaker's party). Questions asked were actually responded to, rather than deflected with some other comment or put down. We walked over to Kensington Gardens and wandered around the beautiful gardens for a bit before going to the piazza in Covent Garden for dinner. The highlight for me was the show that night...we went and saw Thriller Live. Various musicians and dancers imitated MJ's style and moves from his Jackson Five days through to his most recent songs. I realized I (partially) know more MJ songs than I thought I did. It also shed some more light on the man he really was--very well done.

When I get some more time, I'll update what we've done in Paris the last few days. Til then, adieu...

Stratford

Hi again...much has happened in the last week...where to start? First, to note that while I have lots of photos on my camera, the laptop at the hostel I'm at currently won't accept my SD card--too big--so I can't share any photos yet.

I met Karen without difficulty on Saturday morning at Leicester Square tube station. Apart from hassles with Canadian officials in Toronto about the size of her toiletry supplies--she had to spend $27 and change for nine 100 ml bottles to store shampoo, hairspray, etc in--she had no difficulties on the flight. We had a full English breakfast (toast, eggs, sausages, bacon, stewed tomatoes, and one gigantic fried mushroom) at St Martin-in-the-Fields Cafe in the Crypt before heading to Marylebone station to catch our train to Stratford-upon-Avon. We spent several hours getting out to our hostel, and then back into town, as our accomodations were somewhat removed from town and the buses only ran twice an hour. Once we got back to town,we went to Shakespeare's birthplace and toured around the Tudor home that he was raised in.

We walked around the Festival Theatre a bit--they're doing major renovations on the Royal Theatre now--and found the Courtyard Theatre where we were headed for As You Like It. We had dinner there before the show. The theatre itself was set up in a theatre-in-the-round kind of set up, several balconies set up in horseshoes around the stage. Afterward, we relaxed with a drink at Encore, a local pub nearby.

On Sunday, we made the decision to stay around Stratford for the day, as our day had been rather brief the day before (like many other places in England, everything closes by 6). We took a boat tour along the Avon River and then visited both Anne Hathaway's cottage (Will's wife) which was a show of lovely flowers and herbs as well as Mary Arden's farm (his mother's home when she was growing up). Stratford was gorgeous, definitely very Shakespeare-themed. Karen and I both saw how ON has tried to replicate it, with the numerous willows growing along the river, the cute boutiquey stores along the main street and of course all things Shakespeare.
Apparently, Stratford receives the second-most visitors each year (after London), of any city in England.

The trip back to London took almost four hours due to closures of several tracks. We transferred twice, and on the trip from Leamington (pronounced Lemmington) Spa to Reading (pronounced Redding) we shared a crowded foyer space (no chairs, just 8 other passengers, sitting on the floor or standing wherever they could find a space) including a slightly wild-eyed man who claimed to have invented a new device that would allow parents to track their child's every move 24 hours a day.