Day 99: Giant's Causeway & Antrim Coast

The research into bus and train times didn't look good >_< So, we ended up taking a day tour up the Antrim Coast and to the Causeway. With the bus and train times as they were, we actually would have only been able to spend as much time at the Causeway as we did with the day tour! K said the tour spent enough time at the Causeway for him. I would have liked more time there, but I'm the type that likes to linger ^-^;; In retrospect, maybe we could have rented a car (which we have yet to do during any of our travels). Then, at least we wouldn't have the extra other day tour stops like the Bushmills Distillery (whiskey), the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (though that was fun), and a couple of other much shorter stops.


The *best* bread I've had this whole trip: wheaten bread! The texture and flavor remind me a bit of cornbread. It was sooooo good. We (mostly I) ate the whole loaf before our day tour ended.

I definitely got my day's fill of sheep (so much pasture for them, too!) and beautiful Irish coastline!


The naturally-formed hexagonal stones at the Giant's Causeway were just as strangely-cool as I imagined they'd be. These were even better than the similar formations we saw at Jusangjeolli in Jeju-do last year because we actually to go right up next to (and on!) the rocks ^o^

We used up every minute of our time at the Causeway, making the last shuttle back to the parking lot in time to make our on-time tour bus departure ^-^

With a bit of traffic, the bus ended up getting back into Belfast later than the previously-stated time of 7pm. In fact, it got back to two blocks from the hostel a few minutes before 7:30pm, which is when we had to catch our bus to Dublin! It might have been the fastest I've ever had to run in my life, getting off that bus, sprinting to the hostel, grabbing our stuff, and racing down many more blocks to the airport bus stop. Thankfully, we made it *just* in time!

There were only two other people on the bus, a young couple from Florida who were only a few weeks into their six-month trip! It was definitely exciting talking to them about where they were planning to go, some of which overlapped with the places we'd been. Their trip would take them through Western Europe, Central Europe, Egypt, the Middle East, and Nepal. Wow.

Day 97: Zurich, Murten & Bern day-trip

Since I missed breakfast on my Tuesday visit, I started today with a nice breakfast at the G-office ^o^


We also visited the aquatic lounge since it was closed during my visit the other day. It was definitely a very conducive-to-napping/resting-looking lounge! ^-^

I took the noon train out to Murten, which required a switch at Bern. I got on the right train at the switch, but I think maybe the wrong car of the train. I ended up in Neuchatel! It was basically a loss of an hour. I finally arrived in Murten a little past 3pm (and not in Bern again until 5pm). For the little bit that I was there, Murten was cute. Tiny with nice ramparts. Houses with window plants and pretty lawns.


I've never seen so many tram lines all crisscrossing each other as I saw in Bern!

I was surprised by all the people out by the community pool at 5:30pm on a weekday! But after traveling these months, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. Unlike the work-work-work attitude of many Americans, Europeans have a much more balanced outlook on enjoying life's pleasures. In the U.S., it's almost as if people take pride in and compete on not having enough time. It feels the opposite here.


Einstein lived in Bern? I didn't know that. Apparently his couple of years in Bern was when he wrote his greatest papers, one of which won him the Nobel Prize. The house was closed at the time I was walking by, but I felt a teeny tiny bit of extra enlightenment just from being there ^_~


The apartments in Bern struck me as being more uniform than I've seen in many other cities.


Rather than seeing bears at the bear pits, I was met by this >_< Their last bear died just a couple of months ago, on April 30th, and they're not getting new bears until October.


I debated going up to the rose garden, but I did and I wasn't disappointed. There were more people just hanging out (even a group doing taichi), and I saw a beautiful view of Bern on my way up.

I didn't make it back home until nearly 10pm ^-^;;

Day 96: Zurich

The day started out raining, so I decided to postpone my day-trip to Bern until tomorrow.

Instead, I visited the weekly Wednesday market in the train station. Compared to other markets we've seen, Zurich is quite orderly and also quite varied. There's very little overlap between the stalls and quite a few prepared food stalls. I went around lunch time, so all the many tables laid out in the middle of the market were filled with locals eating the market food.


It was my first time seeing bell-pepper-shaped eggplants.

I also went to visit one of the Asian groceries in the city. The size was just a bit smaller than the one we have "near" (30 minutes drive) my parents' house in Jersey. I couldn't help myself -- I bought tofu. After eating tofu yesterday at lunch, I just had a craving for even more tofu, silken, drizzled with soy sauce and dashi, topped with bonito flakes. I bought the silken tofu and I'll just have to make do with only soy sauce, but it's better than nothing. It was 300g for 2.75 CHF, more than twice what I'd pay in the States O_o

K reflects that it was good we didn't end up moving to Zurich. We both knew the cold weather would do him in, though it's been quite *hot* these last few days. But also, everything here is expensive! I think I could survive and get used to the prices. And there are things I like (it's pretty clean compared to other cities and it has a good transportation system), but I wouldn't want K complaining every day. Then again, he doesn't do grocery shopping, so he wouldn't see the more expensive grocery prices. I'm not sure at what point we'd be able to stomach the prices for eating out Chinese here though. Also, D says I'm bored of Europe. I think 'bored' is a bit extreme, just ready for other types of adventures ^_~

Day 95: Zurich

G visit day! I love visiting the various G offices. Ok, we've only visited one other one, Tokyo, which had a similar feeling to G-MtnView, but with some Japanese flavor (free drinks within vending machines, yummy Japanese snacks, etc). When we saw P in Berlin, he told us that G-Zurich actually has a tour that the host (K) can print and use.

We got to the office just missing breakfast. Oops.

Some highlights...


Sometimes, I'm just too easily amused. I loved their elevator signs!


Each floor is themed and usually has some small phone conference rooms according to its theme. Some of these rooms seem perfect for napping, too ^-^;;


A slide into the cafeteria!


Fire pole connecting some of the floors!


Of course, I ate lunch with K. Fois gras with apples on brioche, fish with yummy sauce (K says they *always* do fish really well here), coq au vin, tofu schnitzel, fried jalapeno, some veges, a choco banana strawberry crepe, and some really yummy French nugget candies ^o^

Day 89: Helsinki, Tallinn day-trip

We chose an early 7:30am departure for the boat to Tallinn, which meant leaving our hostel in time to catch the 6:26am bus. I basically ended up sleeping almost the whole two hours at sea.

I didn't really know much about Estonia until planning the trip. My knowledge of geography and world events is quite poor, but I'm happy it's perhaps slowly improving as we travel. Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania sit on the Baltic Sea. Estonia was ruled by the Danes, then the Swedes, then the Russians, then gained independence after WWI, only to be back under Russian power after WWII, finally gaining independence again after the USSR fell. Like many other countries under Soviet rule, the country didn't move much during those 40-50 years. Visiting Tallinn, you'd hardly know it. Some parts of it (the worn down buildings) reminded me of Bratislava. The old town is well-preserved and I think now being a UNESCO World Heritage site probably means they can't change it much. It was strange to see sometimes worn down buildings right across the street from seemingly newly-painted ones.

RS walk through the old town ^-^ We saw many tour groups during more than half the walk. In that way, it reminded me of Prague's old town center, except we only saw one Asian tour group. Considering these groups are probably doing a day trip just like us, it'd be interesting to see what the area's like at night, once all the day-tripping tourists leave. I'd imagine we'd like it ^-^ But, we didn't stay overnight.

The whole medieval theme is played up a bit. All the people selling drinks on the street are dressed in plain medieval garb, selling their drinks out of a barrel filled with ice. There's roasted, spiced almonds all over town with free tastings (a bit like what ginger snaps mixed with almonds would probably taste like), and these almond merchants are also dressed in medieval garb.


I loved this one exchange we overheard -- When asked how much the almonds cost, the merchant replied "We got a discount on today's batch, so it'll be two and a half rabbit skins. But if you don't have rabbit skins, gold coins will also do", as he pointed to the sign saying how many krooni.

We wandered out of the old town a bit, into the Balti Jaam Market behind the train station. It reminded me a bit of the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam; not only were there produce merchants, but also merchants selling clothes and household goods like soap, shampoo, etc. We saw a little eatery where we combined the 'what do you recommend' with point at someone else's dish technique to get a yummy meal ^-^ Large bowl of sausage and vege soup, chicken main dish, hearty meat dumplings, and pancakes came out to 98 krooni (~6 euros!). We also visited a bakery with possibly the lowest prices we've seen in all the bakeries during this trip.

Actually, the place we ate at was signed "kohvik", and according to RS, "Just outside the market at the end of the train station is Kohvik, an unimpressive-looking diner with a bustling stainless steel kitchen cranking out traditional dishes...", but we saw several kohviks. Apparently "kohvik" means "cafe" in Estonian O_o

On the boat back, I visited the 'supermarket' on the boat, which turned out to be similar to half of the duty-free shop on our Stockholm-Helsinki boat -- lots of alcohol and candy, and a few other snacks and drinks. The checkout lines were quite long.


Kids on slot machines? Whatever keeps them out of trouble, I guess.

When we got back to Helsinki, it was interesting to see all the people departing the boat with several Costco-sized boxes of beer and other drinks. Maybe the day-trip boat provides a bit of Costco substitute here?

And so, we're nearly at the end. We're flying back to Zurich on a 6:30am flight. There's still a few day-trips and a last couple of days in Ireland before we head back to the States. In one way, it seemed like it just flew by so fast. In another way, when I think about each place and all the memories, it feels like we've been traveling for a long, long time. Thinking about the end brings a touch of sadness.

Day 88: Helsinki

The day's sightseeing summary:
- market
- Uspenski Cathedral
- RS walk
- Lutheran Church
- Temppeliaukio Church

The boat gave us a good night's sleep; I just wished I'd gone to sleep earlier! We finally left the boat at 10:30am and headed directly to the TI. After getting info, booking our boat for the day-trip to Tallinn tomorrow, and putting our things down in the hostel, we headed out first to the market. It was after noon and I'd read the food merchants close up shop around 2pm.

It's the first time we've ever seen fruit sold by the liter! The produce that couldn't be sold by the liter (many veges) were sold by the kilo. The liter bit made my comparisons a bit tough actually -- is that how many cherries x-euros should buy me?

The tents are color-coded, orange for food and white for crafts and other things. Maybe the best part of the market (aside from having decent-quality produce) was all the hot food being sold.


We got a yummy half-jam, half-choco covered Liege waffle ^-^

And then, we got a mixed grill plate of different fish with veges. Yummy! The hot food stands actually had covered tables -- good thing, too, because there were a bunch of seagulls flying overhead. We even saw an aggressive seagull grab a fried small fish out of someone's hand! And the lady who handed us our dish covered it with a napkin, saying 'be careful of the birds'.

We didn't plan on visiting the Lutheran Church, but passing by was part of our walk, and after reading that the interior was 'pure architectural truth', we went in. Austere interior. K says he preferred it to all the ornateness we see in many other churches.

When we came out of the church, it had started to rain, and then rain even more. We stopped by Stockmann's department store, the Finns answer to Harrods. But Stockmann's grocery section seemed to have much more reasonable prices than what I remembered seeing at Harrods. The grocery was huge with lots of choices! In the produce section, we saw an orange tomato for the first time and bought one to try.

Coming out of Stockmann's, we realized it was already 4:30pm and the Temppeliaukio Church closes at 5pm! We rushed to find a tram stop to take us there. And then getting of the tram, we dashed through the rain to reach the church before it closed, running this way and that to find the entrance. We were in luck though. Apparently this day, a small children's choir was having a rehearsal, so the church was kept open past 5pm ^-^ The inside of the church is unique -- it was blasted out of rock and has a *huge* copper dome. We also got to hear the choir's rehearsal for a while as we walked around. I'm not religious or anything, but I like church music. Maybe not just that, I think I like choral music. The harmony of voices coming together is... well, something.


Our hostel is actually a dorm of the School of Economics which becomes a hostel during the summer months. K joked that "we've resorted to living in actual dorms!" But really, the room is much nicer than our Next House rooms -- larger, en-suite bathrooms, decent-size fridge, and in-room mini-kitchen with stoves, oven, and sink.

There are some cities that I get a good feeling from pretty quickly, and despite the rain, Helsinki is one. I can't place my finger on why it is though and we're only really here for a day, so I'm not sure how it would be if we were to stay longer, but for now, I like it.

Day 81: Copenhagen

It was a pretty lazy day. I went out and bought breakfast at the supermarket and then we ate it before going out. Does it get any better than living near a yummy bakery? Yes, it does! That yummy bakery sells yummy custard danishes! It's the first time we've ever had a custard danish. Actually, the "danish" is called wienerbrod here, literally "Vienna bread" ^-^

As usual, we explored most of the city on foot today, ending at the Nyhavn docks for a canal tour.

Copenhagen feels like a laid-back city. Maybe it was seeing all the locals out and about. Today *is* a Tuesday, isn't it? We're pretty sure they were locals, not tourists, since we saw many just hanging out on the Nyhavn dock drinking beer and chatting. (The tourists are all sitting in the restaurants thinking that's the way to fit in with the locals, but the locals are all outside!) This atmosphere of not rushing anywhere, just enjoying the warm, sunny day wasn't just at Nyhavn; it was all around different areas of the city.

And yes, it was *warm and sunny*. We're feeling ever so slightly disappointed that he the Scandinavian weather's not living up to our expectations. (Our days in Oslo and Bergen were sunny, too.)

Day 78: Oslo

We walked around some of the main streets of the city today. On Karl Johans Gate, *the* pedestrian street, we passed by the erotic shop Kondomeriet. From the outside, it fit right in with all the other usual high-end shopping stores next to it and inside, there were lots of people browsing the shop. It sort of gives you a feel for the openness here. They have a pretty cool commercial, too.

As expected for a Saturday, a lot of people were out and about. There were probably even more people out today because we noticed a lot of people staking out spots on the side of the street. It turns out there's a gay pride parade today! I haven't been to any gay pride parades before, so I have nothing to compare against, but it seemed everyone, from kids to adults, were very supportive of the gay community. Some people in the parade were indeed quite dressed up, but there were many who were just wearing normal clothes and waving rainbow flags.


A bunch of rainbow flags were blowing in the wind right across from the city hall, too.

K wanted to visit the National Gallery (free) to see one picture, Munch's famous "The Scream", so we detoured from the gay pride parade (well, actually, the gay pride parade was the detour, but anyways...). Strangely, walking through the gallery felt refreshing! Have we visited any other art galleries this trip? Hmmmm. After visiting more than enough art museums during our Europe 2007 travels, I pretty much cut them out this trip ^-^;; I especially liked seeing the landscape painters here.

Frogner Park, aka Vigeland Park. A lot of people were out in the park, hanging about and grilling stuff on inexpensive grills. Vigeland is a well-known Norwegian sculptor (maybe the most well-known?) and Frogner Park is filled with his later work. His huge 46-foot monolith sits in the center of the park...



There was a huge maze on the ground around his fountain!

Getting off the tram and walking back to our flat/B&B today, K remarked that it 'feels just like the U.S.', complete with plenty of SUVs parked on the road.

We heard/read Norway is expensive, and it's true. On basic foods, there's a 14% tax. 14%! In Cali, we pay 0% tax on these same foods. It's the same 14% if you take away from an eatery, but 25% percent to eat there. And I was surprised at Czech Republic's 19% tax on eating out only a month ago! It's all a trade-off. For the high taxes, Norwegians get free university education and health care.

We're hardly eating out here; everything is about twice as expensive as we'd normally pay back home. But the supermarkets are great... plenty of yummy smoked salmon, meatballs, fish cakes, etc. I bought some meatballs for dinner today and managed to set off the smoke detector again! I think it's sensitive to heat. When I open the mini oven door, the intense rush of heat into the room inevitably sets it off >_<

Day 72: Split => Dubrovnik

Yay, the rains gave way to a morning of mostly blue skies =D Since our bus wasn't until early afternoon, we spent the morning walking along the harbor and promenade, which we didn't really get to do yesterday because of the rains. We also walked up a not-too-far-away hill (Marjan Hill) for a gorgeous view of the harbor and city. I rarely post pictures of us here...


When we asked about places to eat, the receptionist at the hostel pointed us to this place near the hill. She said she usually ate at home but whenever she does eat out, that's where she goes. It was a bit too far for out of our way yesterday, but we passed by it today walking back from the hill. Too bad we weren't hungry yet. I still wanted to stop by though.

What I really wanted to eat was fish stew, but they were out of it =/ So, I got the fish soup instead. After the soup arrived, I realized why our server seemed to have an odd look on his face when we said that was all we wanted. It turns out it's basically just broth with a bit of rice! Still, yummy! And if just their broth was this yummy, it really makes me wonder what their fish stew would have been like.

We took the 1-something bus from Split to Dubrovnik, taking about 4.5 hours. The coast was beautiful, even with all the gray clouds (and then rain).


Arriving at the bus terminal in Dubrovnik, we had to take another bus, a local one, to the old town. Lots of locals at the terminal had pictures of accommodations and tried to offer us rooms, but as usual, we already had arrangements. Stepping into the main drag of the old town, the difference between Split and Dubrovnik is immediately evident. Tourists everywhere! I suppose it's expected though. But even the many tourists can't take away from the pretty, white marble covering the street.

The place we were staying at was actually a very convenient side street right off the main street. We got to the door, rang the doorbell, and, no answer. Then, one of the waitresses at the nearby restaurant came over and asked if we were looking for Ana. Yep. She said she would phone her for us and then came back to say she was coming right away. We waited for quite a while, but the wait was an interesting experience. Various neighbors poked their heads out from their apartment windows and started chatting across the street or chatting with the waitress person or chatting with a person passing by. One of the people passing by as well as the waitress assured us that Ana was indeed on her way. It was kind of funny. When Ana finally arrived, they all seemed to tease her about taking so long ^-^

Ana was one of our most helpful hosts on this trip so far. She told us basically everything we would want to know, where to eat (and not eat), which tourist info office to go (and not go to, apparently one's fake), what to do, where to buy groceries, etc, etc. She even told us that if we got stuck on a nearby island (if we were to visit it) to just call her and she would have her husband come by in a boat to get us.


Dinner was a really yummy seafood risotto, right next to the old port.

Walking through the streets at night was absolutely beautiful. Everything was really well lit!

Day 71: Split

The day started with a trip to the market, and this was certainly one of the most 're4nao4' markets we've ever been to! (Vibrant? Lively? Not quite the same image in our minds, but they're probably the closest English words to 're4nao4'.) The market happens every day of the week. After all, Split is a living city. Incidentally, the market is called the "Green Market". When you look at it from above, all you see is just greenery from all the trees ^-^



Just like we'd already seen in Zagreb, there were plenty of old-style scales.


I love 3-D models! You can make out the palace walls and then from there, the city continues to sprawl out.


The cellars beneath the palace were pretty cool, too. Was this really all built in the 4th century??? Those Romans really knew what they were doing!

The girls saw us while we were listening to some a-cappella guys in the entry vestibule (great acoustics!) ^o^ It's been fun continuously crossing paths this past week, but sadly, this will be our last meeting. They're going to the islands while we're going to Dubrovnik, and they'll be arriving in Dubrovnik after we'll have already left it.

The St. Dominus Cathedral bell tower is one of the most frightening tower climbs we've encountered, and definitely not for people scared of heights. Yes, there are bars here and there, but still... Oh, and the wind doesn't help either.



Looking into the various shops within the palace walls, it seems all the palace floors are kept as it. Very cool.


There's a lot of cleaning every day after the market closes.

We had wanted to go back to the hostel for a bit and then head back out at night to see the palace lit up, but it started pouring! It seems we had managed to finish our walk just in time. So we only rushed back out to get food. Maybe I should have braved the rain even more? =/

I made a soup for dinner to eat with the cold cuts we bought. This Asian girl came up to me towards the end of my cooking and asked me how to make it, remarking that it looked and smelled "just like something her mom makes"! It was a simple tomato and egg soup to which I also added noodles. I felt kind of awkward telling her how to make it because I've never had anyone make that sort of comment before. The compliment was kind of nice though ^-^

Day 70: Plitvice Lakes => Split

After looking at our bus options last night, we realized the 2:30pm bus was the only "short" one, four hours. All the other buses to Split would take six hours or so. So we ended up taking the same bus as the girls did yesterday. Since we had the morning hours, we decided to go out and see the Lower Lakes in the different lighting and less crowds. So happy we did ^o^

At the bus stop, we met a South African couple. I don't think I've ever met anyone from South Africa before, and it's sad to admit, I actually don't know that much about the country. They said Prague and Budapest were their favorite destinations in their travels thus far. Prague, for all the old architecture and marbled streets and evening lighting of the buildings, and Budapest for the baths and also the evening lighting. Interesting. I don't think I can say x, y, and z are my favorite overall places in the world, but there certainly are ones that I would probably return to sooner than others ^-^

The bus was a bit late; better than being early ^-^ I was surprised -- it stopped at an eatery on the way for about 30 minutes for people to get food.


There was also a snack place next to the eatery where K bought a bag of some sesame goldfish. The goldfish bag had nine different languages on the bottom of it! My guess is that many of them are spin-offs of Serbo-Croatian.

I was in awe when I first stepped into the remains of Diocletian's Palace. We were heading to our hostel, but we decided to make a stop at the tourist office to pick up a map and bus information. It's not that I haven't seen ruins before, but this is the first time I've seen modern shops, cafes, etc. built right within the old palace! They say that Split is a living city rather than just a tourist spot and my first impression certainly match that statement.


A cafe with outdoor 'seating' right on the steps of the main peristyle.

Hostel. We've been lucky so far; we're more than 2/3 into our trip and no lodging mishaps yet. Well, until now. It's not really *that* big of a deal, but we made it out to be anyways. We had booked a 3-bed dorm, but apparently they had overbooked the 3-bed dorms by accident. So, when we arrived at the hostel, they informed us we would be in a 4-bed dorm instead. I'd gotten the 3-bed because both 3-bed and 4-bed dorms were the same price and I figured the less-people room was better (less noise, slight chance we might have the room to ourselves ^_~, etc.). I guess I also just don't like people changing things last minute on me like that; they could have contacted us to let us know! So we made it out to be non-trivial. There was a discussion with the manager on the phone (he wasn't at the hostel). In the end, he did tell the receptionist to give us a discount on the 4-bed room and we were to move to the 3-bed one for our second night (since it was going to open up). Not bad.

Day 62: Budapest

Heroes Square. Columns. Statues. Lots of empty space.

A replica of a Transylvania castle in the city park area. Not just any castle, but Dracula's castle. Unexpected, but pretty cool. We couldn't go inside though -_-


This one human statue in the park totally freaked me out. I kept wondering if she was real or fake, and then all of a sudden she moved! It reminded me of those scary films where dolls become real (and try to do evil things). I don't know why she reminded me of that, maybe because the way she looked was a lot like a porcelain doll?

House of Terror. A museum about the repressive communist regime instilled in Hungary that followed "liberation" from the Nazis. D warned there would be a lot of reading here and indeed there was! Just about every exhibit room had a sheet with several paragraphs to read. The museum as a whole had rooms thought-provokingly laid out. However, there could definitely be improvements. For one, places to sit! Having to stand while reading these long descriptions was not fun. We saw a few people try to sit on the floor, but then the museum guards would come around every once in a while and tell them they weren't allowed to sit on the floor. The more major improvement would be English subtitles on all the videos, currently only in Hungarian. A couple of videos did have English subs, but very few. I think being able to understand the videos would have resulted in much more moving exhibits.


The communist-era ads are always so full of happy people.

I don't actually remember how we ended up at the mall. I think because the baths and Gellert Hill were the only items left on our sightseeing agenda and we were going to do them tomorrow. In any case, K said he wanted to look for some socks to replace the ones that developed holes. So, like regular Budapesters, we walked around the mall.


The entrance to the mall had a 'not-permitted' sign containing the most items I've ever seen on one of these signs.

It felt like any other mall in the States with a few exceptions -- the mall had a supermarket in it, and the food court. The supermarket was near the food court area. The food court contained some different food than what we'd find in a U.S. mall food court. But aside from that, while we were eating, we noticed that some people were just hanging out in the food court, just like people hang out in cafes -- chatting, drinking coffee, flirting, browsing the internet (free wifi in 15 minute increments). Interesting.

We did procure some socks for K. We also did some grocery shopping and bought a few other goodies -- notebook (K wanted one), pens (lost mine earlier in the trip), toothpaste (running out), and shoe spray (K's shoes were getting icky). Bizarre. It could have been like any other day in the States, except we don't really go shopping at the mall back home. And the things we bought we wouldn't have gone to a mall to buy back home.


We ate fruit soup at the food court, a cold soup that they eat just like any other soup here, but which we felt was more like dessert. We also ate a cold fruit rice pudding. All so yummy!