Holidaze!

HAPPY HOLIDAZE!

Over the next two weeks, I will be traveling a grand total of 21,484 miles. For scale, the circumference of the globe is 24,901 miles. I'm missing it by 3,417 miles. Damn.

The magic formula of this mileage looks a little something like this:

Baltimore > New Jersey > Dulles > Doha, Qatar (layover) > Abu Dhabi (layover) > Amsterdam (layover) > Prague (for 2 days) > Amsterdam (layover) > Abu Dhabi (5 days) > Doha, Qatar (layover) > Dulles > Baltimore

= #YOLO?

= #guaranteedflu?

= #whiskeytangofoxtrot

This holiday season, I decided to do...everything! Spend Christmas day with the entire extended family, fly to Europe (via Abu Dhabi because, believe it or not, is was almost $2,000 CHEAPER to do so) for two days to be with The Gentleman's family who are overseas visiting Prague, and then to Abu Dhabi to spend New Years and also begin moving into our new flat which is available January 1. Huzzah! Exhaustion! Emergen-C! 

In between all of this, I am wrapping up my final paper for a year and a half long certification I've been doing through University of Baltimore, and gearing up for the last 3 weeks at my job when I get back in January. And packing up my existence and moving to another country by February 8. 

You know, no big deal.

One of the things I am most looking forward to in my expatriation is the opportunity to unpack my suitcase and LEAVE it unpacked for more than a couple of months. To just breathe for a few months and not gear up stress about time off of work, customs, time changes, currency exchanges, the potential of lost luggage, and standing in line for security. 

Do you have any idea how much of my life has been spent standing in line for airport security?

A lot.

I plan to sleep through most of February upon my arrival.

I am certain that this will not be the end of crazy travel at the holidays, especially in the future when we will not only be crossing the Atlantic multiple times a year but trying to see family and friends on both coasts of the US, but it will (happily) be the end of this chaotic long distance relationship. I'll gladly take the trade-offs. 

And it really is amazing to think that, within the span of a week, you can spend Christmas day with all of your extended family, then hop on a plane(s) and be in the Christmas markets of Prague with your partner and your partner's family, and then hop on a plane(s) again and be in the Middle East in the lovely 75 degree weather. Can't complain about any of that.

Thus, I embark on my two weeks of insanity starting today with a drive up to New Jersey to be with the whole family for Christmas day. Which I'm quite excited about. 

I just need take a metric shit ton of vitamins and Emergen-C. And possibly wear a SARs mask.


TECHNICAL SIDE NOTE FOR MY FELLOW BLOGGERS:
After The Big Move, I have grand plans for a blog redesign and re-launch. I'm thinking about moving to Wordpress or Squarespace. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Beverages - Prague and Berlin

It's snaining out.

Basically, it means we've all gotten a day off of work (at least those of us in the government/education/nonprofit sectors, and everyone who works for Yahoo! because they can't work from home) for the fact that it's cold, windy, and spewing some sort of snow-rain combination from the sky. The National Weather Service keeps promising that the snow will begin in full force over the next couple of hours, and that we're guaranteed 4-8 inches (heh heh), but I have my doubts.

Nonetheless, I am embracing my day off in true "snow day" style - yoga pants and my old University of South Florida sweatshirt, cinnamon gingerbread coffee, and a mimosa. (Duh.) My plans for the day include finishing up this blog, and then going back to "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" (which I CANNOT PUT DOWN) and perhaps some more episodes of Downton Abbey later on, although I can't say that I'm particularly pleased with the current plot line. I'm still catching up on Season 3, and I feel like I've spent the last couple of episodes transitioning from sobs of despair to tears of joy and back again. 

So, it seems like the perfect day to listen to some Stan Getz, drink mimosas, daydream about the fact that in less than 3 weeks I'll be in Cancun, and reminisce about all the delicious things we drank in Prague and Berlin.

Now THAT is an Irish Coffee. Strong, barely sweetened, with lots of real whipped cream on top. And full of caffeine! So that you can stay up late and drink more drinks!

So, let me be clear and say that neither my boyfriend nor I particularly LOVES absinthe. I am not a fan of liquorice to begin with, and a very strong alcoholic beverage that smacks of anise and liquorice is not my cup of hallucinogens. Which brings me to another point: despite popular opinion, no where in the world still sells wormwood-laced absinthe. This is not the Green Fairy of legends - it's just a super strong, gasoline-smelling, thick liqueur that people order for the sheer thrill of ordering absinthe. But it's making a comeback in America. Absinthe was big in Philly when we were there a couple of years ago; I remember it being a key ingredient in a lot of cocktails at various bars. And that we enjoyed as well, because when mixed with the right ingredients, absinthe can really pull a cocktail together.

That all having been said, there's a pomp and circumstance with straight absinthe that almost makes it worth the taste, and for this alone The Gentleman and I tend to order it whenever we see it on a specialty bar menu, just to compare presentations. So, naturally, our first night in Prague when we saw absinthe on the menu, we ordered it. 

At this particular Czech establishment (Staropramen Brewery in Praha 1), it came with its own pitcher of sugar water. Normally, there is some sort of sugar-cube/fire/dripping water process, but this one just came straight up with sugar water on the side. All absinthe is meant to be drank with sugar and water, but this was the first time we'd had to do all of the work ourselves. It was exhausting.

Because we were there a few days after Christmas, all of the Christmas markets were still up and running. Wooden stalls selling sausages, beers, mulled wine, and trinkets line pedestrian areas. And you can buy alcoholic beverages and walk around on a cold winter's eve with warmth in your hands. I AM STILL NOT OVER THIS.

Warm honey mead at a stall at one of the Christmas Markets. It basically tastes like warm, alcoholic honey. It was a bit sweet, but I could totally see adding this to some hot tea for a delightful toddy.

After we sampled the absinthe at Staropramen, I ordered an apple liqueur. It tasted like apple-infused gasoline and warmed me right up. 

One night, without any real plans in mind, we stumbled luckily across the Prague Beer Museum.  Here, you can order flights of beer selected from their impressive (and detailed) menu. Each beer is outlined with its own history, tasting notes, notes on the brewer, and interesting facts about the brewing culture at the time the recipe was originally brewed. We sampled about 14 flights of beer. No, not really. But kind of. Maybe.

Damn, Prague has good beer. And it's not stingy, either. Competing with Germany for Largest Stein:

I mean, it's basically the size of my head. And that beer drank like a meal. I think I finished about half of it and gave the rest to The Gentleman who drank that in addition to his own Giant Stein O' Beer. Because he is badass.

 Because we were in Prague for New Years Eve, we'd booked tickets for a Jazz Cruise. Don't be fooled - it's not nearly as swank as it sounds, but it WAS fun. It was definitely Czech-down-homey, complete with a "welcome drink" (a shot of schnappes) and jazz that definitely sounded more "OOMPAH" than "BA DA DAAA". I think the tickets were like $75 each, and included champagne, welcome drink, and a buffet dinner. The rest of the drinks we had to pay for, and while they weren't the cheapest drinks we'd had in Prague (where a Giant Stein O' Beer will cost you about $4), they were certainly cheaper than anything you'd find stateside or in the rest of Europe. I think a bottle of champagne was about $20, and individual glasses of wine/beer were about $7. 

We shared a table (because you have to share tables on this cruise) with a young British couple who got engaged that night. We celebrated their engagement with champagne and shots (Jeger for the boys, Sambuca for the girls). At midnight, everyone went up onto the roof of the boat for the fireworks that exploded up and down the river. It was a perfectly beautiful way to ring in 2013. 

The first round.

Later that evening....

I mentioned there was a vineyard next to the Prague Castle.I should also mention that the wine served there is....young. Very, very young wine. The kind that makes you suck in your cheeks. And possibly your eyes might water a bit. Just tell yourself it's the breathtaking scenery. 

A typical order in a typical Czech restaurant of: a dark beer and a white wine, please. Someone in this picture is getting gypped. 

I have no idea why, but there is some obsession in Prague with cannabis-flavored everything. Teas, beers, energy drinks...I can't imagine why you'd want to flavor a perfectly good beverage with the taste of my college roommate's breath.  

One night, we went out to "Europe's Only 360-degree Rotating Bar" at the Fusion Hotel. I had expected some sort of giant tower/rotating floor situation, but it turns out that the room stays still and the bar ITSELF moves. It was still pretty awesome, and they played good music and had a nice crowd. They also have side rooms with Playstations and couches. My God, I love Prague.

Drinks at 360 - this was some kind of whiskey strawberry concoction that looks a lot fruitier than it tasted.

We stayed at the Boscolo Hotel in Prague, and I fell in love with the bar in the lobby. 

I WANT THIS. Glass rack at lobby bar, Boscolo Hotel.

To Go-sie mulled wine at a Christmas Market. At 8:30am. IF THEY'RE SELLING, I'M BUYING.

There were also Christmas Markets still set up in Berlin when we arrived on January 2. SELLING MULLED WINE AND BEER AND SAUSAGES. Hooray!

Drinks at the rotating bar at the top of the Berliner Fernsehturm. Mine was some sort of cranberry-bourbon-spritzer thing that was deeeelisshus.

For a hotel bar, Catwalk at the Marriott in Berlin was gorgeous and had an excellent cocktail menu. We wound up there on our last night, because it was cold and raining and we had to get up at 7am to catch our respective flights back to Baltimore and the United Arab Emirates. After a week of traipsing around Eastern Europe, it was lovely to kick back in an up-scale bar twelve floors below our room and just enjoy cocktails and pretty scenery.

A grand "cheers" to end our week-long trip to Prague and Berlin for New Years, 2013. More adventures to come!

And so, I wrap up our holiday trip. Just in time to prep for heading out to New Mexico and Mexico in a couple of weeks when The Gentleman comes home for leave! Hooray vacation! 

Touristy Things - Berlin

I'll preface this by saying that it's 1:45pm on a Sunday, and I am still in my pajamas. 

Drinking a beer.

It's been a long couple of weeks.

I'm drinking a Koko Brown Ale brewed with toasted coconut while listening to the Bailamos! music channel on Direct TV and fantasizing about the fact that, 30 days from now, I'll be lying on a beach in Mexico. My delicious brewed treat and the "spicy, hot Latin rhythms" are wistful attempts at trying to cure my serious case of Seasonal Losing The Will To Live, a phenomenon that affects myself and pretty much everyone I know, usually occurring in late February and lasting until Daylight Savings Time ends or one finds oneself facedown in a basket of Cadbury Eggs and jelly beans. This year seems to have hit me particularly hard.

Maybe it's because it's my first winter with my boyfriend living overseas, and winter sucks anyway. Maybe it's because it has been so freakishly cold in Baltimore this winter that I have had NOT ONE BUT TWO frightening bloody noses during long outdoor runs. Maybe it's because my skin feels like a lizard's, my hair is so staticky that I can charge my cell phone on it, or because I have somehow had the two busiest work weeks I think I've ever had in my entire life. Maybe it's because I miss my boyfriend, no one (including me) wants to leave the house because it's miserable outside, and I'm caught up on Downton Abbey and Glee and have already read March's Book Club book, crocheted two scarves, baked all of the old brownie mixes I could find in the cabinet, and JUST WANT IT TO BE F*CKING SPRING ALREADY. 

Yep, it's probably that.

My upcoming trips to Albuquerque to visit The Gentleman's family and then our subsequent week-long vacation to Cancun are still just far enough away to feel like a distant fantasy. For now, despite my attempts to create a little spring break feel with coconut ale and Tito Puente jams, I'll stop feeling miserably sorry for myself and take you back to our post-New Year's Eve trip to Berlin. Because nothing breaks you out of a nasty spell of Seasonal Losing The Will To Live like reminders of the Holocaust.

After spending five days in Prague, The Gentleman and I boarded a train on January 2 and headed to Berlin. I finally got to resurrect my rusty German language skills by ordering drinks in the diner car, and we traded in our Czech Kroner for Euros. 

It had been ten years since the last time I was in Berlin. In 2002, I was still in college and thought there was nothing potentially life-threatening about staying in shoddy hostels. I was in love with another American exchange student and trying to convince him to break up with his long-term girlfriend while simultaneously making him jealous with Christian, my German pseudo-boyfriend who followed me around and later air mailed me long letters in German that I only half-attempted to translate. On that trip, we toured Potsdam Palace, Buchenwald concentration camp, Irish pubs that catered solely to American college students, and every Burger King that was still open after midnight.

This time, ten years later and at 30 instead of 20, we stayed at a Marriott, ate free breakfasts in the Executive Lounge, and went to bed before 11pm because we were tired from going to museums all day. 

It was quite a different experience.

While Berlin is still a city in transition, what struck me on this trip is how deeply committed this city is to preserving the, quite frankly, horrifying memories of the past. Berlin is unapologetic about the horrors that occurred here in the sense that while the rest of Germany sometimes seems comfortable with focusing on the rich history of Germanic culture viewed in pastoral garden scenes, Berlin is a living museum of scars it has incorporated into the cityscape. There are pieces of the wall displayed everywhere, reminders of a divided city. There are signs and memorials, and shadows of bombed buildings that will purposely never be repaired but left to stand as reminders.

Cranes are a default part of the cityscape of Berlin.

That's not to say that Berlin is still war-torn. In fact, I have been to the city three times (1999, 2002, and now 2013) and seen, over the span of that 14 years, how much Berlin has grown. There are cozy, beautiful little neighborhoods that seem more like the East Village, with cafes and pretty lights strung in trees and artwork in the windows of small galleries. There are lively, touristy jazz clubs and inviting bars on every corner. There's upscale shopping and a luxury district boasting labels that declare Berlin a fashion capital like Milan or Paris. Berlin is an industrious, busy, fast-moving city with a LOT to offer.

But smack in the middle of things are monuments, plaques, photos, museums, and even beer gardens dedicated to never forgetting one of the darkest periods of modern human history. Berlin is New York City with graveyards never completely out of the line of sight. It celebrates human ingenuity and creativity and offers the best that all great cities have, but it will never stop reminding you of what happened here in the last century. Nor should it.

There were two newish museums/memorials that we had the great fortune of being able to get to on this trip - the Topography of Terror Museum (opened in 2010) and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (2005). 

The Topography of Terror Museum is located about a mile to the south of the Brandenburg Tor and is easily walkable. In fact, we only used cabs to get to the hotel from the train station, once late at night to get back to the hotel, and then to go to the airport. The rest of the time, we used the subway (or U-bahn) system. I'm not gonna lie - Berlin is not an English-friendly city, and unless you know a handful of German, it can be a little difficult to interpret the subway system. Mostly because the streets are all called things like "Friederichsburgstrasse" which is completely different from "Freiderichsdamstrasse" which is completely different from "Friederischplatzstrasse." But most major sights are within about a mile radius of the city center, if you map the center as the Tor. Even though it was freezing cold and rainy the entire time we were there, we still hoofed it the majority of the time. This also allows you to pick up mulled wine (because YES THEY TOTALLY SELL THAT ON STREET CORNERS HERE, TOO!) and walk around with it. 

I don't think I'll ever get over the travesty that Baltimore doesn't have warm, to-go alcoholic beverages on street corners.

Speaking of travesty, maybe I should stop digressing with the First World Problems and focus on the horrors of human history:

The Topography of Terrors museum is a an outdoor memorial with an accompanying indoor exhibit. The site is where the Gestapo and SS offices existed from 1933-1945, and the exhibit walks you through the timeline of Nazi rule of Germany.

Running alongside the outer perimeter of the outdoor exhibit is a preserved section of the Berlin wall atop the  existing cellar walls of what was formerly the Gestapo and SS offices. 

Preserved section of the Berlin wall showing the construction of  the wall. This is most likely a piece of the "Fourth Generation" wall, which was the fourth construction made to resist people attempting to drive their vehicles THROUGH the wall. 

Indeed.

I didn't take any pictures inside the Terror Museum - and now I can't remember if it was because you couldn't or simply because it was packed wall-to-wall with people. The exhibit inside is an in-depth narrative told through pictures, newspaper articles, propaganda posters and text that explains the seepage of the Nazi regime into powerful positions and eventually into complete control. Nazi ideals were at first embraced and accepted to some extent, or at least piqued the curiosity of German citizens, because it promised jobs, health care, productivity, and a beautiful nationalism that had been shattered in the first World War. This fact astonished me with its familiar parallels of the infiltration of Communism. In fact, much of the propaganda (posters showing athletic and pretty young German folk engaging in hard work, exercise, or ritual love of country) looks pretty much the same. Just a different logo. And the whole "Jews are the devil" mentality thing. 

I mentioned before that travel during the holidays in Europe requires getting up early, and Berlin is no exception. We tried to go to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon around 4pm, and the line was a 45 minute wait (outside...in the rain) just to get into the museum. When we came back the next morning at 9am, we got right in and enjoyed the exhibit without ten million people.

But you can walk around the outside part of the memorial at any time. It's a confusing labyrinth of coffin-like structures, and standing in the center of it, it's almost completely void of any signs that you're in the middle of a major city. It's eerily quiet, dark, and very much like a cemetery.

As you walk, the pathways dip so that at times, the coffin-like  "stelae", which are traditional funeral commemoration structures. But there are no names, and no information about the millions of murdered Jews on any of these "stelae." It's an enormous, anonymous graveyard.

 The anonymity of the outside memorial is completely shattered with the exhibit inside. The primary theme of the museum is to put a personal and human face on the Holocaust, and focuses on the stories of individuals and families. Photographs, diary entries, interviews with survivors, and an incredible collection of facts about the concentration camps, the horrible tortures Jews from all over Europe were forced to face, and personal accounts of truly terrifying events are displayed in an incredible museum. The architecture of the museum, which is located directly below the outdoor memorial, reflects the stelae above. The ceilings rise and dip with stelae dropping down where they extend up on the street level. So much thought went into every inch of this memorial and museum. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend getting the audio tour. It's 4 Euros and adds another dimension and guide to the exhibit, which can be a little overwhelming at first.

There are far more disturbing parts of the exhibit - like the stories of women and children being asked to take off their clothes and stand in front of a pit that they've just spent exhausting hours digging, and then being shot so that they fall into the pit which becomes the mass grave site. There are stories of families with only one or two surviving members, postcards thrown off of trains by prisoners headed to death camps, diary entries by children separated from their parents, witnesses of "gas vans" that drove through the cities and murdered Jews in mobile death chambers.

It was definitely a change from the first half of our vacation, which had consisted mostly of street meat and copious liquor. 

One of the museums we visited is an old favorite of mine - I've been twice before, and it's one of the most fascinating (albeit cramped, crowded, and overly heated) museums I've ever been to. Checkpoint Charlie is located at what was once the crossing point from East to West Berlin, which you might recognize from this infamous signage (a replica):

A festive holiday tree sits where, at one point, there was a "loophole" for Eastern bloc citizens to escape to the West. You can get some fun passport stamps at this site for about 10 Euros. My nerdy boyfriend was incredibly excited to get his passport stamped up with defunct country stamps:

The Gentleman attempts to make the crossing. By paying 10 Euroes for this actor in a former Bloc uniform to stamp up his passport. Ahhhh, touristy things!

The Checkpoint Charlie museum is hot, crowded, and fascinating. It's full of replicas and original pieces of all the crazy contraptions people built to attempt to scale, dig under, ram through, or otherwise get over the Berlin Wall. It also is a museum dedicated to telling the story of the Wall's inception, political circumstances, the Cold War, and has an entire room dedicated to Ronald Reagan. Apparently the diplomacy behind yelling at Gorbachev to "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL" earns you a room to yourself in a museum.

Piece of the wall preserved at Checkpoint Charlie

I WANT THIS.

And don't forget to tip your server.

You can't go to Berlin and not see the Brandenburg Tor or the Reichstag. You just can't. It is verboten.

We didn't actually get to go inside the Reichstag, because we got there too late in the day and the lines to get in were hours long. At some point, I'll make it in there!

Ahhh, 1970's-era Eastern bloc cars. Actually, these could be 1980's Western luxury cars for all I know. I just thought they were cool.

Since The Gentleman and I enjoy going to the tops of very tall things, on our last night in Berlin I insisted that we hop a train up to Alexanderplatz to go to the top of the Fernseh Tower.

Fernseh Tower photobomb

Like most tall-building excursions, this involves very expensive tickets, getting a time ticket, waiting in a long line, and getting into very fast and cramped elevator to go to the top.

But UNLIKE other tall-building excursions, this one has a bar at the top!
There is a restaurant too, but you have to make reservations about ten years in advance. I'd recommend making a reservation now if you're planning a trip to Europe before 2023.

We were there at night, which made for an incredible in-person panorama and terrible photos.

The top is a giant circle you can walk around. With a bar in it. Berlin doesn't want you to get thirsty. 

Oh, Berlin. How I love you.

On this trip, we only had three days in Berlin and I wish we'd had more. It was such a different experience to visit the city as an adult where my tastes have shifted away from dancing until 4am at diskoteques and more towards the disappointment that we didn't get to go to Ganymed Brasserie for drinks or spend much time in the artsy districts. Ah, well. Next time.

And now, while I go crack open another Koko Brown and turn the heat up to 80 degrees so I can walk around in shorts, I'll leave you with some photos of various places in Berlin.

AMAZING club/bar near the Fernseh Tor where we waited until our turn to head to the top

Inside a subway car

Curry is awesome anywhere, but why not try some at the Wall?!

Multi-cultural festive tree outside of Checkpoint Charlie

Drinks at Catwalk

Train Station at Potsdamer Platz

Night street scene near Potsdamer Platz

Apparently this is an event venue. Freiheit means "freedom" in the sense of "liberty" in German. I don't get it.

ALL OF IT YES PLEASE

BEST

Speedy U-bahn

Christmas market outside the Potsdam train station featuring a snow tube hill!

All good things must come to an end. And by end, I mean drinks.

Speaking of - the next installment shall be all about alcohol. Hooray!