Sightseeing | What Up, Vienna?

21Jul/100

just posted a new slideshow on the photos page (bratislava)

This was a day trip that Alex and I took with our New Zealander friends Jayne and Greg. It's about an hour train ride from Vienna to Bratislava (Slovakia). It was unfortunate that it ended up being pretty rainy and windy the whole time we were there. Though, we managed to use that as a good excuse to hide inside and drink and eat and then drink some more.

Tagged as: alex platt, beer, bratislava, food, friends, pictures, sightseeing, slovakia, train, travel, trips No Comments

6Jul/101

paris, franzen style!

Alex was in Chicago for the week at a conference. What was a hip, happenin', globe-trottin' girl to do? Go to Paris for the weekend to see her old college buddy Zachary Franzen, naturally. (Go Badgers.)

We should win an award in holding-the-camera-yourself picture taking.

Now, I had never been to Paris. So I was really looking forward to wine, wine, cheese, wine, cheese and some more wine. However, my host Zach is a bit more of a Coke, Coke, McDonald's, Coke, McDonald's and some more Coke kind of a guy. In retrospect, perhaps, I should have set some more realistic expectations.

I got in earlyish on a Friday afternoon. For that evening, Zach had suggested going to a friend's restaurant to meet a couple people. Sounds good to me! However, we get to the restaurant and a couple of Zach's amis seemed to have multiplied to ten or so of them. And all of these Frenchies agreed upon two things: They liked to drink Heineken. And they really, really loved hamburgers. They loved hamburgers so much, in fact, that they ordered a hamburger for me. They said, "Why would you want wine and cheese and pate? This is the best hamburger in Paris!" Okay, mon frère, I is from a little place called the United States of WEKNOWBURGERS and, even though your country has some of the best goddamned food in the world, something being the so-called best hamburger in Paris, even if it is a 100% true statement, probably means very little. I should just end this paragraph here because you know how it ends. I didn't get wine, cheese or pate. I got a mediocre hamburger. I know you already guessed that. But I had to continue the paragraph so I could tell you everybody ate their burgers with knives and forks. MON DIEU!

The next morning, Zach already had plans to take part in something called the Beret and Baguette Bike Ride.

Zach getting all suited up for the big "Berets and Baguettes" bike ride around Paris today.

The startpoint of the ride was at the Eiffel Tower. I was sans bike so we picked me up a fancy CityBike right outside of our apartment. CityBikes are bike rentals you can find in many, many cities in Europe. The bikes are sometimes crappy but completely rideable when needed. It was a great early morning adventure to bike through the streets of Paris to the Eiffel Tower. When I got there I rewarded myself with pastry. Note the bereted boys in the background.

MMMMmmm. Nothing like a little pain au chocolat in front of the Eiffel Tower on a Saturday morning.

This bike wins.

After a couple hours of hanging out with the bereted and baguetted biking folks gathering for their ride, I was getting a bit antsy. It was almost 10am and I hadn't had a glass of wine yet! Thank god, my new best friend Chris showed up to remedy that. Well, this was really the first time we met but it was pretty much instant bestfrienditude. So I bid Zachary Franzen adieu, then Chris and I ventured off into the city to stir up some shit.

We started off on a mission to find me a hoodie as I made the mistake of dressing lightly for the chilly morning. Then, we got a tad sidetracked with some cafe coffee drinking and crepe eating. Next, our wanderings took us out amongst throngs of tourists. The famous Notre Dame Cathedral was just right across the way but the line to get in was a couple blocks long. So I was going to just have to be content with some nice exterior photos.

Christopher is happy to be amongst tourists in front of Notre Dame!

My new partner-in-crime Chris was not having that though as he decided to eff that line and cut in front of everybody. Even though it seems kind of dickish, it actually is a very European thing to do to completely eschew a line. I have been cut in front of many a time waiting in line for something. Rather, I have elbowchecked many a person trying to cut in line in front of me many a time. Nobody elbowchecked us though and we strode right on through. Suckas.

Shhhh. There is a man in a robe talking about stuff.

Well, Chris is a man-about-town and he, unfortunately, had to leave me to do some of his requisite about-towning. He pointed me in the direction of a worthwhile walking-around area and we parted ways. At this point, it was just before lunchtime and I really needed to make up for the burger fiasco from the night previous. I came upon a pretty nice little area with tiny streets lined with bistros. I would tell you what this area was called, but my gin-soaked memory fails me. Now, choosing a restaurant for what is your only lunch for your short Parisian weekend involves a lot of discerning assessment. After circling a good five block radius, I got really good foodie vibes from a certain establishment. The prix fixe menu looked promising and the decor was nice and didn't seem forced. It was suspiciously empty however that turned out to be just because it was a little early yet. Just after I was seated and working on my wine and olives, the place started to really fill up. I spent the next two hours there eating and drinking. To start, I had the aforementioned olives, then some amazing house-made pate and onion confit, followed by sausage and pommes frites, and finished off with this insane chestnut chocolate pudding whipped cream concoction. It was so fantastic that after every bite of food and drink of wine, I just wanted to high five somebody.

Excuse the olive pits, please.

Merlot, pommes frites, pork sausage and some crazy good mustardy lemony buttery sauce.

Chestnut custard, chocolate and cream for dessert. Ridiculous good.

I met up with Zachary later that day and we spent the rest of our evening rabblerousing our hearts out. We hit a houseparty thrown by another American ex-pat where I met more Americans than I have in my entire time in Vienna. Chris was also in attendance as well as another one of my new Parisian homeboys, Kyle. After hours of imbibing on the things kids worldwide imbibe upon at house parties such as this one, we caught the last Metro train home and called it a night.

Yeah, get those back teeth real good, Kyle.

The next morning, before we had to Le Metro it to the airport, Zach and I tried to get in a bit more sightseeing in the few hours we had left. We killed two birds with one stone and headed over to the Champs-Élysées which conveniently ends with the Arc de Triomphe.

Someone significant standing in front of something significant.

By the skin of our teeth, we made it to Charles De Gaulle in time for my flight. For a few moments, it seemed like Volcano Eyjafjallajokull aka Volcano I'manasshole was looking to keep me in gay Paree for one more night. Every single other flight to Vienna had been cancelled up to that point. I could not have that. When I am in the direction of leaving somewhere, I want to keep heading in that direction. Thankfully, Mr. Volcano decided to do me a solid and allowed my plane clearance to take off.

Au Revoir, France!

Tagged as: airplane, airport, bicycle, blogsherpa, culture, drinking, food, france, friends, paris, sightseeing, travel, trips, weather, zach franzen 1 Comment

1May/107

i need a raincheck, england (part two)

And the saga continues. So after my weak few days in London, we finally headed off to Alex's first stop in his two-stop world lecture tour, The John Innes Center at the East Anglia University in Norwich. We opted to take a cab to the train station just to reserve my movin' around energy for the potentially gruelfest of a train ride. And much like the plane ride, I built it up so much in my head to be so terrifically uncomfortable, that it was actually quite tolerable. Granted, I took some awesome PRESCRIBED drugs before the trip. And on the train ride, I partook in my new favorite British OTC drug, cheese and onion potato ~~chips~~ crisps. I was bananas about those things. You know what, eff bananas. From now on, when I like things, I am CHEESEANDONIONCRISPS for them!

Passing through the town of Diss.

It is really a shame that I was such a cripple (oh, lighten up) for this whole trip. I vacillated from five minutes of "This discomfort is completely manageable!" to "I will never ever get better ever again." And when you have back problems, everybody wants to tell you some dire tale of lifelong chronic pain. Even when that tale is told with a British accent, it is not cute. Here's a tip for all the people of the world: Somebody's very present tale of woe is not your segue to tell any story other than one that ends in puppy dogs, rainbows and chocolate bars. Please retweet.

We took a taxicab from the train station to the inn where we were staying. It was pretty super duper. The property had an attached garden. Before we departed the next day, we decided to take a saunter through it. We had already brought our bags down so we asked the innkeeper if she would watch them at the front desk while we took a walk. She obliged ,however, she then inquired as to whether we had any sort of problem with frogs. "Frogs? No, not really. I like frogs," I said. Then we actually went to the garden and realized she had omitted a detail in her strange frog warning. These frogs was doing it. Or as my mother as a child used to describe cows mating, "Oh, look. That cow is giving the other cow a piggy-back ride!" And I welcome the clarification we're guaranteed to receive in the comments from said mother.

Frog-catching makes my people happy.

You have to go to Norwich, England to get yourself in this type of awesomeness.

The rest of this day involved a cab ride back to the train station, train to London, long cab ride to another train station in London, train to Warwick and then a car ride to our B&B in Stratford-upon-Avon. This was a day that all the drugs in the world could not save. When we got to the second train station in London, I was pretty much ready to call 999. Somehow by the grace of Vicodin, I made it all the way to Stratford.

We were there for two nights. I know I'm sounding like a whiney broken record, but I didn't really do anything of substance for those few days. Stratford is known for being the home (and death) of Shakespeare. When we originally made plans to stay here, we were going to do all the requisite touristing about town. The next night, we did make the short walk into the town center for some dinner which involved a walk by Shakespeare's alleged birth house. Had I been a bit more mobile, I would probably have hit the theater there to see a play and then also gone to see Stonehenge which is supposedly a bus ride away and partaken in a bit more of the scenery at a pub or three. However, whine, whine, complain, complain, woe is me, I didn't do any of those things because my back is a jerk.

Before we took off the next morning, we had our last deserved breakfast which is, in name, 50% of the agreed deal. And I felt that because breakfast was included, I had to partake in everything that was offered to me. This involved a nice appetizer of a bowl of granola with milk. Followed by a full English breakfast and a pitcher of fresh orange juice. The B&B lady visited with us a little as she brought us our heavy plates filled with scrambled eggs, sausages, rashers of bacon, cooked tomatoes, mushrooms and toast. I don't remember what I said but knowing me it was some sort of kiss-ass compliment about how much I love English breakfasts. She then responded with a diatribe how the British are the only ones that do cooked breakfasts. On and on, she went. Now, I do love English breakfasts because I do love breakfasting, however, she has obviously never heard of the American institution of IHOP. Call me when you have fruit-and-whipped-cream-topped-cheesecake-stuffed pancake stackers in your full English breakfast.

We took the train back into London. We had one more night there before leaving for Vienna. I had really hoped by this last night, I would have been recovered enough to take in a few sights. However, all the traveling about England really threw a wrench in my progress. So we just got a nice hotel room at the InterContinental in Mayfair and we stuffed our faces with BBC and room service. BBC America provides a nice sampling of what you can get but nowhere near the breadth and depth of what there is to be had at the source. Highlights were some hare-brained Andrew Lloyd Weber casting a production of Wizard of Oz American Idol-y show, this awesome game show Mastermind (?) and a marathon of this reality show to see who the could host the best dinner parties. It was all pretty great and made me a lot less sad I never got to try and make those guard guys at the palace place laugh.

Oh, no. We're staying across from the hall from the Beast!