Street Music!

I feel obliged to do a post on street music, since it is so popular in Europe and seemingly better than in the U.S. My experience in the U.S., though, has been a homeless person in D.C. beating on a traffic cone like a drum, so I might not have a complete picture of America's scene.

The most common place to see street music is on the metro, and the most common instrument is the accordion. I'm not a big fan of the accordion, so I never really thought to give one of them a coin.

In Paris, I saw many traveling groups on the metro, usually a combination of a small drum, an old fashioned string bass and a singer with an accordion or tamborine. These little troops were entertaining for sure, but also the most annoying, carrying around little buckets while shoving them in your face asking for money.

The one type of street musician that I would cross the street to get away from was the guy with the South American pan flutes:
They would usually play some background music, a practice that I don't believe belongs in street music, and just play some simple notes to accompany the background music. Any fan of south park will know that the pan flute bands are necessary though.

In Madrid I saw a couple of saxophone players that I thoroughly enjoyed. Some great hits like Rockin' Robin really enhanced the atmoshpere in the large city parks.

The rocker with the large white sunglass destroyed the competition for greatest street musician viewed by me.





Lauren and I were in Barcelona, touring the Parc Guell, a huge, sloping park with many attractions. Among these attractions, at the top of a great hill overlooking the city, is the Torre de las Tres Cruces. The reason I appreciated this guy so much was that he contributed to the atmosphere of the area. You are sitting on a great hill overlooking Barcelona and the Mediteranean and, if that isn't enough, you have great accoustic rock music in the background. That and he played continuously for the 15 minutes that I was there, not to mention however long he played before I arrived. All of these reasons combined to give me the urge to give this guy all the coins in my pocket at the time, maybe 2€25. I imagine he makes a nice living up there, as you can see in the movie he customizes his songs to requests and names from the audience. Hope you enjoyed my amateur filmmaking.

Night Train

Some people I met on the night train.

Took the night train to Madrid after an amazing stay in Barcelona. I don't think that I have ever been this tan. Sure it was incredibly hot, with no A/C, but it was nice in the shade and at night. Barcelona isn't loaded with monuments, like Paris is, so we were able to spend a good portion of every day at the beach. Then go out and sight-see around 4pm. I think it's safe to say the the Parc Guell is my favorite place in Europe so far. It is a very large park in the middle of the city, encompassing a very large hill. Thus the views of the city and the Mediterranean are amazing.

I have now traveled on 2 night trains and I got a total of maybe 2 hours of sleep, on the first one. The one I took last night offered no sleep at all. What boggled my mind was the superiority of coach over 1st class. I had a first class ticket because the second class reservations were sold out, and first class was only 25€. Lauren rode second class and got plenty of sleep, because she had a simple recliner in a setup that is similar to a plane. Rows of people along the length of the car. First class was arrange in a very silly way, in my opinion. I was in a cabin of 6 couchettes that extend out into beds. The problem in that they are arranged with 3 on each wall, facing each other. The effect is that there is someone sitting across from you, with only a foot between each others' knees. Therefore, you can't fold out your chair unless you are willing to get very cosy with the person across from you. The only sense that I can make of the situation is if they only sold 3 of the 6 seats in the cabin, then everyone would get 2 chairs to make a bed. But this train sold all of the seats, so I was left wishing I could sit in coach and actually get some sleep.

But all wasn't miserable. I met 4 interesting German students, who were in the cabin with me for a portion of the trip. They had to leave around midnight because they sat in the wrong cabin, hoping they could sit together instead of apart. I did get to talk to them for a few hours about many things, mainly the differences between Germany and America. They only have to pay 300€ per semester for college! Everyone. They say the schools are mainly state funded.

I think that of all the different food I have tried in Europe, Spanish food has been the most mundane. Nothing about it really stands out to me. They are most famous for tapas and paellas. The tapas and paellas that I tried were good, some were amazing, but there wasn't really anything I couldn't get anywhere else fairly easily.

If I were a religious man...

...I would think I met an angel on Friday.

Getting on the metro in Barcelona. 12:30 am and I am very tired. After a long train ride from Lyon, including a nice jog at one station transfer, I was finally in Barcelona, and hoping that my hostel had not given up my reservation due to my tardiness. There were not many people on the platform. I was rushing onto the train with Oyka (explanation forthcoming) when in my peripheral vision I see someone else rushing to the train. I don't remember much about him, except that he was dressed in a trendy way.

I was clearly in front, but am used to people in Europe pushing their way onto metro trains, so I braced for the impact on my right side, because I had 3 bags on my shoulder while pulling another on wheels, so I was very top heavy. The impact, however, never came. A strange feeling instead. I looked behind me when I was safely on the train to see that the guy had not boarded. He had turned around and was walking away from the train, looking over his shoulder repeatedly. Over the next, say 3 milliseconds, several things clicked into place and I realized, as the metro doors slammed shut, that my wallet was no longer in my right thigh pocket. What a chill and what a shudder crept up my spine as I watched him walk away and I was whisked away by the train. At this point, were I alone, I would have been in a serious pickle. Except there was Oyka. Flashback: Lyon.

Sad day. It's rainy and summer school is over. I woke up at 6 to say goodbye to Veronica, as she was heading back to America. I was a little excited about my upcoming days alone in Barcelona, but mostly depressed because my six weeks in Lyon were already over and I would not see most of my new freinds for at least a very long time. I was also sick with a cough and stuffy nose. So needless to say, as the taxi arrived to take me to the train station, I was not in a great mood.

But I love travelling by train, so by the time my train left for Montpellier, I was in better spirits. I had my ipod, and a new book, "Brave New World". I would talk about that book, but it would take a whole 'nother post. So I arrived in Montpellier in relatively good spirits. That was until I saw that the 1pm train to Port Bou was full. There was, however, another train that I could take that was leaving at 5pm. There was a problem though, the late train to Port Bou would mean I would miss the connecting train to Barcelona, but one problem at a time. So I settled down for what I thought was going to be a long and boring wait.

As I was sitting there, wrapped in thought about something, maybe coke icees, I was interrupted by a foreign sounding girl, asking if I would watch her bags for a second. When she got back we started talking and discovered we were both going to Barcelona and, since the train situation was so uncertain, that we should stick together. We are very different, her and I. She is the type of person you see in a movie, the sort of free woman kind of drifting from city to city, wherever suits her fancy. She was going to Barcelona because someone told her it was a very fun place, so she said 'okay, I will go there.' Me, I am not so wistful, and was surprised by her complete lack of a plan. On top of that, being from Turkey, she didn't speak any European languages, so she survived with pretty good English. I have had some instruction in French and Spanish, so I could piece sentences together occasionally. The point being, as I ramble, that we were an unlikely traveling pair, but that just made things interesting.

The train to Port Bou, strictly adhering to my bad luck, was late by over an hour. When it finally arrived we had given up hope of getting a connecting train to Barcelona and would try our luck in finding a hostel, or empty bench, in Port Bou. When we arrived in Port Bou our luck changed. The connecting train had waited just long enough for us, but we had to sprint in order to catch it. So now we were on our way to Barcelona, with only the slight problem of finding a place to sleep so late at night, but we had every confidence in our scrounging ability.

Cut to me, standing in a moment of agonizing stillness and realization.

So he got my wallet. I couldn't think, breathe or move. I can't imagine what would have happened to me, laden with all of my luggage, in a hostel environment. But Oyka reassured me that we would go to the police station at the next stop. So we had a plan, and my brain unfroze and, with the ability to think again, I could not stop thinking about how I could be such an idiot, such a dumb, American tourist with his wallet in an easy pocket and a million bags on my shoulders. More on this later.

At the police station, things became much more optimistic. The police officer showed me the phone that would connect to my credit card company (you would not believe how many times this happens every hour, he told me) and I could call toll free and cancel my credit and debit cards. That being done, the pick-pocketeer only really got 20€ in cash off me, nothing else. Just leaving me in an incredibly difficult situation. Thus the importance of my travelling buddy. We found a good hostel and got into an 8 person room for 3 nights. Since hostels require payment upon reservation, Oyka, with no complaint, paid for the 2 beds like she was loaning me a pencil. We are talking about 75€, a great amount of money to someone like Oyka or I, handed over like a chewed pencil because I was lucky enough to stumble upon her in Montpellier. I understand that its common to feel sympathy for someone in a bad situation, but to go and loan a complete stranger, in a foreign land no less, enough money to stay in a hostel is magnanimous beyond my comprehension. Two days later, just like that, she is off to another European city.

So, after a couple of western union transfers, I am back on my feet again and enjoying Barcelona. The beaches are wonderful and European sunscreen, you would not believe how much better it is than American. Veronica will vouch for that :) It doesn't leave you feeling all sticky and gross, and it smells quite pleasant. Not to mention it is extremely effective, I was out in the sun for at least 4 hours each of two days and with only one or two applications, I have no sunburns. I wish they made it like that in America.

The incident on the subway shook me deeply. I'm not talking about losing the wallet, everything was replaceable for the most part. I'm bothered that I allowed myself to be in that situation. And I'm bothered by my initial reaction. You don't learn much about yourself until you are put into an extreme situation, because self analysis in mundane situations is impossible. It is too easy to blame things on circumstances, and to make assumptions about yourself that are too kind. I have had several opportunities now in the last ~8 months that were very conducive to self analysis. The pickpocket being the most recent, obviously. I froze and I was scared. I started kicking myself instead of immediately and methodically thinking about my next move. I'm not remotely confident that, were I alone, I would have thought to go to the police immediately. I allowed myself to be marooned in a foreign city, with too much luggage, no money and no place to go. Sure you can say that I am relatively new to traveling alone and had no way of knowing how to avoid getting pick pocketed, but that is not a good excuse. Especially if you are in a place at night that is unfriendly to people that speak English. It scares me that I can make that grievous of a mistake.

I made another mistake. Anyone familiar with the Lianne debacle knows how that affected me. The details do not belong here, suffice it to say that I discovered that I had surrounded myself with a group of people, people I respected in the highest and considered my closest friends. It took one month for me to realize that this group of young people like me did not care in the least about me or my feelings. Were not really my friends at all. Two years of relationships were wasted. I was left seriously doubting my abilities to judge a person's character. The point of this anecdote is not to rant on my situation last winter, but to underline the self doubt that I faced then, and to relate it to a similar feeling I am facing again now.

Of course it is important to have one's assumptions and even arrogance checked every once in a while. But how does one balance confidence and self doubt in a situation like this? How can I have any confidence in my abilities to prevent or react intelligently to a different kind of obstacle? Should I accidentally hit someone with my car or if zombies started taking over the planet. How would I react? We imagine scenarios in which we react in a way that we would like to think we would react. Heroically, selflessly and magnificently. But the reality is usually not heroic. If you gave me the scenario a week ago: Someone just stole your wallet. I would have at least thought that I would not panic. I might have even imagined myself chasing the culprit down, and saving a baby carriage rolling down the stairs in the process. And maybe I would have been fine on my own. I can only say for sure that it was stupid to have a wallet (with everything in it, in that easy pocket.)

As far as the zombie scenario, I've seen enough zombie movies and contemplated them enough that I might have a whole blog post's worth of material on the subject of how I would react. Maybe on a dull day I will explore that subject.

Back in the Saddle

Magic Fountain in Barcelona, for about 2 hours an amazing show is put on with many colors to the sound of classical music.

So I'm in Barcelona now, but a lot has happened since I was in Paris. I went to Venice and Milan last weekend (9 days ago) with Veronica and that was a great trip. Our main goal for that trip was to eat great food, and we succeeded entirely. There were a few sights to see in Milan, but it was mainly a quiet city from what we saw. The hotels were cheap and the people were entirely friendly...

Venice was the exact opposite. Everyone that worked in Venice in any sort of customer service position, from our experience, were entirely rude and terrible at their jobs. It was obvious that American's are not welcome there, even though we are practically throwing money at them. But I'm sure they understand that service is not required, because people will come anyway.

We came anyway, and the city is breathtaking. If there was ever a city to get lost in while walking, it's Venice. I must have walked at least 10 miles over the 3 days I was there. So many gelato shops and little cafes to stop at. I didn't spend any money on sights or attractions, all of it went into food, and it was a great investment. I think trophi pasta with pesto sauce was my favorite experiment.

The Beach! In order to get to any of the other islands you have to take Venice's equivalent of a metro system, the metro boats. It is about a 45 minute ride to Lido, the beach island, and riding over the waves like that was almost as fun as the beach itself. The sand was the perfect consistency for sand castles and the water was perfect. Everything was perfect actually.

For all of you Indiana Jones fans, we went and saw the church that was used in 'The Last Crusade' because we are both I.J. fans. It was kind of depressing when we found it tucked away in a small corner. We later found out that the image of the church was cropped into a coastal view on the edge of Venice in the movie. But it was still cool to see, kind of like a pilgrimage in the name of our Ford, Harrison Ford that is. But seriously, I never saw the 4th one and don't plan on it.

Well I have to change hostel rooms now so I will relate the harrowing Barcelona tale at another time, as it is almost time for me to go to the beach.

So Paris was Paris

Keeping up my tradition of starting with a picture:

This is a view from the top of the hill in Montemarte, looking out over Paris at night. I would love to take credit for meaning to take this picture, but it just sort of happened as I was fiddling with the manual settings.

Phil went home to Michigan, so it was Veronica and I in Paris this weekend. We caught the 7am train from Lyon on Friday morning so we could have most of the day. I would say we were just about as "touristy" as we could have been in our selection of places to go, but that is to be expected in a place like Paris. The first thing we did, after dropping off our bags at the hotel, was go out to Versailles. The reason being our rail passes. If you don't already know, you can buy a rail pass very cheaply in Europe. The way it works is you buy days of travel. I got 8 travel days in France, Italy and Spain for under 400$. Those 8 train tickets would have easily cost me 1200$. And you can travel as far as you want in one day, even if it means multiple trains, and just use one day on your pass. So we went to Versailles on Friday because it would be free, since we were already traveling from Lyon, get it? So we got back to the hotel around 3 and decided to rest a little before we went to the Louvre, around 7, with 3 hours before it closed. We got lost in there. But that's a good thing at the Louvre. It is a magical place and probably my favorite part of my Paris trip. I became a fan of Horace Vernet and his seascapes. I don't think I've ever been able to walk around a museum for 3 hours and not feel like collapsing. We slept well Friday night.

Saturday was a day of walking. I can still feel it in my legs. We started with the Eiffel tower. That took about 3 hours to get to the top. All I can say is wow, what a view. Not much else to say about that. We then walked to the Cathedral at Notre Dame . I felt kind of trapped on Saturday because these are things you "have" to do in Paris, but they're just sights to me. Maybe I was just tired from walking and not in a mood to enjoy it. Then things picked up when we went to dinner. There are many great restaraunts around Notre Dame, so I guess it's the competition that drives the prices down. Our meal was only 12 Euros each, thats very cheap. I got Tzatziki followed by stuffed sweet pepper with rice and potatoe. I think I almost fainted from the deliciousness:

It doesn't look quite as delicious as it was. But the important thin is that you remember the restaurant Meteora if you go to Paris. There was also live music with a guy playing a bluesy guitar that I very much enjoyed.

Sunday we started with the Arc du Triomphe. The might have been more fun that the Eiffel Tower, just might. Then we slowly made our way through the Champs Elysees and the Tuileries where we ended up back at the Louvre around 6ish. There is a fun little fair next to the Louvre and we went on the ferris wheel and felt like we were back in America at the State Fair for a few minutes. By Sunday night we were tired of walking, that's when we decided to see "The Hangover". You might be wondering why we didn't leave Paris on Sunday. One unforunate thing about the rail passes is that you have to get a reservation for most big trains and there are a limited number. When we went to the train station 2 weeks before we found out that there were no available reservations for Sunday trains so we had to go back Monday. The only problem with that was that we had an 8:30am ChemE lab on Monday. That meant we had to take the 5:50am train to Lyon. That was not fun.

Besides having to wake early to go to and leave from Paris, I thouroughly enjoyed my visit there and all of the sights. It was nice to have a more low key weekend after the previous weekend in Amsterdam. Now I hope my leg muscles will recover before I leave for Italy on Wednesday.

"Hangover" First Impressions (Spoiler Alert)

I would like to take a second here to collect my thoughts on the movie "The Hangover". The poster is seen here in a metro station, they (The French) call it "Very Bad Trip"

Disclaimer: Don't be offended by my opinions.

Explanation: I haven't formed my opinion about this movie to a certainty, I am going to try to write my thoughts as they happen and am interested to see what comes out the other end.



I went and saw "The Hangover" yesterday and I am having trouble collecting my thoughts. I have to take time and sift through my numerous impressions so that I do not jump to any quick conclusions. Reminder, the buildup to this movie was incredible. It was hyped as the next great comedy in a growing line: "Dodgeball", "Anchorman", "Wedding Crashers", "Knocked up", Superbad, and "I Love You Man" are some of the movies that come to my mind immediately. The point being, this movie had big expectations, and that is important to how we view it coming into seeing it.

Things I liked or disliked about the movie:

The main characters (Like). Specifically Ed Helms and Zack Galifianakis. The four friends had great chemistry together. I thought that they carried the movie with great comedic acting and timing. It was the variety in relationships between them that did it for me. You had the 3 buddies in Phil, Stu and Doug. One thing that bothered me was the close similarity between these characters and the 3 main characters from "Old School", which I later found out was directed by the same guy. And then there was Alan, Doug's future brother-in-law who slowly assimilated into the group. The methods Alan employed to gain both Phil's and Stu's respect were hilarious, including attempting to give them ecstasy and singing a song about their "never ending friendship".

The Writing (Like). The main goal of the writers, based on the advertised pretense of the story, was to take the audience on a mysterious thrill ride through a crazy bachelor party by exploring the aftermath. I think the writers chose excellent "indicators" of a wild bachelor party in Vegas. By this I mean the Tiger in the bathroom, the baby in the closet , the valet ticket that brought a police car around instead of the expected Mercedes and, my favorite, Stu missing a tooth. All of there are, to my knowledge, very origional outcomes from a crazy party.

Female Characters and Conflict (Dislike). One thing that I missed from this movie was any likeable female character. None of the women in this movie contributed anything really. A great part of any guy movie (this is a guy movie obviously) is the comical situations the hero gets into while trying to woo a hard to get girl or win back an angry girlfriend. Doug's future wife had no problem with him being late to the wedding after a crazy night in Vegas and was won over without a fight. The stripper, a character that could have been used to really twist things up for Stu, ended up just handing him the priceless ring that he gave her at a drunken wedding, and agreeing to a date the next weekend. It seemed like everytime these guys got into a sticky situation, they got out with no problem at all and that didn't sit well with me.

Supporting Characters (Dislike). The supporting characters in this movie killed it for me, literally. There was a point where I couldn't decide between the awesome main characters and the lackluster conlict, and these characters swung the door shut on me liking this movie. And there was such great potential. The scenes with the police officer, the asian highroller and the stripper were very silly. The supporting characters didn't add any comedy and, more specifically, the scenes with the asian highroller were just uncomfortable. I blame the problem on the casting of recently popular actors. Ken Jeong is riding a wave of simi-popularity since "Role Models" and "Knocked Up" and Rob Riggle is well known from the "Daily Show". Both of these guys were not suited for their roles and I think this movie could have been much, much better with some qualified character actors filling these roles.

I guess I was disappointed with "The Hangover". It will however, be the source of many funny quotes. Thanks to everyone who stuck through my first critical look at a movie. I'm sure it was disjointed and muddled at times, but I have to start somewhere. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes "The Office" or Zack G's standup. I would say I was entertained by the movie for sure, but I wouldn't rank it above any of the Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrel or Seth Rogan movies of the past 5-6 years. I would also like to say that I am very excited about the beginning of Ed Helm's film career, I think this one was a great start for him, better than any of the other office characters got: Dwight: "The Rocker" ; Jim: "Leatherheads" ; Pam "Blades of Glory"

Amsterdam part deux

I'm not sure what this car is. The symbol on the hood looks like a gecko. It's definitely one of the coolest cars that I have come across.

This was my first time in Amsterdam, I didn't really know anything about it before I went. This was the only weekend trip that I didn't have planned and when it turned out that I couldn't go to London, Phil told me to come to Amsterdam with him. It turned out to be a great trip.

The city has amazing scenery and big canals, I could have wandered around for days. Sadly, I only really had Saturday to wander. We saw the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museam. We were going to tour the Heineken brewery and get the "Heineken Experience" that we had been told was pretty cool, but it closed before we could go.

All in all, I loved Amsterdam because it is such a large city, but at the same time has the atmosphere of a quiet village. Except for the red light district of course, which was an interesting experience to say the least. Lots of crazy sights to see there.

I am very much looking forward to this weekend, when I will be in Paris. We (Veronica and I) will be taking the 7 am train on Friday and (because of booking issues) the 5:45am train back on Monday. We are leaving early on Monday in order to make an 8:30 Lab since there were absolutely no available trains on Sunday.

So, this means that I will get essentially 3 full days and nights in Paris! I can't wait.