On our way home from Europe, we ended up with an overnight layover in Dublin, Ireland. Originally, we’d been planning to come straight home (with 1 hour layover), but flight times changed and we had to redo our flights with a much longer layover. However, I’d always wanted to go to Ireland, so aside from the extra expense of hotel, I was pleased.  We got to Munich airport 2 hours early, which was fortunate because we ran into a snag during check-in which was that they couldn’t figure out how we’d gotten into Europe with no passport stamp – oops, I guess the missing customs agent in Iceland was not normal procedure!  Fortunately, we still had our old tickets and they were able to straighten that out in about 20 minutes.

Going through security, we were told we didn’t need to take off our shoes, which was a relief, but otherwise it was pretty similar to American security.  Because we were going to another European Union country, customs was simple and quick.  Our flight took off late, so yay for extra time in the airplane. The captain tried to make up for lost time, but we still came in a little late, not deplaning until almost 10:30pm.  We were assured we didn’t need to worry about our bags, but we decided to check baggage anyhow and found both of our bags dropped off, rather wet.  We asked one of the bag people about them and he assured us they would be transferred and suggested we file a report if we were worried about water damage, but quite nicely said we probably wouldn’t have much luck.

So we headed outside and caught a taxi.  It was delightful to have an English-speaking taxi driver with an Irish accident, even an overly loquacious one. Continue reading “Travelog: Coming Home”

OK, I’m getting sick of trains. This is our third inter-city train and, though it is much more comfortable than a bus, is still a long time in a confined space, one with a dining car that I cannot partake of (only meat fare available).  However, I have my video games to entertain me, so I am pretty well distracted. I should have napped, but by the time I thought to, it was too close to our arrival for me to risk it (Irina was off in the dining car and I was paranoid about missing our stop and ending up in some other country). When we arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof, I was exhausted and famished, but could only find fruit to eat at the train station (little did I know that Max Pett was nearby – Irina’s smartphone wasn’t working at the time).

We took a taxi to Steffi’s house where we were staying, which turned out to be a huge apartment complex a ways off from downtown where our taxi driver nearly got lost and had to drive onto the curb to avoid incoming cars.  We found her unit finally and she came down to help us with our bags, which was key as she was on the 6th floor with no elevator.

Finally, we were there, at my friend’s place, which was, in a way, the point of the trip – I had really wanted to come visit Steffi in her hometown (I had visited her in London twice, where she lived in tiny flats) – she’d been inviting me to visit Germany for a decade. Continue reading “Travelog: Munich”

After a taxing morning, getting up “early” after a late night and travelling by overcrowded train, we were looking forward to some relaxation time.  We arrived in Berlin around 2pm and this taxi driver didn’t know much English either (like in Leipzig), but he knew enough to point out the Berlin wall as we traveled past it to our hotel on the Spree River, a stone’s throw from Checkpoint Charlie in East Berlin.  Irina and I were already excited about this hotel from the pictures we’d seen online and we were not disappointed!

The entrance to our hotel had a really great piece of Berlin Wall art.  Inside, the lobby was quite large, with a pile of electric guitars on one side and the lounge beyond with pink shapes in the air and weird chairs (I didn’t get any pictures of that, but you can see plenty on the nhow berlin website).  The staff were all wearing pink and black (the men with pink ties, the ladies with pink flowers in hair) and quite helpful.  I later discovered they had a video game room and an “office” where I was able to book and print my train tickets to Munich on Friday. When we got into our room, we were similarly impressed: it was quite large, with plenty of room for our bags by the door, a golden couch, chaise lounge, electric piano, room separator/large TV, giant bathroom with large bath area and separate shower room, as well as a full closet and a second half-bathroom(!!!).  The hotel also had a nice gym which we used once and 3 different types of saunas, as well as an art gallery (and nice touches like artistic elevator ceilings, see left-side of this paragraph). Continue reading “Travelog: Berlin”

After a poor night’s sleep in Amsterdam, we had a rough time getting up at early to catch our train. I won’t go into all the boring details about the trains, but it was our first time and we had to get on 3 of them, so there was a substantial amount of confusion.  Irina mostly slept and I mostly played video games on my 3DS, when we weren’t being kicked out of our seats or scrambling with our luggage to transfer trains.  We also saw some of the beautiful Netherlands and German country side as we passed through.

After 7+ hours in transit, we finally made it to Leipzig (about 1 hr west of Berlin) a little after 4pm (train station pic).  I’d eaten nothing  but some snack bars all day (I think Irina had a sandwich from the dining car) and I was starting to get cranky.  We got our luggage outside, then realized we were on the wrong side for taxis.  When we found the taxi stand, we were a little surprised that our taxi driver spoke no English (we just showed address). Clearly, this was not Amsterdam.  It was about a 20 minute ride to our hotel, which we later discovered was < 2 miles, so our driver definitely took us for a ride. Anyways, we got in, checked in and got into our absolutely gorgeous room at the Radisson Blu and I was admiring the magnificent view down on the square, when Irina started complaining about the shower, which had glass walls and pouted -I hate this place-.  I had to turn away, breathing fire into the trash bin.  Obviously, we were both a bit run down from all the travelling and adventuring. Continue reading “Travelog: Leipzig”

It all began with Bjork.  The songs were newer, perhaps from Biophilia, weird and soothing, dissipating my deep-seated tension from all the trip-planning, packing and airport obstacle course. We were on Icelandic Air, en route to Reykjavik for our transfer to Amsterdam.  The attendants (and some passengers) looked typically Icelandic, all blond, round-faced friendliness – I kept having the sense that my Icelandic friend Baldur was just around the corner.

We deplaned and walked through the elegant woodwork of the Reykjavik airport, and Irina derided the tourist ads in the corridors – come visit dreary Iceland, yeah right – but it seemed fantastical to me, the kind of place where Selkies might actually exist.  We kept an eye out for our aerials instructor, Leah, who was rumored to be somewhere in Iceland, but only saw strangers and adorable security personnel in short pants with checkered cuffs.

It was a small surprise that the customs area was empty and everyone breezed through with nary a passport stamp (little did we know), everyone was so cool and friendly there.  I almost didn’t mind being so sleep-deprived and famished.   We boarded the plane to Amsterdam and were delighted to discover we had emergency row seats with tons of extra leg room and no extra fee.  I still didn’t sleep, but the ride went by smoothly, with lots of melodic Icelandic announcements and their much shorter English translations. Continue reading “Travelog: Reykjavik & Amsterdam”

Occupy Valentine’s Day

She’s right on.  This holiday-as-meme is a slippery charlatan, slathering cheap wax onto “romance”, stepping spike-heeled and careless over those who can’t fit the heteronormative and disposable income model, and driving those who can into a frenzy of stressful shopping for the “necessary” luxuries and planning the “perfect” date.

Wait in line to dine, drink too much wine, desperately be mine.
Or just skip it, that’ll be fine.

Occupy VDay tumblr posts