A Bachelor's Tour of Amsterdam

After our very short lived return to Vienna recently, I went to work for a very busy day while Jon stayed home and readied us for the next leg of our own version of the Amazing Race. He madly did laundry, fluffed and folded, packed our bags with clothes and shoes, secured my laptop in the special zippered compartment in my roller suitcase. We settled in for a short night's sleep before we met not one but two taxis at 4:30am the next morning. While I understand Jon's concern that one might not show up on time, you might imagine the second taxi driver was not enthused that he was up at such an hour and without a client.  Nevertheless, we made it to the airport on time and I might add, for a far cheaper rate than the usual set rate. We boarded our flight, and ate our yummy sandwiches before touching down on the tarmac at Schilpol in Amsterdam. We managed to locate the train and even to buy tickets and get on going in the right direction, but we were surprised when our train, evidently an express, sailed through the station at which we wished to disembark without so much as even pretending to slow down. We were by this time on the clock: one of my abstracts had been accepted as a poster for the European Veterinary Conference and had to be on display by 10:30am that morning. It was already 9:50 by the time we stepped off the express at the next station, where after 15 minutes we were able to get on a train that would not only pass our destination, but actually stop there. We walked from the station to the conference center, where I successfully installed my poster at 10:27am.  Our next challenge was to get to our hotel.

As many of you know, I like to live and travel comfortably.  As my friend Jen once described it, "I am a hotel girl, not a motel girl." But, at the same time, I very much prefer to find a great deal that I can feel proud of.  Our trip to Amsterdam was no different.  We were travelling frugally, since we hadn't had time to budget for this trip. So I had Hotwired us a four star hotel in relative proximity to the conference center - and this time we had hit pay dirt. After a short, €10 cab ride to the modest exterior of the NH Musica, we were able to check in early. Our room was clean and comfortable, with a modern decor in neon green and a huge flat screen TV. The bathroom was luxurious in slate with a rain shower head. 

I changed my clothes and readied myself to head back to the conference, while Jon familiarized himself with the nearby public transport. He found me a bus about a block away from the hotel that would take me right to the conference center, and he began to plan his afternoon in Amsterdam.

While I spent the afternoon listening to lectures, Jon went to the Heinenkin brewery for a three hour self led tour, complete with a tasting and a canal cruise. 

He came back to the hotel with dinner from a local grocer, and we spoiled ourselves watching TV in English - Masterchef New Zealand!

The next day I again headed to my conference, excited to hear the morning's speaker, and Jon set out for the Torture Museum and Madam Toussaud's, where he caught up with George Clooney, of course. 

I had purchased Jon a bicycle tour of the famous Amsterdam coffee houses through Expedia, so Jon waited patiently at the tour's meeting point, though they never arrived.  So after a half hour, he decided to take himself on a tour of the coffee houses. He got quite lost on his back to the hotel after that, but he came back with yummy pizza for dinner and we called it a night after watching Christianne Amanpour.  

Now I know you are probably thinking I was a big travel dud on this trip, but in my defense, I had the flu the entire time, beginning with our last day in Porto. But the moral of the story is, it gave Jon free rein to explore Amsterdam. He visited the Red Light District Musuem, the House of Bols distillery, and the Dungeon. He diligently tried to see Anne Frank's house, at my recommendation, but spent more than an hour waiting in an unmoving line.  On our last day there, conference free, we went downtown to the Rijksmuseum, which had been closed for renovation on my first visit to Amsterdam in 2004. It was a beautiful spring day with Dutch tulips everywhere. We saw Blue Delft, Rembrandt, and everything in between before picnic-ing next to the pond bedecked with yet more potted tulips, as posted previously from the Rijksmuseum wifi:)

All in all, it was a successful trip despite my sickness and conference commitments, and between Jon and I, we can decisively make expert recommendations for any Amsterdam bound tourist!

Resurfacing...

Yes, I know, it has been an unforgivably long absence.  I do apologize, and I have reasons to offer you, dear reader.  But I think instead of using up precious time on reasons, you will understand when I begin to tell you where it is I have been all this time...
First there are all the recent travels:
We have been to Jaidhof to commemorate the opening of a beautiful equine physiotherapy center on a gorgeous Austrian Spring day, when we also strolled through Krems, and courtesy of a colleague of Jon's, took a short but scenic drive along the Danube with glimpses of the renowned Wachau Valley.
Next we flew to seaside Portugal, by way of Frankfurt, where we were caught unawares by an extended layover.  What better to do,then, than to hop the train into town and take a walk by the river before settling down at Roemerplatz for some cliche but delicious Frankfurters mit Sauerkraut and Hefeweizen. (My advice here: skip the Handkase mit Musik).  We saw the Roemer Dom, a beautiful church of St. Francis, and many fantastically quaint historic buildings, all in all making up a layover far exceeding even the best of airport accomodations.
Next up we connected into Porto, where our hotel was less than impressive but entirely adequate.  After sleeping in a bit we headed for the marina to meet the bride and groom and fellow wedding goers for a cruise of the Douro River on a perfect sunny day.  We were naive, at this point, not to realize what all was in store for us.  As we boarded the ship white port was waiting on ice as an aperitif, along with local delicacy appetizers of ham on specialty bread and a gorgeous spread of tropical fruit. After cruising for about an hour the sit down lunch commenced, with a wine tasting of three additional Portuguese wines, including the esteemed vinho verdi, and herbed pork with the best warm cabbage salad I have ever eaten.  Dessert was champagne to toast the happy couple and scrumptious chocolate cake.  Several of us then elected to walk back to the center of town, and cross the bridge to the Port Caves, where we experienced a delightful tour of Sandemann from Luis, in Portuguese no less, but with the added luxury of our personal translator and colleague friend, Paulo Steagall.  After sangria in the shade, we went in search of dinner, which for the seafood lovers was a baked salted codfish, called bacuahlao.  After another flight of wine tasting we were all done for, and we wandered back to the hotel for some very necessary beauty sleep.  The wedding was the following day, and after some sunshine at the pool midday, we readied ourselves for the marathon that was to come.  The wedding was lovely and the company was excellent - we all danced until 4am when bed began to call...  Sunday was a chance for us to see the countryside at a barbeque courtesy of the groom's family.  Naturally there was homemade wine and smoked sausage to try, as well as classic baked beans and a multitude of other dishes.  Our last day in Porto was relaxed; Jon took on the duty of tourguide and did a great job by the lot of us. We ate Francesihna at the Majestic Cafe, walked to the Lello Bookstore to see Harry Potter's staircase, saw the sea, and rode the streetcar. We wandered the gardens of the Cristal Palais, strolled and photgraphed our way through downtown, and sampled the local shrimp and bread stew.

The next day we headed back to Vienna with yet another stopover, this time in my old haunting ground of Brussels, Belgium.  Jon of course had never been, so we hopped the bus and found our way to the city center, where we got Jon a Belgian waffle with caramel sauce from a street vendor to tide him over until our imminent arrival in Le Grand Place.  As always when walking to the Grand Place, he was taken aback by the narrow winding streets that prevent any glimpse of the majestic square until suddenly you are smack dab in the middle of a postcard scene.  We found a sidewalk eatery and ordered the must have, carbonade flamande with pomme frittes (they are Belgian, after all, not French!) and a round of Leffe beers (my alltime favorite).  Back at the airport after lunching, strolling, and photographing, we still had time to buy the best chocolate in the world, a box of Neuhaus truffles.

We made it back to our cozy flat in Vienna that night and slept like logs, because we knew the adventure was still in full swing!
In the interest of length and mystery, I think I will leave this as a bit of a cliffhanger and postpone the rest of the recent travel stories and exciting news for another day...

Dutch flower bulbs

2 Fat Girls on a Volcano Top 100 Things to See/Do Before You Die:

1. South Rim of the Grand Canyon

2. Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion

3. Walk up Monmarte and watch the sun set over Paris from the steps of Le Sacre Cour

4. Hagia Sofia of Istanbul

5. Walking tour of the Coliseum

6. The Scarab beetle ceiling, King's Palace, Brussels, Belgium

7. St. Paul's Dome at night, as seen from the Millenium footbridge, London

8. Albuquerque Balloon Festival

9. Anne Frank's House, Amsterdam

10. General Post Office, Dublin, Ireland

11. Wander through Venice on foot

12. Have tapas on the waterfront in Barcelona

13. Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest

14. Viennese New Year's Eve Concert

15. Mirabel Gardens, Salzburg, Austria

16. National Finals Rodeo, Las Vegas

17. Leed's Castle, England

18. The Greek Amphitheater ruins of Taormina, Sicily

19. Stay overnight in the monastery of Assisi

20. Cruise the Seine on a summer day

21. Live Theatre in London's West End

22. The Library at Ephesus

23. The Kentucky Derby

24. Sunset tour of the canals of Venice

25. Windjammer Days, Boothbay Harbor, Maine

26. Try Limoncello in Capri

27. Walk up the Acropolis to the Parthenon

28. Throw a coin in the Fountain of Trevi

29. Eat chocolate dipped Belgian waffles in Le Gran Place, Brussels

30. Dromoland Castle, Ireland

31. The Musee D'Orsay, Paris

32. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

33. Valletta, Malta

34. Marsala salt mills, Italy

35. La Familia Sagrada, Barcelona

36. U.S.S. Constitution in Boston Harbor

37. Punting on the Cam, Cambridge, England

38. The Leaning Tower of Pisa

39. The Black Fort, Inishmore, Ireland

40. Michelangelo's David, The Uffizi, Florence, Italy

41. Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

42. Empire State Building, New York City

43. Cloud Gate, Millenium Park, Chicago

44. Napa Valley, California

45. Sydney Opera House

46. White Cliffs of Dover

47. Alaska's Inside Passage

48. Niagara Falls, Canada

49. Mount Haleakala, Hawaii

50. The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

51. The Pantheon, Rome

52. The Golden Gate Bridge

53. Barossa Valley, Australia

54. The rust colored sails of the Hooker boats, the Claddagh, Galway, Ireland

55. The Cliffs of Moher

56. Notre Dame, Paris

57. Schoenbrunn, Vienna

58. The Burren, Ireland (closer then the moon, same landscape)

59. The Maasai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya

60. The Space Needle, Seattle

61. Yellowstone National Park

62. The Tribune Building, Chicago

63. The Statue of Liberty, New York City

64. The Olympic Stadium, Athens, Greece

65. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Nursery, Nairobi, Kenya

66. Big Ben

67. The Vienna Christmasmarkt at Rathausplatz

68. Melk Abbey

69. Jackson Pollock at the Peggy Gugenheim, Venice

70. The Eiffel Tower at night

71. Palazzo Ducale, Venice

72. Amalfi Coast

73. The Karen Blixen House

74. Leopold II summer palace, Tervuren, Belgium

75. Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

76. Pike Place Market, Seattle

77. The Lipizzans performing at the Imperial Hofburg Palace, Vienna

78. The Salza River, Salzburg

79. The Belvedere, Vienna

80. Tuscany, Italy

81. Charleston, South Carolina

82. San Diego Zoo, California

83. The monuments of Washington, D.C.

84. The horse tetrad inside the second floor of Basilica San Marco, Venice

85. Savannah, Georgia

86. Newport, Rhode Island

87. Pompeii

88. Toronto, Ontario, Canada

89. Steel drum music in the Bahamas

90. The Summer Music Concert on the island in the Danube, Vienna

91. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

92. Fanuiel Hall, Boston

93. Independence Hall, Philadelphia

94. Frank Llyod Wright's Monona Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin

95. Leuven, Belgium

96. Stefansdom, Vienna

97. Vancouver, British Columbia

98. St. Augustine, Florida

99. Bruges, Belgium

100. Mt. Etna, Italy

Wanderlust Melting Pot

As I muse, I sit immersed in a Viennese bathtub full of bubbles, drinking a full bodied Spanish red wine from a glass acquired at a boutique Virginia winery. I am reading an Italian memoir; Tuscan to be precise. My iPhone is belting out Edith Piaf from iTunes Radio, and my very American husband pops his head in the bathroom to ask if I need a top up on the wine. I tell him thanks but no, that he should finish the bottle if he likes.

And it strikes me, how there is so much to see but yet sometimes the layers of experience layer over one another, like Mille foile or a gauzy dress that you can almost see through.  We have just booked our trip to Portugal for our friend, Jules' wedding. And I have been looking forward to having some time to plan our spare time during that trip. So far we have arrived only at the fact that our five and a half hour layover in Brussels gives us time to catch the train and lunch at Le Gran Place. Jon has never been, and I hope to have a moment to stop at Neuhaus, my favorite chocolatier in the world.

To this day my dear Swiss friend, Silvia, and I argue over who has the best chocolate.

But I find myself contemplating the adventure of house shopping in Tuscany, even though we are still furnishing our apartment here in Vienna, as well as making mortgage payments on our house in Charleston, SC.

According to my TripAdvisor profile the other day, I have only seen 12% of the world. How can that be possible? I have been to 4 continents! How will I ever see everything I want to see, and have the career of my dreams as well as a wonderful and happy marriage? I need more lives, like a cat!

And oddly, at the same time, I think of all the places I have listened to Edith Piaf, and the crazy On The Globus Go adventures mom and I had in Italy, and it seems like I have already lived lifetimes.

Jon and I met this darling couple on our safari in Kenya. They were retired and traveling the world boldly. They had seen a lot, been places we haven't, and yet they were so excited for all we had seen and done, for our exciting lifestyle of adventure.

It is something I have to remind myself of, rather often, because like anything, it is easy to get bogged down I how hard the day to day is. But I believe it is like that anywhere, so I hope to enjoy everything this opportunity has to offer, and to try to ignore the difficult days. 

For example, I found out last week that my PhD, in Holland, will be largely based in Bioengineering. I have no experience or training in Engineering, but those who knew my dad are laughing with him about this!

So for now, we will try to keep living the dream, for as long as it lasts. And we will try our best to chuckle at the many, many bumps in the road.

And so the New Year Begins...

Here it is another year, and the Twitter feed is full of people asking what travel destinations, bucket list items, and new year resolutions everyone has planned. All that is well and good, but what about enjoying the season?  I know there is a lot going on, but everyone seems so rushed to move on. What happens to all those great moments we spent, celebrating the Christmas spirit and ushering in the New Year? Do they just get lost in a sea of checking items off a list? Isn't the point of having memories being able to pause, look back, and reflect on those special moments?

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of travel destinations in mind myself for this brand spanking new year.  We will head to Portugal for the wedding of two dear friends, and we are planning to head back to the US to visit Jon's family in December.  No doubt there will be many more trips throughout the year: I have my heart set on showing Jon some of Italy, and we are dying to visit Prague.  Skiing would be fun as well, since we are in Austria and all. 

But I think it is important to fully take the time to cherish these moments we experience in life. For example, last night my mother, my husband and I made our way through a misty evening in downtown Vienna to the dramatically lit Palais Auersperg. We were ushered into a vaulted oval performance hall lined with rose marble walls and exquisite crystal chandeliers, where we listened to an orchestra featuring a famous antique violin known for appearances at the esteemed Viennese Philharmonic Silvester.  At Intermission we sipped champagne and strolled among the oil paintings on display, undaunted under lavish chandeliers. 

The performance featured an opera duo as well as a ballet duo, and Jon was really enthralled by the opera pieces. At the end of the evening, there was a last piece that featured the opera singers, who had been singing in Italian. This last song was fast and in German, and involved champagne toasts, but I think it was an Austrian tradition, kind of like their version of Auld Ange Syne.  

We headed home to check on our nervous yellow dog and were met by a constant barrage of fireworks. They were everywhere, flickering against the night clouds, sounds exploding all around.  As midnight came and went, people set so many store bought Roman candles off from the street that we could see them just sitting in our 2nd floor living room with the blinds open.  We popped some tiny bubbly bottles that Santa had left in our Christmas stockings and rang in the new year watching the crazy fireworks with Castle on in the background.  For New Year's Day we have tickets to a hockey game near the house, and we are starting our own tradition of New Year's shrimp cocktail and split pea soup with ham. 

This holiday season has been fun, but I think next year we will make some New Year's plans to be out of the city.  The trains apparently don't run, so you have to leave early or drive yourself. And as I much as I enjoy fireworks, I think last night we all felt like it was a WWII reenactment.

Ye Olde Viennese Christmas

 After what has begun to seem like a long stretch of months, my husband and I are becoming accustomed to feeling a bit different from everyone around us.  I don't mean that in an awkward way, but in the sense of being foreign.  And though we are starting to understand more and more of the intricacies present in Austrian life, we do not yet identify with all of them, or even most of them, for that matter.  We have enjoyed experiencing a new culture; it has certainly been an adventure, one that we are excited to continue.  But on occasion, such as during the holidays, we get  a tiny bit homesick, as do I imagine a good number of people.

 But, in a fortunate 'Christmas Miracle' sort of way, we are hosting my mother for this Christmas and New Year's in Vienna.  So the three of us are exploring an old fashioned European Chirstmas.  While sadly we have no snow on the ground, the beauty of the Christmasmarkts remains unparalleled.  Above you can see the tree and the lights at the Rathausplatz Christmasmarkt, our second stop on the Vienna Amazing Christmas Race.  Our first visit, on Saturday, was to the Schoenbrunn Christmasmarkt.  Nestled in front of the Versailles style palace in an large oval, wooden booths neighbored one another so closely as to form a sort of a wall.  In the center of the oval were several small, umbrella style pavilions, housing outdoor heaters, as well as food and drink booths.  We looked at the traditional Christmas wares sold at the first dozen or so booths before we were cold enough to require gluehwein, the Austrian mulled wine ubiqutious at outdoor winter events.  We bought it at the food stand, where it was being offered in commemorative mugs.  We then ventured closer to the heart of the markt, where a huge tree stood, alit with Christmas lights, in front of a small stage.  The front of the stage was a huge glass case, displaying an exquisitely detailed nativity scene, complete with a bejewelled elephant at the birth of Christ.
For lunch we each sampled something different, as Mom had a chocolate waffle, Jonathan some nockeln (noodles) with cheese, and I had what was advertised as the best wurst (sausage) in town.  The sausage was indeed excellent, and was housed in a cheesy pastry that really sealed the deal.  We ate huddled along the standing counter space next to the heater, trying to stay warm.  As we ate, a jazz ensemble played Christmas music from the adjacent, small stage by the nativity.  Jon was so thrilled with his cheesy noodles that I eventually commented, "I guess you can take the boy out of Wisconsin, but you can't take the cheese out of the Wisconsinite."
And before we knew it, the couple that had been standing by us for a while jumped in and asked Jon about Wisconsin.  As it turns out, the guy was from Wisconsin, and we spent the rest of the afternoon listening to more live Christmas music, sampling the different punschen (punches), and chatting with the Americans. 
The favorite was definitely the Baileyspunsch, no surprise there, and mom loved the a capella choir that performed after the jazz ensemble.  She also found some ornaments she liked, cutout paper scenes, but they seemed quite pricey so we vowed to look again Sunday at the next markt.  When the heater and the punsch could no longer keep us warm, we headed home and snuggled up in front of the movie The Holiday with potato corn chowder.  We each took turns dosing on the couch or in the man chair while we watched, and before long we called it a night.
The next morning we had a late breakfast and planned our second day of Christmasmarkt discoveries.  We started at Rathausplatz, which was amazingly beautiful.  Mom bought some funny Austrian Christmas people ornaments to take home as gifts, and we again were forced to have some gluehwein to stave off the chill.  For lunch we had soup in breadbowls, eating gulash and beer and bread soup beneath the gigantic Christmas tree.  After making our way through all the booths at Rathausplatz, we forged ahead to what was described by a few of my colleagues as more authentic of a Christmasmarkt, the Freyung.  This markt was small, and right out of an old Christmas story.  You half expected Scrooge to show up.  It was tiny by comparison to theRathausmarkt, with not more than 50 booths pressed close to one another to shoulder out the cold wind.  The ever present gluehwein and punsch were available, and of course Jon's favorite store was the cold meat counter, where endless salamis dangled above all kinds of other cuts of meat.  High above them all, perched on the top of the meat booth, was the markt's Christmas tree, shining with lights.  Mom bought a chocolate that looked like a whoopie pie, but later she said it was marzipan. 
The cold was closing in on us again, so we pressed on toward our goal: Christmas lights at the Graben.  To get there we of course had to pass through yet another, tiny local Christmasmarkt which was also very cute.  By then the lights had started, large cylinders of Christmas lights hanging far above us in the streets.  We followed them to the Graben, where stings of Christmas lights had been fashioned to simulate chandeliers in a ballrooms, each 'chandelier' rising over 12 feet tall, suspended overhead in twinkling splendour.  This was our crown jewel, so to speak, and it was worth not being able to feel our toes.  We stopped on our way back at the historic and iconic Cafe Landtmann's to warm up.  We were lucky to find seats right away, and from the window one could easily see the lights at the incredible Rathausplatz Christmasmarkt, which were breathtaking.  Mom and I had hot chocolates, and Jon had a classic Viennese hot drink called a Tiger Milk.  We were happy to sit and enjoy the magic of the millions of twinkly lights, but we were also happy for the chance to warm up.  As we made our way back through the Rathausplatz for a final photo at night, the crowds were thick and we smiled, knowing we had been lucky visit it earlier, when we had the chance to see it all and explore, but still to have the pictures of it at night was priceless.  We went home to a hot meal and Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Christmas Holiday. 
Monday was a day of shopping, and how we were able to dodge the crowds I will never know but will always be grateful for.  For dinner, we had a reservation at Le Loft, on the 18th floor of the Sofitel at Schwedenplatz.  Our table overlooked the Donau canal, but there was so much fog we felt like we were eating in a cloud.  It was very serene, and gave the city lights below us a soft, effusive effect, cloaking the city in mystery.  Our food was delicious, and we even had wine and dessert.  The chef sent our table soup samples before our main course, and after our dessert he also sent us a sample of tiny pastries.  We came home after our lavish dinner and curled up in front of the TV, where I fell asleep while Mom and Jon watched reruns of Castle.
I have posted many of our pictures on Facebook and Twitter already, and several of our friends and family have commented on our Christmas adventures so far.  We are happy to have the chance to share our Christmas with so many of our loved ones, and if any of you are able to join us for an upcoming holiday season, we would be excited to show you all of this in person.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!