Nov 26, 2007

Stockholm, Sverige

So, a long , long time ago (about 11 days ago) José, Daniel, Carolina, Wilson, and I traveled to Stockholm, Sweden for a whole 2 days. The Colombians had found really cheap round-trip tickets from Bratislava for only €18 with Ryanair. They ended up getting the last of the heavily discounted tickets, so I sucked it up and bought the more expensive €51 one. What an outrage! €51 for a round-trip airline ticket!?! If you broke down an Air Canada ticket you probably pay more than €51 for the pillow.

On the bus to Bratislava (~1.5 hours) we met a group of around 10 Mormon girls from Brigham Young University in Utah. They were also going to Stockholm for 2 days, and would be on both our flights. We ended up stealing their itinerary as none of us had planned anything, so we were continuously running into them.

The flight was great, I will definitely consider using Ryanair in the future. When we arrived in Stockholm there was a thick layer of snow on the ground and it was pretty cold, especially for José and the Colombians who just recently learned that thermometers don't stop at zero.José had organised for him and I to stay with a couch-surfer while the Colombians stayed with Maria, a friend of ours from Vienna who is studying in Stockholm. Our couch-surfer from here on named Elina was amazing. She had made us a lasagna for supper, and had sheets, mattresses and towels for us in her res room. That night José and I tried to go out to a student pub, but it was closing when we arrived, which was later than we planned because we got terribly lost while trying to find our way in the maze of cookie-cutter residences. Apparently that night I woke Elina while talking fluently and clearly in my sleep, apparently I was ordering wine at a restaurant. When she told me I was both amused and horribly embarrassed, she said it was pretty funny. The next morning she gave us an extra key and said that she'd be staying at her boyfriends that night and that we could just drop the key in her mailbox when we left on Saturday. She was very trusting and accommodating , even offering us more food if we wanted it.

We eventually got up and took the subway to the city centre where we met up with Maria and the Colombians. First thing on the Mormon girl's itinerary, a tour of city hall.

The city hall is a lot older than it looks, as it was designed to look like a medieval castle. The flag infront is the Stockholm city flag showing the head of St.Erik, a Swedish king who was beheaded in the 12th century.
The antechamber before the main political hall contains caricatures of prominent Stockholm politicians.
The ceiling of the chamber represents an overturned Viking ship. Apparently during bad storms and in the winter, the Vikings would bring their ships onto the shore, turn them over and take shelter beneath them. It was said that under these ships this first Swedish political meetings were held.
A window in the large tower looking across the water to the old city.
The Golden Hall is covered in glass mosaic tiles containing real gold. The mosaic designs were really different, having been designed by a young, modern artist in the 1920s. The mosaics depict the history of Sweden, and the giant woman in the centre represents "Princess Stockholm" a common theme in Stockholm. Many people were (and are) angry about how ugly Princess Stockholm looks, with big eyes, big feet, and big hands. Many people over the years have tried to have her replaced with something that better represents their beautiful city.
Every year the Nobel Prize Ball is held in the Golden hall, while the dinner is held in the blue hall (which is not, and never has been, blue) a room that was initially intended to be an outdoor courtyard until the Italian architect realized that an outdoor courtyard isn't very useful in Stockholm for 9 months of the year, and added a roof.

After the tour of city hall, we wandered around the old city, wandering into a church to warm up.
Only a block away from the church we found a cool restaurant built in a 700 year old underground prison. The food was actually cheap (an uncommon occurrence in Sweden) and the atmosphere was cool, with barrel-vaulted brick rooms covered in everything from needle-work pictures of kittens to old guitars and bagpipes. The old tiny cells were private booths for couples.
Another block away from the restaurant we came upon a courtyard with very Swedish architecture, a big Christmas tree, and an old hot-water dispenser. The hot-water dispenser was a large brick oven with spouts around the edge. I guess hot water would have been pretty important during a medieval Swedish winter.
Some of the small streets were already decorated for Christmas, however most of the stores on these quaint little streets were way out of our price range.
The old city is built on a fairly hilly island, so many of the narrow cobble-stone streets wind up and down. The old city of Stockholm looks how I pictured all of Europe to be, I suppose this is primarily due to their neutrality in WWII, resulting in a completely preserved architectural history without the devastation experienced by Vienna, Paris, and many other large cities.
The image of St.George slaying the dragon to save Princess Sweden is a common theme in Stockholm appearing in statues like this, shrines in churches, and even the animated glockenspiel set into the tower of city hall.
José, Daniel, Wilson, Carolina and myself infront of the very plain looking and oddly square Stockholm Palace which overlooks the harbour. It is still the official residence of the Swedish royal family, and is one of the largest palaces in the world still in use with 609 rooms!
From the palace we walked along the shoreline towards the Vasa Museum. Along the way we passed many old wooden sail boats, many of which appeared to be inhabited despite the cold weather.
The Vasa Museum was definitely the highlight of the trip. The Vasa is a warship built in 1628 which sank on it's maiden voyage, 15 minutes after it set sail, right in the middle of the harbour with everyone watching. At the time it was the most expensive, largest, and most modern ship ever deployed in the Baltic Sea.

The ship sat at the bottom of the harbour until it was re-discovered and raised in the 1950s and 60s. The water-logged wood which had been preserved by the cold, brackish water was treated with polyethylene glycol for 17 years to prevent it from crumbling away when it was slowly dried (for an additional 9 years).
The ship has been fully re-assembled with over 90% of the original timber and ornamentation, the few re-created prices are highly visible as they are lighter in colour. The ship was very very large and surprisingly very heavily ornamented, with the transom and bow completely decorated with sculptures of roman emperors, saints, mythological heroes, lions, and the king himself as a young boy.
Even more surprising was how heavily painted and gilt the ornamentation was. The pigments have all been found through detailed study of the wood fibres in which fragments were trapped even after 333 years under water.
The most impressive part of the ship was the transom, showing the original darker carvings and the lighter pieces re-created to fill in missing or heavily damages ones.
From the Vasa museum, we met up with Maria again and walked down the main shopping street in the old city, which is where I found my Viking friend below. the street was an odd mix of everything with jewelry shops and high-end dress stores directly beside 7-11s and emo clothing stores.
Back in the modern city centre we stopped for supper and watched a wood-splitting competition.
That night we stopped in at the weekly Stockholm couch-surfing party to say bye to Elina, but left after a few minutes. From there we went back to the room, relaxed infront of the TV (which plays un-subtitled English shows), laughed at the Swedish commercials, and got ready for an International student party we were invited to.

The next morning as José and I were leaving I took this picture of the cow pasture in the middle of the University of Stockholm campus. Apparently the cows come and go, but Elina had never seen how, she just assumed they had the ability to become invisible.
We met up with the Mormon girls again at the bus station to the airport and had a fairly uneventful flight home, with the exception of the 2 hour wait for our bus back to Vienna, at the oh-so-exciting Bratislava airport.

Stockholm was fun, and the city was beautiful, but I'm sure a visit in the summer would be better, as the cold wind and 3pm sunset really put an damper on the trip. Overall, Stockholm reminded me the most of Ontario out of any place I've been to so far. The trip to the airport could have been any section of the 401 between Cornwall and Oshawa.

Yesterday I moved into my new (and hopefully permanent) room. It is nicer, but apparently one of the girls on the floor has lived there for ~12 years and is more than a little crazy. There was a sign on the bathroom door accusing MA of stealing a bunch of her kitchen stuff, and asking the housekeeper to look for it in his (now my) room... Oh well, it'll keep life interesting, and I only have 2.5 weeks until I'm home for Christmas and New Years!

Nov 19, 2007

Happy Birthday Mom!

Petrovaradin Fortress, Novi Sad , Serbia
"Srecan Ti Rodjendan""Shop" Gasbar, Middle-of-Nowhere, Hungary
"Boldog Születésnapot"
Vimy Memorial (Canadian Soil), Vimy, France
"Happy Birthday"
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
"Joyeux Anniversaire"

Bratislava Airport, Bratislava, Slovakia
"Vsetko Najlepsie K Narodeninam"
City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden
"Grattis PŒ Fšdelsedagen"
Christmas Market at Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria
"Alles Gute zum Geburtstag"
Happy Birthday Mom, wish I could be there.
I'll be home before you know it.

Nov 11, 2007

Paris: le bon, le mauvais, et le coûteux

On October 31st, MA and I flew to Paris to be joined by Cora on the 1st for 6 days exploring Paris and whatever else we felt like seeing. As expected, I took many many photos, which I have edited down to... about 90. I figured photos are worth 1000 words, so, instead of writing a 90,000 word tome, I'll just briefly comment on photos. The comments are going to be very brief initially, because I leave for Stockholm tomorrow and want to have this up before I go so I don't get backlogged again.

Wednesday - Halloween
The flight was very quick, only 2 hours. After dealing with some annoying French ticket machines at Charles de Gualle that kept going out of order, and rejecting my Visa, saying, "sorry we only accept Visa" we got to Paris. The Metro map look like a cobweb, but was easy enough to decipher. Dropping everything off at the hotel we headed into the city to find some Halloween fun. Everything we passed was either closed or way too expensive, but we found a cool restaurant where we split a duck, ham, and potato salad, some wine, and had a conversation in French-German with only a bit of English thrown in for clarification. We wandered around the city looking for a halloween party, but barely saw a costume let alone a party. We ended up in a seedy Turkish bar by our hotel where they closed the metal security curtain over the door at 11:30 forcing us to leave by the emergency exit.

Thursday - Versailles Parks, Montmartre, Nighttime Wanderings
Thursday was All Saints Day, a holiday in Europe where 'all' the museums are free. So, MA and I decided to go to Versailles. After the 30min train ride there we realized that it wasn't free and the line was really long for tickets. So, we decided to check out the gardens, which are free, then head back into the city.
The gardens are like those at Schönbrunn, just much, much larger.
Sadly, as of November 1st the garden is put into winter mode with the statues covered and the flowers pulled up.
Many of the fountains were turned off, but the fountain of Apollo was still very impressive, with the exception of the seagulls resting on each head.
There is a giant 'canal' system in the shape of an X with a perimeter of over 5.5km. You can rent rowboats and enjoy the view through the gardens. We just walked towards the center and grabbed some photos.
When we got back to Paris we met up with Cora at the hotel and walked to Montmartre and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur where there was a view out over the city. The tour of Sacré-Coeur was a bit odd because there was a mass going on, but you had to walk all the way around in behind the altar and back to the front to get out.
We walked down to a little restaurant with fuzzy walls. I had my first French french onion soup. Due to the fact that meals take time in France, and because the restaurant only had one waitress, we were there for over 3 hours. After supper we walked a few blocks to the Moulin Rouge. For some reason I expected the Moulin Rouge to be in some kind of classy artisan neighbourhood, but, it was in a full-blown redlight district surrounded by seedy strip clubs.
At that point Cora left to go to bed and MA and I took the metro to Notre Dame.
The entrance is heavily decorated with sculptures of martyrs and angels. This guy had it rough, first he was martyred, and now he's been holding his own head for over 800 years.
From Notre Dame we walked to the Louvre.
There was hardly anyone around, and the fountains were off, forming glass-smooth reflecting pools.
Old meets new.
Friday - Versailles Tour, St.Denis, and the Louvre
Friday we went back to Versailles in hopes that the weekday crowd would be smaller than anything we could hope for on the weekend. Unfortunately, the lines were even longer, but we were there, and weren't leaving. The Royal apartments were over the top, much more ornate than those in Vienna, but packed tighter than the Serbian-Hungarian border.
The hall of mirrors was very cool, hard to believe so much history could happen in one place.
The royal chapel
The hallway to the royal opera hall which was under renovation.
Out in the gardens I found this fountain decorated with amphibians, reptiles, and frog-people.
After Versailles we went to the Basilica of St.Denis, the burial place for the ancient French royal family. Before the revolution there were over a hundred marble sculptures of the kings and queens lying over their remains. Now, there are far less, but still a lot of amazing sculptures. Also, this was one of the first churches I've seen in Europe with nice stained-glass, most other churches had it all blown out during WWII.
Many of the sculptures are covered in graffiti. It would normally be a shame, but it was almost historical in and of itself. The one below is from 1593.
If anything, I think the graffiti turns what would otherwise just be another marble statue into a uniquely personal work of art.
Tomb of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (heads and all, I assume)
That night we went to the Louvre, as it is free for students on Fridays evenings. We got there a bit early, so we walked towards the Champs-Élysées.
When we were let in, there were hoards of people heading in one direction, towards the Mona Lisa. On the way we happened upon the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which I found to be most beautiful thing in the Louvre, by far. It's hard to believe that it was carved over 2 millenia ago, yet still manages to convey such a sense of motion and optimism, even missing it's head and arms.I thought this painting, Liberty Leading the People, was very nice and powerful, little did I know it was one of the museum's most famous pieces..
The small, and rather uninteresting, Mona Lisa. The crowds around the painting were ridiculous and it was hard to even see the painting, let alone the "no photography" signs through all the camera flashes.
Art with characterThe rather boring and uninspired Venus de Milo, notable only for the fact that it is so old. Apparently it would also have been originally fully painted and covered in jewelry.
'The Captive' by Michaelangelo.
This sculpture was so simple it was amazing. Her face is merely implied by the folds of the fabric, yet it is still so easy to see. Something like this deserves far more recognition than something like the Venus de Milo.There were many giant paintings in the different galleries.
I thought this painting was pretty cool, something different in a sea of portraits.
Saturday - Arras, Vimy, and Nighttime wanderings take 2
On Saturday MA and I thought we should be good Canadians and visit the Canadian war memorial in Vimy. We left on a TGV high-speed train from Gare du Nord.
There unfortunately wasn't a speedometer in our car, but we made the 180km trip to Arras in one hour, and that includes the fifteen minutes or more it took us to get out of Paris and reach full speed and the deceleration into Arras. We were going insanely fast, MA kept saying that it felt like we were in a plane about to take off.

We had time to kill in Arras before the short train to Vimy. So, we wandered into the city centre, following the sound of a band that faded in and out somewhat randomly. We squeezed through the markets setup in the narrow streets and came upon a large square where the music was the loudest. Finally we found the band, at the top of the city hall tower under the clock.
After taking the flashy TGV train from Paris, the rusty graffiti-covered antique sitting on grassed-over tracks seemed a bit out of place.
When we arrived in Vimy we were a little weary about even getting off the train. The station was all boarded up and looked like it had been abandoned for decades. There weren't any garbage cans let alone tourist information booths to tell us how to get to the memorial. So, we started walking. About 5 minutes down the street an old man pulled over and asked if we were going to the Canadian memorial. He proudly pointed out the Canadian and Quebéc flag stickers on his windshield and offered us, and another Canadian student named Calvin who happened to be walking down the road behind us, a ride to the memorial which was over 5km away.

We arrived at the information desk and the man said he would return at 5 to take us back. The memorial took 11 years to complete, was finished in 1936, and sits of land given to Canada by France. Being Canadian soil, all the workers were Canadian university students, something which was a nice surprise to find in the middle-of-nowhere northern France.
The whole memorial had been covered by scaffolding for a major renovation for the past three years, only being re-dedicated in April. So, all the stone was glowing white as it would have 70 years ago.
They fly both the modern Canadian flag (who's maple-leaf design has a lot to do with the battle of Vimy ridge) and the Red Ensign which was the Canadian flag during WWI.The grounds around the monument were left untouched, and show how the battlefield was filled with winding trenches and large craters. However, the thick layer of green grass and stands of cedars make the site a picturesque calming landscape which would have been unrecognisable to the soldiers who actually fought in those trenches.
There are two large cemeteries field with Commonwealth soldiers, many of whom were unidentified or as they say "Known unto God".
There were also tours of the tunnels which connected the front lines to different sites further back from the Germans, allowing troops and messengers to move around unseen.
On the walls of one tunnel there is a maple leaf carved into the wall, which was becoming the recognised symbol of Canada, placed on the Canadian uniforms to distinguish them from other Commonwealth soldiers.
A view across no-man's-land to the German trenches
By 3 we had seen everything there was to see, but still had two hours until our ride. So, we wandered back to the memorial and talked with the tour guides. We found out the man who drove us in is a retired resident of Vimy who passes by after every train (3-4 times a day) to shuttle tourists and chat with the staff.
When he finally returned,we were all ready to leave. He dropped us off downtown so we could take the bus back to Arras, and handed us little pieces of paper with his name and address. I'll have to remember to send him a postcard from home at Christmas.
MA and Calvin (random guy we met from Medicine Hat, Alberta) waiting for the bus and eating our poor-man's supper of baguette, cheese, and Sunny D.
After a lot of frustration Calvin boarded a train to the only city in the area with a student hostel, and MA and I got tickets for the TGV back to Paris. Calvin was on a two month tour of Europe which was just coming to a close, his next destination was the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

When we arrived in Paris we decided to tour some more because if we went back to the hotel we would just crash and waste the evening.

We walked to the Eiffel tower in time to catch on of the light shows which occur every hour on the hour once it's dark. The tower which normally glows gold is covered in bright blue-white strobe lights which flash randomly making the tower sparkle.
The tower was so much larger than I had ever imagined, and is an amazing example of Victorian-age ironwork where artistic design merges with the utility of geometric mass-produced ironwork to create beautifully simple structures.
From there we walked to the Arc de Triomphe which was closed, but we still got to see the outside which was also far far larger than I ever would have expected.
From the Arc we went back to the hotel, buying a bottle of wine on the way. At the hotel we threw on the TV only to find the Canadian episode of the French version of American Idol, with guest stars Avril Lavigne and Celine Dion. Needless to say we turned very quickly. Eventually we found the movie "Quest for Fire" which was perfect because although it was "in French" it is about cavemen and therefore has no speaking.

Sunday - Père-Lachaise Cemetery, les Invalides, Pantheon, Arc de Triomphe
Sunday morning MA and I went to Père-Lachaise Cemetery. It was very crowded, with graves and mausoleums built side-by-side with no room in between. The streets wound through the site which is built upon a large hilly piece of land in the eastern end of Paris.
Chopin's grave, completely covered in fresh flowers
Some of the oldest parts of the cemetery are crumbling, with cracked-open graves and mausoleums.
Jim Morrison's grave with it's third tombstone. The first two were a metal shield and then a bust, both of which were stolen. As the grave is in behind others, there has been heavy vandalism of the surrounding sites and at one point he was going to be evicted.
Oscar Wilde's grave, covered in years of lipstick
The Paris subway system is called the Métro. This stop, like many in the center of the city has an old sign from the turn of the century.
We stopped for some Quiche by the Opera, but couldn't tour inside because there was a show going on. I returned on Monday, so scroll down for some pictures.
Passing through the Tuileries gardens in front of the Louvre on our way to les Invalides.
Boats along the Seine with Notre Dame in the distance.
We walked all the way to les Invalides, built by Napoleon as a veteran's hospital and now also the location of his tomb which is in the large church in the center. For the first time since arriving we also saw some blue sky! The roof of the church is covered in real gold. You had to pay admission to see Napoleon's tomb so we just peeked in and decided to leave it for the next time we're in Paris as money was getting pretty tight.
Blue sky!Back across the SeineA few minutes south of the island on which Notre Dame stands is the Panthéon. I personally had no idea this building even existed, but it was really cool. Originally built as a church, it was later converted to a building to glorify (and hold the remains of) important French citizens.
From the central dome hangs (a replica of) the original Foucalt pendulum. In the crypts beneath the main room the remains of Voltaire, the Curies, Braille, Hugo and many more are interred.
From the Panthéon we walked to a small restaurant where I had my most Parisian meal: red wine, bread, French onion soup, duck, and Crème brûlée. We then went to the Arc de Triomphe in time to walk to the top.
The interior rooms were being renovated, so entrance was free. On the walls in the main room right beneath the observation deck at the very top, the arched walls were decorated with metal palm fronds which are tributes to the unknown soldier buried under the main arch.
From the top of the Arc you can see the entire city.
Of the 12 boulevards which radiate out from the traffic circle around the Arc, the largest by far is the Champs-Élysées which ends at the large Ferris wheel in front of the Tuileries gardens (and the Lovre).
Monday - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Opera
Monday morning the three of us stowed our luggage at Gare du Nord and headed for the Eiffel tower. We chose the cheaper, and more fun option of walking up, stopping at the first and second floors.
The very top is only accessible by an elevator with long lines and an additional fee. So, we decided to leave if for another time, as we wanted to get to Notre Dame before we had to leave for the airport.
Notre Dame is very large and decorated on the inside, but resembles many of the other cathedrals I've been to, all of which are starting to blur together. One cool thing about Notre Dame is that many of the stone alcoves are painted with designs in bright colours.
After Notre Dame we all split up, with MA going to another museum, Cora going in search of a market, and I decided to tour the Opera.
The guided tours were expensive, so I chose the cheaper self-guided one. Most operas are very ornate, but this one was incredible. Every surface was covered in marble, gold, bronze, or velvet, with not one thing overlooked (with the exception of the bathrooms).
The chandelier actually resembles the prop from the Phantom of the Opera, which is set in the Paris Opera. As in the musical, there is also a large lake in the deep basements due to the marshy soil it is built on. Any attempts to water proof the basements would lead pressure buildup behind the walls, threatening the founation.
One of the set mock-ups from the 20s or 30s in the Opera Museum.
We met back at Gare du Nord, and had a nice, uneventful flight home.

Watch your fingers as this post comes to a close.

Apparently I need to visit France more often, I was gone for 3 days and got 5 comments on the post! Nice to know that people are still reading.