Sorry it took so long!
http://picasaweb.google.com/gflyon/BarcelonaCruiseAndSwitzerland
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Frankfurt airport and getting home - belatedly
I should have written and posted this last post when we got back, but somehow, there was always something to do....anyway, here it is - the conclusion of the trip.
It turns out that it was a holiday in Switzerland, so we didn’t have to get up extra early to say goodbye to Uwe, Esther and Leandro as they headed off to work – instead, we had a nice breakfast, finished our packing, played around a bit outside, and said our farewells to Esther and Leandro (who waved at us till we were out of sight). Uwe drove us to the train station at Olten, which seemed like a nice enough town, and Torsten fell asleep en route. When we got there, we removed Torsten from his car seat, and he kept right on sleeping – so Uwe and Ingo unloaded all our bags and we made our way to buy train tickets. Luckily, the track we needed was right outside the ticket office, so after getting the tickets, all we had to do was step outside and wait for the train to arrive. We said our goodbyes to Uwe, and wished him luck getting home, as his van’s engine had smelled a little bit off when we parked.
We managed to get on the train without any problems, and settled down for the ride to Basel, where we would change trains for the ICE for Frankfurt airport. The ride and the change went without incident – Torsten had fun pointing out the trains along the way, and Basel was an easy station to negotiate.
The ICE is as nice as I remember it, and turned out to be very full – I was glad that we had made reservations, although they weren’t really needed, as Basel was the first station. Still, better to be safe than sorry. We settled into our seats, and Ingo and Torsten then headed off to the cafeteria car to get us some lunch. Torsten managed to scam some chocolate from the server for being cute! There are definite advantages to having a good looking child. Ingo’s curry wurst was really good, and my meatloaf on a bun was not bad either.
As the trip wore on, Torsten became somewhat cranky and restless, as there were too many people and too much noise for him to really settle down for an afternoon nap. People were fairly understanding – still, it was lovely to reach Frankfurt airport at last and get off the train. That was a bit of an ordeal, since there seemed to be a lot of people milling about in the way, but we finally found the entrance to the hotel.
Checking in was funny. Because it was Pfingsten (Pentecost) and therefore a holiday in Germany, the desk clerks apparently had been trying to explain to Americans all day why things were closed. They didn’t know what the translation of Pfingsten was (or why it was a holiday) when asked by the person ahead of me, so I gave them a brief rundown, and they were duly grateful for the information. Truly, speaking German to native German-speakers really helps to get good service!
Our room was very nice, and had an extra bed for Torsten. We used the chairs in the room to prevent him from falling off, and pushed the end of the bed closer to the window so that he could stand on the bed and look out. He was in seventh heaven, since he was then able to see buses and planes to his heart’s content.
After a bit of a rest, we went downstairs to find an ATM and explore the airport a bit. (Unfortunately, we didn’t have the foresight to find out where the Air Canada check in counters were, preparatory for the next day, so we wasted a lot of time the next day lugging our baggage around and looking for the check in counters – oh well). We bought a bottle of water for the night, and then headed back to the hotel room to wait for Marco and family to arrive.
Around 7 pm, we got a call that they were downstairs in the lobby. We traipsed downstairs, and exchanged hugs, then went in for dinner at the hotel restaurant. The servers were really nice, and very friendly to Torsten. Once we were seated, our waiter brought a little children’s playkit for Torsten that included coloured pencils, a little plastic boat, a little plastic truck, some postcards with pictures to colour, and the box that the kit came in had activities printed all over it. Torsten really liked all of it, and immediately began playing.
It was so nice to see Marco, Ingrid and Glenn again! We got caught up on what they’d been doing – Glenn had cut his hair, preparatory to looking like a fine, upstanding young German when he comes over for his Canadian school year. We discussed the school, traveling around, how things would work, etc. – it was a long and lovely dinner, and the food wasn’t too bad either. Toward the end of dinner, Torsten began to get a bit tired, but he was very good about playing with his things at his seat. Suddenly, I noticed that he was making “vroom” noises, the type he normally makes when he’s playing with a toy car. Our plates were those fancy-schmancy kidney bean shaped plates, and he was busy pushing a tiny piece of potato around the perimeter of the plate, making car noises! It was extremely funny.
As Torsten was tired, we wrapped up for the night, said our goodbyes, went back up to the room, did our nightly ablutions and went to bed.
In the morning, we checked in without any difficulty (after eventually finding the counter), and then started making our way to the gate. On the way, a woman in a Lufthansa uniform stopped us and asked if we’d like a ride to the gate – so we got to ride in one of those little cars that zips all over airports! One of the major benefits of having a child. The next major benefit followed immediately, which was that we were jumped to the special security line that’s reserved for people with disabilities and small children – so we zipped straight through security as well. At the actual gate was where our luck ran out – Frankfurt airport requires passengers to check in at the gate prior to being admitted into the seating area at the gate. Unfortunately, the machines being used by the Air Canada personnel weren’t working properly, and the personnel were incredibly slow. To make matters worse, we got stuck behind some elderly Germans going to Canada as part of a tour group who had apparently NOT checked their bags through from Berlin, so their bags were sitting somewhere on the carousel for their previous flight into Frankfurt – this created a severe clog in the line, as the Air Canada personnel were apparently incapable of having the people step off to the side for the responsible person to deal with while they checked other people through.
Finally, however, we made it into the gate, and then into the plane – and then back home! The flight was uneventful, Torsten was very good throughout and had a long nap on takeoff and again on landing (I actually managed to watch 2 movies), and we met up with my parents, who had brought my car, without any problems. It was a great trip, but it was lovely to be home again!
It turns out that it was a holiday in Switzerland, so we didn’t have to get up extra early to say goodbye to Uwe, Esther and Leandro as they headed off to work – instead, we had a nice breakfast, finished our packing, played around a bit outside, and said our farewells to Esther and Leandro (who waved at us till we were out of sight). Uwe drove us to the train station at Olten, which seemed like a nice enough town, and Torsten fell asleep en route. When we got there, we removed Torsten from his car seat, and he kept right on sleeping – so Uwe and Ingo unloaded all our bags and we made our way to buy train tickets. Luckily, the track we needed was right outside the ticket office, so after getting the tickets, all we had to do was step outside and wait for the train to arrive. We said our goodbyes to Uwe, and wished him luck getting home, as his van’s engine had smelled a little bit off when we parked.
We managed to get on the train without any problems, and settled down for the ride to Basel, where we would change trains for the ICE for Frankfurt airport. The ride and the change went without incident – Torsten had fun pointing out the trains along the way, and Basel was an easy station to negotiate.
The ICE is as nice as I remember it, and turned out to be very full – I was glad that we had made reservations, although they weren’t really needed, as Basel was the first station. Still, better to be safe than sorry. We settled into our seats, and Ingo and Torsten then headed off to the cafeteria car to get us some lunch. Torsten managed to scam some chocolate from the server for being cute! There are definite advantages to having a good looking child. Ingo’s curry wurst was really good, and my meatloaf on a bun was not bad either.
As the trip wore on, Torsten became somewhat cranky and restless, as there were too many people and too much noise for him to really settle down for an afternoon nap. People were fairly understanding – still, it was lovely to reach Frankfurt airport at last and get off the train. That was a bit of an ordeal, since there seemed to be a lot of people milling about in the way, but we finally found the entrance to the hotel.
Checking in was funny. Because it was Pfingsten (Pentecost) and therefore a holiday in Germany, the desk clerks apparently had been trying to explain to Americans all day why things were closed. They didn’t know what the translation of Pfingsten was (or why it was a holiday) when asked by the person ahead of me, so I gave them a brief rundown, and they were duly grateful for the information. Truly, speaking German to native German-speakers really helps to get good service!
Our room was very nice, and had an extra bed for Torsten. We used the chairs in the room to prevent him from falling off, and pushed the end of the bed closer to the window so that he could stand on the bed and look out. He was in seventh heaven, since he was then able to see buses and planes to his heart’s content.
After a bit of a rest, we went downstairs to find an ATM and explore the airport a bit. (Unfortunately, we didn’t have the foresight to find out where the Air Canada check in counters were, preparatory for the next day, so we wasted a lot of time the next day lugging our baggage around and looking for the check in counters – oh well). We bought a bottle of water for the night, and then headed back to the hotel room to wait for Marco and family to arrive.
Around 7 pm, we got a call that they were downstairs in the lobby. We traipsed downstairs, and exchanged hugs, then went in for dinner at the hotel restaurant. The servers were really nice, and very friendly to Torsten. Once we were seated, our waiter brought a little children’s playkit for Torsten that included coloured pencils, a little plastic boat, a little plastic truck, some postcards with pictures to colour, and the box that the kit came in had activities printed all over it. Torsten really liked all of it, and immediately began playing.
It was so nice to see Marco, Ingrid and Glenn again! We got caught up on what they’d been doing – Glenn had cut his hair, preparatory to looking like a fine, upstanding young German when he comes over for his Canadian school year. We discussed the school, traveling around, how things would work, etc. – it was a long and lovely dinner, and the food wasn’t too bad either. Toward the end of dinner, Torsten began to get a bit tired, but he was very good about playing with his things at his seat. Suddenly, I noticed that he was making “vroom” noises, the type he normally makes when he’s playing with a toy car. Our plates were those fancy-schmancy kidney bean shaped plates, and he was busy pushing a tiny piece of potato around the perimeter of the plate, making car noises! It was extremely funny.
As Torsten was tired, we wrapped up for the night, said our goodbyes, went back up to the room, did our nightly ablutions and went to bed.
In the morning, we checked in without any difficulty (after eventually finding the counter), and then started making our way to the gate. On the way, a woman in a Lufthansa uniform stopped us and asked if we’d like a ride to the gate – so we got to ride in one of those little cars that zips all over airports! One of the major benefits of having a child. The next major benefit followed immediately, which was that we were jumped to the special security line that’s reserved for people with disabilities and small children – so we zipped straight through security as well. At the actual gate was where our luck ran out – Frankfurt airport requires passengers to check in at the gate prior to being admitted into the seating area at the gate. Unfortunately, the machines being used by the Air Canada personnel weren’t working properly, and the personnel were incredibly slow. To make matters worse, we got stuck behind some elderly Germans going to Canada as part of a tour group who had apparently NOT checked their bags through from Berlin, so their bags were sitting somewhere on the carousel for their previous flight into Frankfurt – this created a severe clog in the line, as the Air Canada personnel were apparently incapable of having the people step off to the side for the responsible person to deal with while they checked other people through.
Finally, however, we made it into the gate, and then into the plane – and then back home! The flight was uneventful, Torsten was very good throughout and had a long nap on takeoff and again on landing (I actually managed to watch 2 movies), and we met up with my parents, who had brought my car, without any problems. It was a great trip, but it was lovely to be home again!
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Fossils and storks
Another fine day. We drove first to a park where, among other things, dinosaur tracks and fossils have been preserved in a chalk stone cliff (not a museum at all). It was about a half hour walk from the parking lot, along a wide gravel path lined with trees and bushes. Leandro once again decided to have a pee, this time along the side of the path. When I asked Esther about this, she said it was pretty normal in Switzerland to see people peeing in the wilderness. Live and learn.
It was a lovely walk, somewhat marred by Leandro’s penchant for picking up huge tree branches and swinging them wildly around; however, nobody was hurt. The cliff face itself was very interesting. There were a number of educational plaques to inform visitors of what the tracks were, what kind of dinosaurs made them (primarily brachiosauruses) and detailing the types of fossils and the age of the imprints. Although the stone is chalk, it’s quite hard, and will probably last another 145 million years.
We then made our way back down the path, alternately carrying Torsten and letting him run, past an ancient chairlift that took people up the mountain, and back to the car. From there, we drove to a nice inn, where people could have lunch in a clearing overlooking a lake and ferry dock (it reminded me of a biergarten). The inn was called the Inn of the Green Monkey. There, we all had schnitzel for lunch. It was particularly interesting because it was near the stork preserve, and so the inn itself had 4 storks’ nests on the roof, complete with storks and baby storks! Very cool.
After lunch, we went to the stork preserve, which was just down the road. It turns out that it’s no longer a stork preserve because the project to breed them, build up the population to self-sustaining levels, and release them into the wild, had succeeded. There are still a large number of storks and storks’ nests around the area, but they are no longer actively being preserved by people, as it is no longer necessary. We were lucky to come in the spring, as we saw many storks and their babies. The storks make an interesting clacking sound with their beaks; I’m not sure what it means, but it sounded neat. Torsten had a good time pointing out all the “birts”, and hopping up onto the stone borders and walking around. There’s still an information centre there, so we read about how the storks migrate to Africa every year, and all about the breeding and gestation habits of the storks. There was also a small enclosure with a European turtle in it.
We then decided to head back to the house. Torsten fell asleep in the car, and is currently napping. I’m not sure what we’re going to do tonight – possibly play Ticket to Ride, since we bought it and the Swiss expansion for Uwe and Esther as a guest-gift, but one thing’s for sure – we’re going to have to pack. Tomorrow we head off to Frankfurt airport to spend the night in the hotel there, and then on Tuesday, we fly home. We’re also going to be meeting Marco, Ingrid and Glenn tomorrow – they’re coming to our hotel to see us and to talk about Glenn’s upcoming exchange program to Canada, when he’ll be staying with us. It’ll be great to see them again, and it’s even nicer to be heading home soon!
It was a lovely walk, somewhat marred by Leandro’s penchant for picking up huge tree branches and swinging them wildly around; however, nobody was hurt. The cliff face itself was very interesting. There were a number of educational plaques to inform visitors of what the tracks were, what kind of dinosaurs made them (primarily brachiosauruses) and detailing the types of fossils and the age of the imprints. Although the stone is chalk, it’s quite hard, and will probably last another 145 million years.
We then made our way back down the path, alternately carrying Torsten and letting him run, past an ancient chairlift that took people up the mountain, and back to the car. From there, we drove to a nice inn, where people could have lunch in a clearing overlooking a lake and ferry dock (it reminded me of a biergarten). The inn was called the Inn of the Green Monkey. There, we all had schnitzel for lunch. It was particularly interesting because it was near the stork preserve, and so the inn itself had 4 storks’ nests on the roof, complete with storks and baby storks! Very cool.
After lunch, we went to the stork preserve, which was just down the road. It turns out that it’s no longer a stork preserve because the project to breed them, build up the population to self-sustaining levels, and release them into the wild, had succeeded. There are still a large number of storks and storks’ nests around the area, but they are no longer actively being preserved by people, as it is no longer necessary. We were lucky to come in the spring, as we saw many storks and their babies. The storks make an interesting clacking sound with their beaks; I’m not sure what it means, but it sounded neat. Torsten had a good time pointing out all the “birts”, and hopping up onto the stone borders and walking around. There’s still an information centre there, so we read about how the storks migrate to Africa every year, and all about the breeding and gestation habits of the storks. There was also a small enclosure with a European turtle in it.
We then decided to head back to the house. Torsten fell asleep in the car, and is currently napping. I’m not sure what we’re going to do tonight – possibly play Ticket to Ride, since we bought it and the Swiss expansion for Uwe and Esther as a guest-gift, but one thing’s for sure – we’re going to have to pack. Tomorrow we head off to Frankfurt airport to spend the night in the hotel there, and then on Tuesday, we fly home. We’re also going to be meeting Marco, Ingrid and Glenn tomorrow – they’re coming to our hotel to see us and to talk about Glenn’s upcoming exchange program to Canada, when he’ll be staying with us. It’ll be great to see them again, and it’s even nicer to be heading home soon!
Hiking in the alps
Hiking around the alps! It sounds glamourous – I don’t know about glamour, but it was certainly fun. Yesterday, we drove to Vitznau bright and early so that we could catch the tram going up Rigi, which is one of the mountains in the Jura mountain range. The tram was actually a cogwheel train, and it was able to climb up the mountain at an incredibly steep angle. It took about half an hour for the tram to get up the mountain, stopping at various stops and passing grazing cows and goats, Swiss chalets (really!) and fields and fields of flowers.
The station at the top of the mountain stopped a little ways short of the peak, and a small path led upwards towards a radio tower and the original survey marker of Switzerland. Small patches of snow were everywhere, and Uwe and Leandro stopped from time to time for a quick snowball fight. Leandro made an extra stop, halfway up a clear slope, in full view of the path – he either decided that he really had to go and didn’t mind giving a show, or that it was too much trouble to go back down the few metres to the washroom, but he undid his fly and – er – let fly. The large group of Japanese tourists behind us thought it was great, and stopped to watch. Nobody clapped when he finished, though. It really made our trip complete, to see that Leandro is still a little exhibitionist! And here we thought that Mannekin Pis could be found only in Brussels!
We climbed to the top, where there was a wonderful view of Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, and the towns around the two lakes. It was interesting to note the colour differences in the two lakes – Lake Lucerne was noticeably greener. It was also interesting to see the original survey marker, which was made of stone – in modern times, a new one has been erected over top of it in the form of a lighted pyramid. A map showed where other survey markers had been placed on various other mountains for triangulation purposes.
By that time, it was lunchtime, so we made our way down the path a little way, so that we were out of the wind, and had our picnic lunch. It consisted of bread, cheese, some meat sticks, bubbly water, and cookies. I’d also brought a banana for Torsten, who ate most of it up! Really, there must be something in the Swiss air. It was lovely to sit there, on an bench with a wonderful view of the Alps and, in the nearer vicinity, tiny white crocuses.
After lunch, we split up – Uwe, Esther and Leandro headed off down the main path, hiking down the mountain, and we went to change Torsten and look at the little souvenir shop up at the top. Then we followed on the hike down the mountain, which was a steep but easy walk. The path followed the railway, so it would be possible to hop on the tram going back to Vitznau whenever we wanted (at a station, of course!). There were several people doing the hike, and also several bikers going up and down. The bikers that we met all said “Gruetzi” (greetings) – I was very impressed that they had the breath for politeness, as it was really very steep! After about half an hour of walking, Torsten fell asleep in the backpack, and unfortunately, his head really began to flop over to the side and bounce up and down in time to Ingo’s steps. Because the path was so steep, it wasn’t really possible to walk smoothly. We therefore stopped at the next tram station, where, by great good luck, a tram had just pulled in, and took the tram back down to Vitznau.
Down at Vitznau, around the tram station, there was a small market for Pentecost. Vendors sold various items in stalls, like wooden toys, traditional clothing, fruit wine, aromatic oils and baked goods. There was a trampoline activity, where people could put themselves in a harness, jump on trampolines, and flip around. Around 2 pm, three men gave a concert, playing Alphorns. Torsten woke up when we got down to the station, and then enjoyed running around the market. One woman obviously thought he was cute, as she angled for a while to take a good picture of him, and one of the vendors (of wooden toys) gave him a tiny wooden car. We had an ice cream and waited for Uwe, Esther and Leandro to come back down to Vitznau. In the meantime, it was lovely to sit and look at the lake, with all the ducks, boats and fishes.
They arrived on the 4 pm tram, and we looked around the market a little while longer. There was a small workshop in the market, where an old man demonstrated traditional methods of woodworking. There was a lathe that was powered by a springy wood spar, some rope, and a board that he stepped on to keep the wood spinning. There was also a small drill that consisted of a stick with a crosspiece, some rope, and a spoon-shaped bit, which operated on the same principle as a yoyo.
Originally, we had thought of going into Lucerne after Rigi, but we decided against it, as we would only have been able to spend an hour there before needing to go home again – and as the dinner plans consisted of fondue, we didn’t want to delay unduly! So we headed back to Uwe and Esther’s. Torsten and Leandro played outside a bit, but soon, dinner was ready, and we sat down to a wonderful cheese fondue, eating outside on the patio. After dinner was a dessert of meringues and ice cream with coffee; it was really nice sitting outside, as Leandro and Torsten could play while we lingered over dinner. They played with the soccer ball, and also with little ride-on cars, and then Torsten pointed out the moon. After that, we called it a night – in the last little while, Torsten has been choosing German books for his bedtime stories, which makes me very happy!
Our plan for today is to go see a stork preserve, and to go to a dinosaur museum, as Leandro is doing dinosaurs at school. We leave in 15 minutes – more later today!
The station at the top of the mountain stopped a little ways short of the peak, and a small path led upwards towards a radio tower and the original survey marker of Switzerland. Small patches of snow were everywhere, and Uwe and Leandro stopped from time to time for a quick snowball fight. Leandro made an extra stop, halfway up a clear slope, in full view of the path – he either decided that he really had to go and didn’t mind giving a show, or that it was too much trouble to go back down the few metres to the washroom, but he undid his fly and – er – let fly. The large group of Japanese tourists behind us thought it was great, and stopped to watch. Nobody clapped when he finished, though. It really made our trip complete, to see that Leandro is still a little exhibitionist! And here we thought that Mannekin Pis could be found only in Brussels!
We climbed to the top, where there was a wonderful view of Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, and the towns around the two lakes. It was interesting to note the colour differences in the two lakes – Lake Lucerne was noticeably greener. It was also interesting to see the original survey marker, which was made of stone – in modern times, a new one has been erected over top of it in the form of a lighted pyramid. A map showed where other survey markers had been placed on various other mountains for triangulation purposes.
By that time, it was lunchtime, so we made our way down the path a little way, so that we were out of the wind, and had our picnic lunch. It consisted of bread, cheese, some meat sticks, bubbly water, and cookies. I’d also brought a banana for Torsten, who ate most of it up! Really, there must be something in the Swiss air. It was lovely to sit there, on an bench with a wonderful view of the Alps and, in the nearer vicinity, tiny white crocuses.
After lunch, we split up – Uwe, Esther and Leandro headed off down the main path, hiking down the mountain, and we went to change Torsten and look at the little souvenir shop up at the top. Then we followed on the hike down the mountain, which was a steep but easy walk. The path followed the railway, so it would be possible to hop on the tram going back to Vitznau whenever we wanted (at a station, of course!). There were several people doing the hike, and also several bikers going up and down. The bikers that we met all said “Gruetzi” (greetings) – I was very impressed that they had the breath for politeness, as it was really very steep! After about half an hour of walking, Torsten fell asleep in the backpack, and unfortunately, his head really began to flop over to the side and bounce up and down in time to Ingo’s steps. Because the path was so steep, it wasn’t really possible to walk smoothly. We therefore stopped at the next tram station, where, by great good luck, a tram had just pulled in, and took the tram back down to Vitznau.
Down at Vitznau, around the tram station, there was a small market for Pentecost. Vendors sold various items in stalls, like wooden toys, traditional clothing, fruit wine, aromatic oils and baked goods. There was a trampoline activity, where people could put themselves in a harness, jump on trampolines, and flip around. Around 2 pm, three men gave a concert, playing Alphorns. Torsten woke up when we got down to the station, and then enjoyed running around the market. One woman obviously thought he was cute, as she angled for a while to take a good picture of him, and one of the vendors (of wooden toys) gave him a tiny wooden car. We had an ice cream and waited for Uwe, Esther and Leandro to come back down to Vitznau. In the meantime, it was lovely to sit and look at the lake, with all the ducks, boats and fishes.
They arrived on the 4 pm tram, and we looked around the market a little while longer. There was a small workshop in the market, where an old man demonstrated traditional methods of woodworking. There was a lathe that was powered by a springy wood spar, some rope, and a board that he stepped on to keep the wood spinning. There was also a small drill that consisted of a stick with a crosspiece, some rope, and a spoon-shaped bit, which operated on the same principle as a yoyo.
Originally, we had thought of going into Lucerne after Rigi, but we decided against it, as we would only have been able to spend an hour there before needing to go home again – and as the dinner plans consisted of fondue, we didn’t want to delay unduly! So we headed back to Uwe and Esther’s. Torsten and Leandro played outside a bit, but soon, dinner was ready, and we sat down to a wonderful cheese fondue, eating outside on the patio. After dinner was a dessert of meringues and ice cream with coffee; it was really nice sitting outside, as Leandro and Torsten could play while we lingered over dinner. They played with the soccer ball, and also with little ride-on cars, and then Torsten pointed out the moon. After that, we called it a night – in the last little while, Torsten has been choosing German books for his bedtime stories, which makes me very happy!
Our plan for today is to go see a stork preserve, and to go to a dinosaur museum, as Leandro is doing dinosaurs at school. We leave in 15 minutes – more later today!
Friday, May 9, 2008
Basel and Solothurn
Yesterday was our shopping day in Basel. We decided that we’d just go into Basel, walk around the town without any particular goals, and get presents for people. After a leisurely breakfast with Esther that involved a large number of delicious cheeses, we drove into Basel. It took a little longer than we’d thought, since we had to find a parking garage. After navigating through winding city streets, some of which abruptly terminated in pedestrian areas (that’s how we saw the Munster (cathedral) – we never went back to it), we finally found our way to the garage at the city centre – only to find that it was full. We then crossed the Rhine and found a parking garage just across the main bridge from the pedestrian area. A bonus to the garage was that it was located next to a large playground with numerous climbing gyms and structures, sandboxes, swings, pingpong tables, foosball tables and benches. There was even a large portable building which contained washrooms and a snack bar. This was a “Robi” playground, apparently quite common in Basel, which prides itself on being family friendly. Our progress into Basel was therefore delayed slightly as Torsten delightedly ran around the playground, played in the sand, and climbed into the big wooden structures.
After we dragged Torsten away from the playground, we traversed the pedestrian area near the parking garage, went across the bridge to the main old area of town, and walked along the pedestrian area there, doing some shopping. In doing so, we passed by the Rathaus (town hall), which is brightly painted with figures, such that it almost glows in the sun. There was a small market in front of the Rathaus, primarily selling food. I won’t go into detail about our shopping – suffice it to say that it was satisfying. By then, it was past lunchtime, so we went to find a place to eat. Ingo had seen some places along the Rhine, so we headed back to see if we could find a place with a view. En route, Torsten, who was in my arms at the time, started excitedly saying “Boon! Boon!” which normally means balloon – but we couldn’t see one around, so we started looking for what else he might mean, like moon, or ball, as we carried on walking. Suddenly, he became quite upset, and squirmed around in my arms, so I put him down. He ran back, to a door that was recessed, and sure enough, there was a green McDonald’s balloon lying there. He picked it up and was happy again.
We and the balloon found our way to a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the river. There, I had the daily special – veal kidneys in a Marsala sauce with green salad and rosti – and Ingo had steak tartare with toast. Torsten had fish fingers that were actually real fish, just breaded, very yummy. We finished off with strawberry ice cream for Torsten, fresh pineapples and lemon sorbet for me, and a maple walnut parfait for Ingo. During the meal, we had a lovely view of the Rhine, and watched boats going up and down. There was also a very good view of the bridge, so Torsten could watch the streetcars and buses. There were a couple of ferries moving people back and forth across the Rhine; we considered taking one back over the Rhine to get to the parking garage, but later decided not to, as we had a lot of bags and it would have been a bit of a hassle. All in all, it was a wonderful lunch.
We still lacked a few presents, so after lunch, we headed out again. This time, I had the luck to find a well-stocked children’s book store, so I browsed through many books and picked up a few nice German books for Torsten. Later that evening, I read some of them to him, and he seemed to like them, which bodes well. We also managed to pick up a battery charger for Ingo’s camera battery, as we’d forgotten our adaptor/transformer at home – the one we got has a car charger, so we’ll be able to use it at home as well. Otherwise, we didn’t find anything of note, other than a really, really tacky tourist shop with the ugliest souvenirs imaginable. I can’t imagine how it stays in business!
Heading back to Uwe and Esther’s, I was really struck by the fact that we were leaving a major city at around 4:30 pm, and there wasn’t a hint of a traffic jam. There was certainly traffic, but at no point did it ever stop or even slow down noticeably. I guess that’s what having a really good public transit system will get you.
When we got back to Uwe and Esther’s, Torsten refused to nap, as Leandro (“An-jo”) was playing outside, and he wanted to join in. I went upstairs and helped Esther grate potatoes for the giant rostis that she was making for dinner, until I was interrupted by Ingo yelling for help – Torsten had had a poop explosion in his pants, overflowing both from top and bottom, which constituted a 5 alarm poop emergency! We cleaned him up, soaked his clothing, and popped him directly into a bath. After bath was dinner, and after dinner (and a lovely rhubarb bread pudding made from rhubarb grown in Esther’s garden) was bedtime.
Today, we decided to go to Solothurn, which is supposed to be the nicest baroque city in Switzerland. Our visit there started off slowly, as Torsten fell asleep just as we were pulling into the underground parking garage – we therefore spent the first hour in Solothurn sitting in the car and waiting for Torsten to wake up from his nap. For your information, there’s nothing baroque about that parking garage.
After Torsten woke up, we headed into the old city. The garage is very near the cathedral, so that was the first thing we saw as we emerged. To be specific, the first thing Torsten saw was the stair going up to the bell tower, and he ran to it, saying “Up, up!”. So we climbed up. It was very steep, and very high, but did afford a very nice view of Solothurn. There was a man at the top who prevented people from going outside to look until they had paid admission – smart, as nobody is going to refuse to pay the 3 francs after climbing up those interminable stairs! The bells were really huge as well. Going down, I put Torsten in the sling, and midway down, as the stairs grew wider but we lost the handrail, we put him in the backpack. The ticket collector actually came down right after us; it seems they close the tower for several hours at midday, much to the chagrin of the tourist who was halfway up the stairs as we were descending.
Solothurn is a little odd – there are all these fantastic baroque building interspersed among quite normal looking buildings, and you really have no warning that they’re there unless you’re specifically looking. The Jesuit church, for example, is along the main street, sandwiched between some shops – no space between them. Same with the clock tower, which is gorgeously painted and decorated.
We wandered around, looking at shops and buildings, and suddenly it was lunchtime. We found a little square with several restaurants on it, and chose the one that looked least snooty. It was awfully funny though – Swiss German really isn’t that similar to Hochdeutsch; the waitress came over and said something incomprehensible, which I assumed was asking us if we were ready to order, so I did. Afterwards, Ingo wondered if she was asking Torsten’s name. No idea. Hopefully she WAS just asking about our order! I had little veal bits in a mushroom sauce with rosti and a green salad, and Ingo had a goulash soup with a vegetarian spaetzle dish. Torsten just ate our stuff, but he wasn’t really that hungry, as he’d been nibbling on bread sticks all morning.
After lunch, we wandered around some more, looked in a few more shops (everything is very expensive, but usually also very nice), and went into the cathedral for a brief look around. It’s a very nice baroque cathedral, and we are now kicking ourselves for not picking up a book on it when we were at the top of the tower – they apparently don’t sell any at ground level! Torsten ran around pointing at Baby Jesus and telling me it was a baby. Finally, we wound up going into a confectionary shop and picking up a cake for Uwe and Esther, a Solothurner Torte. We had it tonight after dinner….mmmmm, yummy!!! It was a very good ending to a very good dinner, as Esther cooked mushroom risotto.
Tomorrow, we are going to go up the Rigi, a mountain, and have a picnic lunch, and then go onto Lucerne. As it’s the weekend, Uwe, Esther and Leandro are showing us around – I expect to have a lot of fun!
After we dragged Torsten away from the playground, we traversed the pedestrian area near the parking garage, went across the bridge to the main old area of town, and walked along the pedestrian area there, doing some shopping. In doing so, we passed by the Rathaus (town hall), which is brightly painted with figures, such that it almost glows in the sun. There was a small market in front of the Rathaus, primarily selling food. I won’t go into detail about our shopping – suffice it to say that it was satisfying. By then, it was past lunchtime, so we went to find a place to eat. Ingo had seen some places along the Rhine, so we headed back to see if we could find a place with a view. En route, Torsten, who was in my arms at the time, started excitedly saying “Boon! Boon!” which normally means balloon – but we couldn’t see one around, so we started looking for what else he might mean, like moon, or ball, as we carried on walking. Suddenly, he became quite upset, and squirmed around in my arms, so I put him down. He ran back, to a door that was recessed, and sure enough, there was a green McDonald’s balloon lying there. He picked it up and was happy again.
We and the balloon found our way to a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the river. There, I had the daily special – veal kidneys in a Marsala sauce with green salad and rosti – and Ingo had steak tartare with toast. Torsten had fish fingers that were actually real fish, just breaded, very yummy. We finished off with strawberry ice cream for Torsten, fresh pineapples and lemon sorbet for me, and a maple walnut parfait for Ingo. During the meal, we had a lovely view of the Rhine, and watched boats going up and down. There was also a very good view of the bridge, so Torsten could watch the streetcars and buses. There were a couple of ferries moving people back and forth across the Rhine; we considered taking one back over the Rhine to get to the parking garage, but later decided not to, as we had a lot of bags and it would have been a bit of a hassle. All in all, it was a wonderful lunch.
We still lacked a few presents, so after lunch, we headed out again. This time, I had the luck to find a well-stocked children’s book store, so I browsed through many books and picked up a few nice German books for Torsten. Later that evening, I read some of them to him, and he seemed to like them, which bodes well. We also managed to pick up a battery charger for Ingo’s camera battery, as we’d forgotten our adaptor/transformer at home – the one we got has a car charger, so we’ll be able to use it at home as well. Otherwise, we didn’t find anything of note, other than a really, really tacky tourist shop with the ugliest souvenirs imaginable. I can’t imagine how it stays in business!
Heading back to Uwe and Esther’s, I was really struck by the fact that we were leaving a major city at around 4:30 pm, and there wasn’t a hint of a traffic jam. There was certainly traffic, but at no point did it ever stop or even slow down noticeably. I guess that’s what having a really good public transit system will get you.
When we got back to Uwe and Esther’s, Torsten refused to nap, as Leandro (“An-jo”) was playing outside, and he wanted to join in. I went upstairs and helped Esther grate potatoes for the giant rostis that she was making for dinner, until I was interrupted by Ingo yelling for help – Torsten had had a poop explosion in his pants, overflowing both from top and bottom, which constituted a 5 alarm poop emergency! We cleaned him up, soaked his clothing, and popped him directly into a bath. After bath was dinner, and after dinner (and a lovely rhubarb bread pudding made from rhubarb grown in Esther’s garden) was bedtime.
Today, we decided to go to Solothurn, which is supposed to be the nicest baroque city in Switzerland. Our visit there started off slowly, as Torsten fell asleep just as we were pulling into the underground parking garage – we therefore spent the first hour in Solothurn sitting in the car and waiting for Torsten to wake up from his nap. For your information, there’s nothing baroque about that parking garage.
After Torsten woke up, we headed into the old city. The garage is very near the cathedral, so that was the first thing we saw as we emerged. To be specific, the first thing Torsten saw was the stair going up to the bell tower, and he ran to it, saying “Up, up!”. So we climbed up. It was very steep, and very high, but did afford a very nice view of Solothurn. There was a man at the top who prevented people from going outside to look until they had paid admission – smart, as nobody is going to refuse to pay the 3 francs after climbing up those interminable stairs! The bells were really huge as well. Going down, I put Torsten in the sling, and midway down, as the stairs grew wider but we lost the handrail, we put him in the backpack. The ticket collector actually came down right after us; it seems they close the tower for several hours at midday, much to the chagrin of the tourist who was halfway up the stairs as we were descending.
Solothurn is a little odd – there are all these fantastic baroque building interspersed among quite normal looking buildings, and you really have no warning that they’re there unless you’re specifically looking. The Jesuit church, for example, is along the main street, sandwiched between some shops – no space between them. Same with the clock tower, which is gorgeously painted and decorated.
We wandered around, looking at shops and buildings, and suddenly it was lunchtime. We found a little square with several restaurants on it, and chose the one that looked least snooty. It was awfully funny though – Swiss German really isn’t that similar to Hochdeutsch; the waitress came over and said something incomprehensible, which I assumed was asking us if we were ready to order, so I did. Afterwards, Ingo wondered if she was asking Torsten’s name. No idea. Hopefully she WAS just asking about our order! I had little veal bits in a mushroom sauce with rosti and a green salad, and Ingo had a goulash soup with a vegetarian spaetzle dish. Torsten just ate our stuff, but he wasn’t really that hungry, as he’d been nibbling on bread sticks all morning.
After lunch, we wandered around some more, looked in a few more shops (everything is very expensive, but usually also very nice), and went into the cathedral for a brief look around. It’s a very nice baroque cathedral, and we are now kicking ourselves for not picking up a book on it when we were at the top of the tower – they apparently don’t sell any at ground level! Torsten ran around pointing at Baby Jesus and telling me it was a baby. Finally, we wound up going into a confectionary shop and picking up a cake for Uwe and Esther, a Solothurner Torte. We had it tonight after dinner….mmmmm, yummy!!! It was a very good ending to a very good dinner, as Esther cooked mushroom risotto.
Tomorrow, we are going to go up the Rigi, a mountain, and have a picnic lunch, and then go onto Lucerne. As it’s the weekend, Uwe, Esther and Leandro are showing us around – I expect to have a lot of fun!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Cheese, glorious cheese
To resume where I left off previously – Leandro came home and gave us (Ingo and me) big bear hugs. It’s nice to know some things never change – he’s just as happy and exuberant as ever, and just as loud and incomprehensible! Actually, when he exerts himself, he can make himself understood, as he now goes to a school where they do 3 days of immersion English, and 2 days of immersion German (Hochdeutsch, not the Swiss version). We gave him his present (Uberstix – a building toy that integrates with everything), and he and Ingo promptly settled in to build a pistol, while Uwe and Torsten played with a little wooden railway set.
Presently, Esther came home, and she and Uwe began preparing dinner – raclette! It was sooooo yummy! There were 5 different kinds of raclette cheese (including a delicious smoked one), special raclette potatoes (basically small ones), tiny pickles, pickled onions and regular onions. It made me so envious, as all we have at home for raclette is generic “French Raclette Cheese”, which you can buy at Vincenzo’s.
The next day, we went to the Paul Klee Centre and Bern with Annerose. Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage City. That just about says it all – it’s incredibly pretty, and has a large enclosure with big, fluffy, cuddly-looking brown bears. More on all that later.
The Paul Klee Centre is an art museum and learning centre dedicated to the work of Paul Klee, and is the result of a donation by his daughter of 260 works of art to the city in 1996, on the condition that the city open such a museum by 2007. It’s a very modern building, designed by Renzo Piano, that looks like 3 bumps. One bump contains a café, the entrance, and, on the lower level, the children’s museum, where kids can play around with creating art on a themed basis. The middle bump contains the main gallery on the upper level (which was unfortunately closed when we were there) and special exhibits on the lower level. The remaining bump contains research facilities and studios. It was a good exhibition; all works by Paul Klee, and very unique. Torsten was a bit tired and restive, so I put him in his sling and we viewed the works together. He was particularly fascinated by the ones with fish in them, saying “Fish” whenever he saw one. Near the end of the exhibit, he fell asleep, and so we laid him down on a bench in the entrance hall and waited for him to wake up before heading out to Bern.
Bern, as mentioned above, is a beautiful city. There were brightly coloured flags flying from the buildings all along the main street, which is lined with shops and boutiques selling really unique (but expensive) things. Our first objective was to find a place for lunch, so we parked in the underground parking by the Casino and started walking. We found a nice little brasserie by the market (which sold not only fresh and tasty-looking produce, but also all sorts of souvenirs and clothes), and had a nice lunch. Annerose had some white asparagus, I had mussels in a saffron cream sauce and fries, and Ingo had a nice entrecote of horse. Torsten loved the horse and ate 2/3 of my fries.
After lunch, we decided to go see the bears, going down the main street. It was really interesting looking in all the shops – some were nice and fairly upscale, while others were a bit more generic. Down the middle of the street, which was cobblestoned, were fountains that were originally used to water horses. Each fountain had a brightly coloured figure on a pole in the middle. Some of them were quite funny, like the man who had at his feet a helmeted rat holding a rifle. When we got to the bears, we looked at them for a bit while Torsten said “Bear” a few times, and then headed back to the car, as it was getting quite late. Our route back took us past the Munster (cathedral), the spire of which was unfortunately undergoing renovations.
Back at Uwe and Esther’s, we waited for Esther to come home from work, then drove up the mountain to a small restaurant for dinner. Outside was a small play area, accessible either by going down some rough stairs or, if you’re a kid, via the slide. Leandro went down the slide (which was fairly long and ripply with high sides), and Torsten seemed to want to try it too, so Ingo ran down to the bottom to catch him, and I sent him on his way. He loved it! Little daredevil then wanted to do it again, so we let him – then diverted his mind to other matters on the playground before going in for dinner. Ingo and I both had a schnitzel with noodles and potatoes baked over with cheese – a typical Swiss dish called Alplermaccaroni. Very tasty, but very filling – luckily, we had Torsten there to help us out. Lately, he’s been eating constantly, so he helped put a considerable dent in the meal. Then, after we got back to Uwe and Esther’s, he “helped” Ingo to eat some ice cream – Ingo actually didn’t manage to have ANY of the three small scoops on his plate!
Today was laundry day, so we stayed in. Annerose left by train at midday, and we took a short walk down to the store to buy stuff for lunch (I’ve been craving fresh fruits and vegetables, as we haven’t had much in the last few days). At the store, they had some tiny grocery carts for kids to push, so we put our groceries in there and let Torsten push. He was hilarious, tooling around the grocery store – every time we’d put a hand on the cart to steer it, he’d push us away. Nothing much else happening today, but tomorrow we’ll likely drive to Basel to see what there is to see there. It’s nice to have a day just doing nothing, though! Well, apart from making sure we have enough clean clothes to last the rest of the trip.
Presently, Esther came home, and she and Uwe began preparing dinner – raclette! It was sooooo yummy! There were 5 different kinds of raclette cheese (including a delicious smoked one), special raclette potatoes (basically small ones), tiny pickles, pickled onions and regular onions. It made me so envious, as all we have at home for raclette is generic “French Raclette Cheese”, which you can buy at Vincenzo’s.
The next day, we went to the Paul Klee Centre and Bern with Annerose. Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage City. That just about says it all – it’s incredibly pretty, and has a large enclosure with big, fluffy, cuddly-looking brown bears. More on all that later.
The Paul Klee Centre is an art museum and learning centre dedicated to the work of Paul Klee, and is the result of a donation by his daughter of 260 works of art to the city in 1996, on the condition that the city open such a museum by 2007. It’s a very modern building, designed by Renzo Piano, that looks like 3 bumps. One bump contains a café, the entrance, and, on the lower level, the children’s museum, where kids can play around with creating art on a themed basis. The middle bump contains the main gallery on the upper level (which was unfortunately closed when we were there) and special exhibits on the lower level. The remaining bump contains research facilities and studios. It was a good exhibition; all works by Paul Klee, and very unique. Torsten was a bit tired and restive, so I put him in his sling and we viewed the works together. He was particularly fascinated by the ones with fish in them, saying “Fish” whenever he saw one. Near the end of the exhibit, he fell asleep, and so we laid him down on a bench in the entrance hall and waited for him to wake up before heading out to Bern.
Bern, as mentioned above, is a beautiful city. There were brightly coloured flags flying from the buildings all along the main street, which is lined with shops and boutiques selling really unique (but expensive) things. Our first objective was to find a place for lunch, so we parked in the underground parking by the Casino and started walking. We found a nice little brasserie by the market (which sold not only fresh and tasty-looking produce, but also all sorts of souvenirs and clothes), and had a nice lunch. Annerose had some white asparagus, I had mussels in a saffron cream sauce and fries, and Ingo had a nice entrecote of horse. Torsten loved the horse and ate 2/3 of my fries.
After lunch, we decided to go see the bears, going down the main street. It was really interesting looking in all the shops – some were nice and fairly upscale, while others were a bit more generic. Down the middle of the street, which was cobblestoned, were fountains that were originally used to water horses. Each fountain had a brightly coloured figure on a pole in the middle. Some of them were quite funny, like the man who had at his feet a helmeted rat holding a rifle. When we got to the bears, we looked at them for a bit while Torsten said “Bear” a few times, and then headed back to the car, as it was getting quite late. Our route back took us past the Munster (cathedral), the spire of which was unfortunately undergoing renovations.
Back at Uwe and Esther’s, we waited for Esther to come home from work, then drove up the mountain to a small restaurant for dinner. Outside was a small play area, accessible either by going down some rough stairs or, if you’re a kid, via the slide. Leandro went down the slide (which was fairly long and ripply with high sides), and Torsten seemed to want to try it too, so Ingo ran down to the bottom to catch him, and I sent him on his way. He loved it! Little daredevil then wanted to do it again, so we let him – then diverted his mind to other matters on the playground before going in for dinner. Ingo and I both had a schnitzel with noodles and potatoes baked over with cheese – a typical Swiss dish called Alplermaccaroni. Very tasty, but very filling – luckily, we had Torsten there to help us out. Lately, he’s been eating constantly, so he helped put a considerable dent in the meal. Then, after we got back to Uwe and Esther’s, he “helped” Ingo to eat some ice cream – Ingo actually didn’t manage to have ANY of the three small scoops on his plate!
Today was laundry day, so we stayed in. Annerose left by train at midday, and we took a short walk down to the store to buy stuff for lunch (I’ve been craving fresh fruits and vegetables, as we haven’t had much in the last few days). At the store, they had some tiny grocery carts for kids to push, so we put our groceries in there and let Torsten push. He was hilarious, tooling around the grocery store – every time we’d put a hand on the cart to steer it, he’d push us away. Nothing much else happening today, but tomorrow we’ll likely drive to Basel to see what there is to see there. It’s nice to have a day just doing nothing, though! Well, apart from making sure we have enough clean clothes to last the rest of the trip.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Barcelona to Switzerland - how nice!
Here we are in Switzerland! We arrived in Barcelona at 5:30 am, and kept sleeping. At around 7 or so, we decided it was time to wake up, pack the remaining small items, and go for breakfast. At breakfast, we saw Jitka and chatted for awhile, then we all trooped off to find Peter and Simi and say goodbye. After that, it was time to get off the ship, so we disembarked in a leisurely fashion, joined the long queue for taxis, and, thanks to the excellent taxi stand management, soon found ourselves heading off to the Estacio Franca, where our train would leave for Bern at 8:49 pm. When we got there, we found that they didn’t have a left luggage office, but that the other train station, Estacio Sants did, and that there was a free shuttle train that ran there every half hour (the shuttle actually ran to the airport and back). What excellent logistics!
After dropping off our luggage at Estacio Sants, we headed back to Estacio Franca and the waterfront. There was a row of little booths – tents, really – set up, selling crafty things like hats, bracelets, etc. They made a bright display, and some of the items were really quite lovely. Across from the tents was the occasional black guy, selling designer knock-off bags, displayed on what looked like a large blanket. As we walked along, we saw some of them pull on drawstrings attached to the blanket, scooping up all the merchandise into a big sack, and then start walking rapidly through the crowd. The explanation for this behaviour was soon forthcoming, as we saw a policeman on a scooter come by, patrolling – looks like they didn’t have vendor permits!
By that time it was almost noon, so we stopped in one of the tourist trap restaurants along the waterfront for lunch. We had a good view of the harbour and a ton of sailboats from our table, and ordered paella (for two). It was very, very tasty, but I still wasn’t feeling 100%, so I didn’t appreciate it as much as Ingo and Torsten. And as Ingo said, it probably wasn’t even a high standard of paella for the city! For me, the highlight of the meal was the little plate of olives and pickles they served us at the beginning of the meal. The olives were soooooo yummy! I don’t know what they were brined in, but I could easily have eaten 10 times what we had.
After lunch, I bought a few things from the vendors, and then, as I wasn’t feeling great and Torsten was very tired, we decided to head to the Citadel Park next to Estacio Franca rather than go to the Aquarium. On our way there, Torsten fell asleep, and when we got to the park, we managed to extract him from the backpack without waking him. We then sat by a garden for almost 2 hours while he slept in my arms. It was very relaxing.
When Torsten woke up, we rambled through the park for the remainder of our time prior to picking up our luggage. The park is very large – it contains a zoo (which we didn’t go into, as it cost 15 Euros, and we would only have been there for 2 hours), a lake, a small waterfall, the museum of natural history, a parliament building, a chapel, and probably a lot more – those were only the things that we saw when walking around. There was a place that rented covered bicycles that were hitched together in parallel to form a small car – we saw a lot of people tooling around in those. Finally, near the lake, Ingo said, “Let’s find some grass where we can let Torsten down and he can run around”, to which I replied, “Oh, I think there’s some nice grass over there by the mastodon” – to which he said, “What?” But there it was – a large model of a mastodon. Very random.
However, Torsten didn’t really want to run around much; he did run around a little, but then was content to sit on my lap, eating Cheerios and watching birds. There were also a lot of people to watch – one family settled down a few metres away from us. They had two little girls, around Torsten’s age. One of them came over and tried to take first Torsten’s ball, then our cup of water. She seemed disappointed when her father prevented her from doing so. She was also the one who, when they put her into the stroller while feeding yogurt to the other girl, started screaming, “MAMA!!!” at the top of her lungs. Torsten watched this for a while from where we were sitting, and then, every time she screamed, “MAMA!!!”, would point at me, while looking at her and say, in an explanatory way, “Mama.” It was really funny.
Eventually, it came time to go pick up our luggage, so we went back to the train station. We had a bit of time before the shuttle train arrived, so Ingo decided to have a cup of coffee. While there, I decided to go to the washroom, as it was marked “For cafeteria patrons only”, so I figured it might be better than the train station washrooms. I have no idea why they would want to limit the washrooms to patrons only, as they were really shack-nasty. There was no seat to the toilets, and no toilet paper – there wasn’t even a place for toilet paper. There was no soap, and only cold water. Really, really nasty.
After going to the other station, picking up our luggage, and coming back, we still had about an hour before our train was to leave – the track number hadn’t even been posted. After some preliminary running around, Ingo and Torsten spent the time playing ball in the station, to the amusement of many onlookers. Torsten would throw the small ball, Ingo would fetch it, roll it somewhere near Torsten, who would run towards it, pick it up, and throw it again. Torsten got to the point where he was so tired that he was laughing crazily, which made everyone smile.
Finally, they started boarding the train, so we got in and got settled. First class in that train is definitely the way to go! It was a tiny cabin, but it had a tiny washroom with a shower and fully laden toiletry bags (which was good, as it meant we didn’t have to unpack ours) and two beds. Almost immediately after boarding came the call for dinner, which was included in the price of our ticket (as was breakfast). It was a reasonable dinner; I started with cream of ham, which turned out to be a very thick, milk-tasting soup with small parma ham chunks in it, and Ingo started with a mushroom tagliatelle. He then had the Iberian secret (which turned out to be ham), and I had an overcooked veal entrecote. The meal ended up with a dense chocolate cake for me, and a chestnut flan for Ingo. Torsten enjoyed Ingo’s meal, but was so very sleepy. We were lucky that he didn’t throw a tired-tantrum, but we ate as quickly as possible, and then bundled him off to bed (where he managed to take up 2/3 of the bed that he and I were sharing).
In the morning, we were in Switzerland! We looked out the window, and we had just stopped at Lausanne. The view of the Alps was lovely. We packed up our things, had breakfast, and awaited Bern. When we arrived at 8:15 am, there were Uwe and Annerose waiting for us on the platform! After a rapturous reunion, we made our way past the hordes of perfectly capable people who had no real reason to use the elevator, and down to the garage where Uwe had parked his minivan. Picking up cheese enroute (raclette for dinner tonight, yum!!!), we drove to Uwe and Esther’s house, a beautiful old farmhouse that they’ve converted to 4 modern floors of spectacularly appointed rooms – we laughed, because they’ve got the same Stokke chairs that we have, only in red! They’ve also got the same Stokke highchair that we have, only in black. Because Uwe designed and built the interiors himself, they’ve got a huge storage space that I’m envious of, and amazing windows that let in a lot of light. The attic room, in particular, as a huge triangular window that basically takes up the one wall. And, of course, as Leandro is a bit older than Torsten, there are plenty of toys!
We had a marvelous barley soup that Esther prepared last night, and now we’re breathlessly awaiting the return of Esther from work and Leandro from school!
After dropping off our luggage at Estacio Sants, we headed back to Estacio Franca and the waterfront. There was a row of little booths – tents, really – set up, selling crafty things like hats, bracelets, etc. They made a bright display, and some of the items were really quite lovely. Across from the tents was the occasional black guy, selling designer knock-off bags, displayed on what looked like a large blanket. As we walked along, we saw some of them pull on drawstrings attached to the blanket, scooping up all the merchandise into a big sack, and then start walking rapidly through the crowd. The explanation for this behaviour was soon forthcoming, as we saw a policeman on a scooter come by, patrolling – looks like they didn’t have vendor permits!
By that time it was almost noon, so we stopped in one of the tourist trap restaurants along the waterfront for lunch. We had a good view of the harbour and a ton of sailboats from our table, and ordered paella (for two). It was very, very tasty, but I still wasn’t feeling 100%, so I didn’t appreciate it as much as Ingo and Torsten. And as Ingo said, it probably wasn’t even a high standard of paella for the city! For me, the highlight of the meal was the little plate of olives and pickles they served us at the beginning of the meal. The olives were soooooo yummy! I don’t know what they were brined in, but I could easily have eaten 10 times what we had.
After lunch, I bought a few things from the vendors, and then, as I wasn’t feeling great and Torsten was very tired, we decided to head to the Citadel Park next to Estacio Franca rather than go to the Aquarium. On our way there, Torsten fell asleep, and when we got to the park, we managed to extract him from the backpack without waking him. We then sat by a garden for almost 2 hours while he slept in my arms. It was very relaxing.
When Torsten woke up, we rambled through the park for the remainder of our time prior to picking up our luggage. The park is very large – it contains a zoo (which we didn’t go into, as it cost 15 Euros, and we would only have been there for 2 hours), a lake, a small waterfall, the museum of natural history, a parliament building, a chapel, and probably a lot more – those were only the things that we saw when walking around. There was a place that rented covered bicycles that were hitched together in parallel to form a small car – we saw a lot of people tooling around in those. Finally, near the lake, Ingo said, “Let’s find some grass where we can let Torsten down and he can run around”, to which I replied, “Oh, I think there’s some nice grass over there by the mastodon” – to which he said, “What?” But there it was – a large model of a mastodon. Very random.
However, Torsten didn’t really want to run around much; he did run around a little, but then was content to sit on my lap, eating Cheerios and watching birds. There were also a lot of people to watch – one family settled down a few metres away from us. They had two little girls, around Torsten’s age. One of them came over and tried to take first Torsten’s ball, then our cup of water. She seemed disappointed when her father prevented her from doing so. She was also the one who, when they put her into the stroller while feeding yogurt to the other girl, started screaming, “MAMA!!!” at the top of her lungs. Torsten watched this for a while from where we were sitting, and then, every time she screamed, “MAMA!!!”, would point at me, while looking at her and say, in an explanatory way, “Mama.” It was really funny.
Eventually, it came time to go pick up our luggage, so we went back to the train station. We had a bit of time before the shuttle train arrived, so Ingo decided to have a cup of coffee. While there, I decided to go to the washroom, as it was marked “For cafeteria patrons only”, so I figured it might be better than the train station washrooms. I have no idea why they would want to limit the washrooms to patrons only, as they were really shack-nasty. There was no seat to the toilets, and no toilet paper – there wasn’t even a place for toilet paper. There was no soap, and only cold water. Really, really nasty.
After going to the other station, picking up our luggage, and coming back, we still had about an hour before our train was to leave – the track number hadn’t even been posted. After some preliminary running around, Ingo and Torsten spent the time playing ball in the station, to the amusement of many onlookers. Torsten would throw the small ball, Ingo would fetch it, roll it somewhere near Torsten, who would run towards it, pick it up, and throw it again. Torsten got to the point where he was so tired that he was laughing crazily, which made everyone smile.
Finally, they started boarding the train, so we got in and got settled. First class in that train is definitely the way to go! It was a tiny cabin, but it had a tiny washroom with a shower and fully laden toiletry bags (which was good, as it meant we didn’t have to unpack ours) and two beds. Almost immediately after boarding came the call for dinner, which was included in the price of our ticket (as was breakfast). It was a reasonable dinner; I started with cream of ham, which turned out to be a very thick, milk-tasting soup with small parma ham chunks in it, and Ingo started with a mushroom tagliatelle. He then had the Iberian secret (which turned out to be ham), and I had an overcooked veal entrecote. The meal ended up with a dense chocolate cake for me, and a chestnut flan for Ingo. Torsten enjoyed Ingo’s meal, but was so very sleepy. We were lucky that he didn’t throw a tired-tantrum, but we ate as quickly as possible, and then bundled him off to bed (where he managed to take up 2/3 of the bed that he and I were sharing).
In the morning, we were in Switzerland! We looked out the window, and we had just stopped at Lausanne. The view of the Alps was lovely. We packed up our things, had breakfast, and awaited Bern. When we arrived at 8:15 am, there were Uwe and Annerose waiting for us on the platform! After a rapturous reunion, we made our way past the hordes of perfectly capable people who had no real reason to use the elevator, and down to the garage where Uwe had parked his minivan. Picking up cheese enroute (raclette for dinner tonight, yum!!!), we drove to Uwe and Esther’s house, a beautiful old farmhouse that they’ve converted to 4 modern floors of spectacularly appointed rooms – we laughed, because they’ve got the same Stokke chairs that we have, only in red! They’ve also got the same Stokke highchair that we have, only in black. Because Uwe designed and built the interiors himself, they’ve got a huge storage space that I’m envious of, and amazing windows that let in a lot of light. The attic room, in particular, as a huge triangular window that basically takes up the one wall. And, of course, as Leandro is a bit older than Torsten, there are plenty of toys!
We had a marvelous barley soup that Esther prepared last night, and now we’re breathlessly awaiting the return of Esther from work and Leandro from school!
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Who needs Italy, when there's the French Riviera?
Well, Villefranche was CONSIDERABLY better! First of all, it’s absolutely gorgeous, with stucco houses and old stone arched roads clustered on a steep hillside overlooking the blue, blue water. Secondly, it was a tender port, and we were late enough that our tender over contained very few passengers.
After docking at Villefranche, we walked up a short hill to the citadel, which has 3 tiny museums and a garden, besides containing the town hall and police station. The garden was covered in climbing roses, which were lovely against the old stone walls. One of the museums was a collection of porcelain medieval figures, including knights fighting and practicing, a medieval wedding, a medieval betrothal, a celebration, and scenes from the life of St. Louis. It was really cool.
At the citadel, we bumped into Peter, Jitka and Simi, and we walked down together, through the tiny but charming pedestrian way, lined with quaint shops (although quite a lot of them were obviously tourist oriented and sold clothes as well). By this time, I was quite thirsty, so we parted ways and made our way back down to the waterfront to find a café. En route we passed by, and then traversed along, the Rua Obscura, a road that is entirely buried under the houses, with arched ceilings. It was apparently a place where people would take shelter from bombs as well. Very interesting.
Most of the cafes along the waterfront sat directly on the road, or along the jetty, where there were no walls to prevent Torsten from falling in, so we decided upon a café at the edge of the pedestrian zone, near a fountain. Torsten had a wonderful time splashing his hands around in the fountain, and was with difficulty brought back to the table – only the lure of ice cream kept him from running back to the fountain. We sat there for quite some time, partially because Torsten could play in the fountain, and partially because they had very slow service.
At around 1, we decided to go back to the ship, since it was to leave at 3. Unfortunately, we got to the tender dock just in time to see all the shore excursion people pour in. To avoid being stampeded, we decided to wait in the terminal until the crush died down – we waited for almost 2 hours! It was insane. At first, the people mobbed the jetty, but luckily, the cruise line had sent people out to pass out drinks and keep some semblance of order, so we didn’t have a reoccurrence of the shuttle bus fiasco. The tenders also came fairly frequently; it was just that there was such a mass of people to move. Luckily, Torsten fell asleep during all of this, so he had the opportunity to have a reasonably long nap – that is, until the incredibly loud people on the tender woke him up with their raucous laughter. Later, they had the nerve to say how cute he was. It was tempting to say, “Your inconsiderateness makes your compliments unwelcome”.
When we got back to the ship, I lay down (still feeling a bit delicate), and Ingo went onto the balcony to take some photos. Then he turned around and said to me, “Someone just threw an orange off the ship.” How random!
Anyway, both Ingo and I agreed that this trip has pushed Italy down considerably on the scale of places to go back and visit. Compared to all the other ports, it just seems less appealing - not only because of the individual places we saw, but because of the atmosphere.
Tomorrow is disembarkation day – we dock at Barcelona at 5:30 am. We’ve chosen the self-disembarkation route, which means we carry off all our luggage ourselves, and aren’t tied down to a specific time (although we have to be off the boat by 9:30 am or so). That also means we should have the chance to have breakfast before leaving. I won’t get the chance to update this blog till Switzerland, and then only if I have Internet access, so stay tuned!
After docking at Villefranche, we walked up a short hill to the citadel, which has 3 tiny museums and a garden, besides containing the town hall and police station. The garden was covered in climbing roses, which were lovely against the old stone walls. One of the museums was a collection of porcelain medieval figures, including knights fighting and practicing, a medieval wedding, a medieval betrothal, a celebration, and scenes from the life of St. Louis. It was really cool.
At the citadel, we bumped into Peter, Jitka and Simi, and we walked down together, through the tiny but charming pedestrian way, lined with quaint shops (although quite a lot of them were obviously tourist oriented and sold clothes as well). By this time, I was quite thirsty, so we parted ways and made our way back down to the waterfront to find a café. En route we passed by, and then traversed along, the Rua Obscura, a road that is entirely buried under the houses, with arched ceilings. It was apparently a place where people would take shelter from bombs as well. Very interesting.
Most of the cafes along the waterfront sat directly on the road, or along the jetty, where there were no walls to prevent Torsten from falling in, so we decided upon a café at the edge of the pedestrian zone, near a fountain. Torsten had a wonderful time splashing his hands around in the fountain, and was with difficulty brought back to the table – only the lure of ice cream kept him from running back to the fountain. We sat there for quite some time, partially because Torsten could play in the fountain, and partially because they had very slow service.
At around 1, we decided to go back to the ship, since it was to leave at 3. Unfortunately, we got to the tender dock just in time to see all the shore excursion people pour in. To avoid being stampeded, we decided to wait in the terminal until the crush died down – we waited for almost 2 hours! It was insane. At first, the people mobbed the jetty, but luckily, the cruise line had sent people out to pass out drinks and keep some semblance of order, so we didn’t have a reoccurrence of the shuttle bus fiasco. The tenders also came fairly frequently; it was just that there was such a mass of people to move. Luckily, Torsten fell asleep during all of this, so he had the opportunity to have a reasonably long nap – that is, until the incredibly loud people on the tender woke him up with their raucous laughter. Later, they had the nerve to say how cute he was. It was tempting to say, “Your inconsiderateness makes your compliments unwelcome”.
When we got back to the ship, I lay down (still feeling a bit delicate), and Ingo went onto the balcony to take some photos. Then he turned around and said to me, “Someone just threw an orange off the ship.” How random!
Anyway, both Ingo and I agreed that this trip has pushed Italy down considerably on the scale of places to go back and visit. Compared to all the other ports, it just seems less appealing - not only because of the individual places we saw, but because of the atmosphere.
Tomorrow is disembarkation day – we dock at Barcelona at 5:30 am. We’ve chosen the self-disembarkation route, which means we carry off all our luggage ourselves, and aren’t tied down to a specific time (although we have to be off the boat by 9:30 am or so). That also means we should have the chance to have breakfast before leaving. I won’t get the chance to update this blog till Switzerland, and then only if I have Internet access, so stay tuned!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Livorno - Colour me unimpressed.
We decided to forego our plan of going into Pisa today, firstly because Ingo and I were tired (Ingo because he might be fighting off the virus that got me, and me because I’m still recovering, although I’m pretty much fine now), and secondly because it would be a bit of a hassle and trek to get to Pisa. We therefore decided to go into Livorno, take a look around, and see what there was to be seen.
The shuttle bus into Livorno cost 1 Euro per person, oddly, and took about 20 minutes, as we were docked at the industrial port. When we got off, we waited till the crush died down at the little information kiosk, and then got a map. Yet another place where nobody has heard of queuing.
Livorno is not very pretty, and there is a lot of traffic, with motorcycles whizzing everywhere. It was somewhat scary to be a pedestrian. I don’t really have very much positive to say about Livorno – we tried to find a nice café or restaurant, and failed dismally, partially because nothing appeared to be open, even though it was 1 pm. The shopping areas seemed dingy, with bargain-basement types of shops on the one hand, and generic Euro-clothes (Benetton etc.) on the other. There was a fairly large market that sold nice produce and various other oddments (buttons, clothing, fish), but nothing all that interesting. The nicest place we found was the fort, which had been transformed into a park inside, and was apparently a concert venue. Even there, the grass was studded with cigarette stubs and broken glass.
Eventually, we gave up and headed back to the shuttle bus pickup point. We were excited to see that there was a bus there, and were sure that we’d quickly be on our way. Alas, no. The driver had apparently toodled off for an indefinite amount of time to take a break, letting the line grow longer and longer. We wound up waiting for 45 minutes or so in the sun, becoming more and more aggravated and watching 4 Princess Cruise Line shuttle buses go by, until finally another shuttle bus came. Unfortunately, this was the cue for all queue jumpers to try charging ahead, and yet again, there was a mob of people at each bus door. I was only able to get in with Torsten because Ingo blocked the door for me with the backpack, and even then, there was a lady blocking the aisle so that I couldn’t get to the remaining seats (she kept telling her husband to get on the bus, and stood completely in the way). I wound up telling Ingo to get on the bus, handing Torsten to him so that he could get to the seats, and then loudly yelling “Don’t worry, baby, Mama’s coming!” while pushing past people standing in the aisles. Not a fun experience.
Back at the cruise ship, we sat and waited for the mob to board the ship, then boarded with no fuss. The rest of the day was spent quietly on board the ship. I hope Villefranche is better!
The shuttle bus into Livorno cost 1 Euro per person, oddly, and took about 20 minutes, as we were docked at the industrial port. When we got off, we waited till the crush died down at the little information kiosk, and then got a map. Yet another place where nobody has heard of queuing.
Livorno is not very pretty, and there is a lot of traffic, with motorcycles whizzing everywhere. It was somewhat scary to be a pedestrian. I don’t really have very much positive to say about Livorno – we tried to find a nice café or restaurant, and failed dismally, partially because nothing appeared to be open, even though it was 1 pm. The shopping areas seemed dingy, with bargain-basement types of shops on the one hand, and generic Euro-clothes (Benetton etc.) on the other. There was a fairly large market that sold nice produce and various other oddments (buttons, clothing, fish), but nothing all that interesting. The nicest place we found was the fort, which had been transformed into a park inside, and was apparently a concert venue. Even there, the grass was studded with cigarette stubs and broken glass.
Eventually, we gave up and headed back to the shuttle bus pickup point. We were excited to see that there was a bus there, and were sure that we’d quickly be on our way. Alas, no. The driver had apparently toodled off for an indefinite amount of time to take a break, letting the line grow longer and longer. We wound up waiting for 45 minutes or so in the sun, becoming more and more aggravated and watching 4 Princess Cruise Line shuttle buses go by, until finally another shuttle bus came. Unfortunately, this was the cue for all queue jumpers to try charging ahead, and yet again, there was a mob of people at each bus door. I was only able to get in with Torsten because Ingo blocked the door for me with the backpack, and even then, there was a lady blocking the aisle so that I couldn’t get to the remaining seats (she kept telling her husband to get on the bus, and stood completely in the way). I wound up telling Ingo to get on the bus, handing Torsten to him so that he could get to the seats, and then loudly yelling “Don’t worry, baby, Mama’s coming!” while pushing past people standing in the aisles. Not a fun experience.
Back at the cruise ship, we sat and waited for the mob to board the ship, then boarded with no fuss. The rest of the day was spent quietly on board the ship. I hope Villefranche is better!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Civitavecchia - Italian for "You're not missing much"
As some of you may know, this was the day that we had intended to go to Ostia Antica. However, our plans were foiled by the unfortunate fact that Torsten is not the only one who can succumb to evil in his tummy - now I have! I spent a lot of last night throwing up, and quite a bit of today too, although all I've been having is some water, apple juice, and a tiny nibble of crackers. It now looks like Torsten had a touch of stomach flu, rather than food poisoning, and I've gotten the virus. I'm just letting it run its course, which means staying in the stateroom and napping as much as I can, and, of course, letting my digestive system let me know when it's time to hit the washroom.
Ingo and Torsten went out to Civitavecchia, and it's apparently nothing to write home about. There's a lot of garbage around the walkways, but they had fun wandering around and kicking a little soccer ball that we bought for Torsten in Ajaccio. For lunch, they had focaccia and gnocchi, and Torsten apparently hoovered down the gnocchi.
That's about it - hopefully I feel better tomorrow and we don't miss Livorno/Pisa!
Ingo and Torsten went out to Civitavecchia, and it's apparently nothing to write home about. There's a lot of garbage around the walkways, but they had fun wandering around and kicking a little soccer ball that we bought for Torsten in Ajaccio. For lunch, they had focaccia and gnocchi, and Torsten apparently hoovered down the gnocchi.
That's about it - hopefully I feel better tomorrow and we don't miss Livorno/Pisa!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
How would you pronounce Ajaccio?
Ajaccio! Birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte! Where we managed to see absolutely nothing related to Napoleon whatsoever…actually, we DID see the outside of the house where Napoleon was born, but the horde of tourists and schoolgroups was a major deterrent in trying to brave the museum inside the house. However, I get ahead of myself.
Ajaccio is a tender port, and so after breakfast, we got onto one of the four catamarans shuttling passengers to the jetty. At the jetty, we did our usual trick of bypassing the ubiquitous ship photographers and headed into the town. The route I chose by chance passed the main market, which apparently was present every day until 1 pm. There we found a little booth selling candy and lovely wooden children’s toys, and we stopped to look – eventually buying a few things. That was where I got my first “good for you, you speak French, even lamely” bonus – the lady threw in 4 toffee lollipops, and she was very friendly. I get the impression that they’re used to tourists who can’t speak any French at all.
After the market, we made our way to Maison Napoleon, which was teeming with the aforementioned hordes. Torsten was getting restless, so after we snapped a picture of the house, we went back to the boulevard we’d walked up so that he could run about a little. Then we wandered in the direction of the Fesch Museum, which is supposed to have the largest collection of Italian art in France other than the Louvre. To our disappointment, the museum was closed until the end of 2009. Thus, we gave up on trying to see anything remotely historical, and just wandered around.
Ajaccio has some quaint winding streets, some of them pedestrian areas, filled with shops with homes above them. It was funny walking down one of the restaurant streets and seeing the lines of laundry flapping up above. We didn’t look up very much, however, because as this is a French city, dog poop abounded on the sidewalks and roads. There were a number of tourist-oriented shops, but also some nice shops selling fashionable clothing (I really like the fashions here, but I regretfully decided not to spend the minimum 25 Euros on flimsy articles) and jewellery. We did stop into a little gift shop selling cute glass animals, which is where I got my second lame-French-speaker bonus – she threw in a pen. It was awfully funny, because she wanted to practice her English, and I wanted to practice my French, so we both limped along in foreign languages. I’m amazed at how few tourists speak even a few words of French. Being a busybody, I would often hear people struggling (or, more often, repeating English words loudly to an uncomprehending Corsican) and throw in a translation in passing – and my French is NOT very good!
We then stopped for lunch at a harbourside bistro that had a nice patio by the wharf, where we watched some fishermen preparing their boats and nets. The table next to us had a plate heaped with tiny fried fishes, so I asked what they were (Friture des éperlans – fried smelts) and promptly ordered them. Yum! Torsten agrees – he kept snitching them from my plate. Ingo had a ham, cheese and mushroom galette.
After lunch, we meandered over to the citadel, which was built in 1492 (and had bits added onto it in the 3 centuries after that), and is still in use as a military base. Since we couldn’t get in, we took stairs down to the beach below it, where we introduced Torsten to sand and the beach. He didn’t actually wet his toes in the water, just went close and then back up the beach; however, after he got used to it, he really enjoyed digging his feet and toes in the sand (which was very fine and soft).
We stopped for a quick (and as it turned out, expensive) ice cream, primarily so that we could use the restrooms, and then decided to head back along the pedestrian shopping street, as I’d decided to buy another little glass animal. It’s a good thing that we did, since the shopkeeper had forgotten to put in one of my previous purchases! This time, I think the little flashlight that she threw in was an “oops” bonus.
On our way back to the tender, Torsten fell asleep in the backpack. He’s still sleeping now – only waking up briefly to drink a bit of water and eat some banana bread. Ingo and I are sitting on our balcony, sipping club soda, and watching the sea sparkle in the light. This is the life!
Ajaccio is a tender port, and so after breakfast, we got onto one of the four catamarans shuttling passengers to the jetty. At the jetty, we did our usual trick of bypassing the ubiquitous ship photographers and headed into the town. The route I chose by chance passed the main market, which apparently was present every day until 1 pm. There we found a little booth selling candy and lovely wooden children’s toys, and we stopped to look – eventually buying a few things. That was where I got my first “good for you, you speak French, even lamely” bonus – the lady threw in 4 toffee lollipops, and she was very friendly. I get the impression that they’re used to tourists who can’t speak any French at all.
After the market, we made our way to Maison Napoleon, which was teeming with the aforementioned hordes. Torsten was getting restless, so after we snapped a picture of the house, we went back to the boulevard we’d walked up so that he could run about a little. Then we wandered in the direction of the Fesch Museum, which is supposed to have the largest collection of Italian art in France other than the Louvre. To our disappointment, the museum was closed until the end of 2009. Thus, we gave up on trying to see anything remotely historical, and just wandered around.
Ajaccio has some quaint winding streets, some of them pedestrian areas, filled with shops with homes above them. It was funny walking down one of the restaurant streets and seeing the lines of laundry flapping up above. We didn’t look up very much, however, because as this is a French city, dog poop abounded on the sidewalks and roads. There were a number of tourist-oriented shops, but also some nice shops selling fashionable clothing (I really like the fashions here, but I regretfully decided not to spend the minimum 25 Euros on flimsy articles) and jewellery. We did stop into a little gift shop selling cute glass animals, which is where I got my second lame-French-speaker bonus – she threw in a pen. It was awfully funny, because she wanted to practice her English, and I wanted to practice my French, so we both limped along in foreign languages. I’m amazed at how few tourists speak even a few words of French. Being a busybody, I would often hear people struggling (or, more often, repeating English words loudly to an uncomprehending Corsican) and throw in a translation in passing – and my French is NOT very good!
We then stopped for lunch at a harbourside bistro that had a nice patio by the wharf, where we watched some fishermen preparing their boats and nets. The table next to us had a plate heaped with tiny fried fishes, so I asked what they were (Friture des éperlans – fried smelts) and promptly ordered them. Yum! Torsten agrees – he kept snitching them from my plate. Ingo had a ham, cheese and mushroom galette.
After lunch, we meandered over to the citadel, which was built in 1492 (and had bits added onto it in the 3 centuries after that), and is still in use as a military base. Since we couldn’t get in, we took stairs down to the beach below it, where we introduced Torsten to sand and the beach. He didn’t actually wet his toes in the water, just went close and then back up the beach; however, after he got used to it, he really enjoyed digging his feet and toes in the sand (which was very fine and soft).
We stopped for a quick (and as it turned out, expensive) ice cream, primarily so that we could use the restrooms, and then decided to head back along the pedestrian shopping street, as I’d decided to buy another little glass animal. It’s a good thing that we did, since the shopkeeper had forgotten to put in one of my previous purchases! This time, I think the little flashlight that she threw in was an “oops” bonus.
On our way back to the tender, Torsten fell asleep in the backpack. He’s still sleeping now – only waking up briefly to drink a bit of water and eat some banana bread. Ingo and I are sitting on our balcony, sipping club soda, and watching the sea sparkle in the light. This is the life!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Poopful Post - be warned
How can something so vile and evil come out of someone so lovely? Today was a sea day, and the one thing of note was the incredibly huge poop that Torsten had after dinner, while we were in the library. We first got wind of it because of its acute rankness, and we rushed him downstairs, with his pants half falling down from the weight. It was not pretty, and was definitely a two-parent emergency. Luckily, the stewards were just outside, doing the turndown service, so we were able to get rid of the toxic waste immediately, and popped Torsten straight into the bath. No wonder the poor little man hasn't been sleeping well!
Apart from that, nothing too interesting happened today. The Mediterranean Sea is an incredible blue, and I took the opportunity to admire it after I finished doing some work.
I also forgot to mention previously that we were delayed leaving Malaga by about an hour because of a passenger with "document irregularities", according to the announcements over the PA system. Ingo was on deck taking shots of Malaga and the other ships in the harbour, and he saw a police car, and then, in a little while, policemen leading out a passenger in handcuffs and driving away with him. As Ingo said, not even document Imodium was going to cure that kind of document irregularity!
This was a silly post, but nothing exciting happened today, although it was a nice day and Torsten played with his little friend Simone and another little boy, Aaron (who is loud and made Torsten cry because of his volume - but he's actually a very nice boy).
Apart from that, nothing too interesting happened today. The Mediterranean Sea is an incredible blue, and I took the opportunity to admire it after I finished doing some work.
I also forgot to mention previously that we were delayed leaving Malaga by about an hour because of a passenger with "document irregularities", according to the announcements over the PA system. Ingo was on deck taking shots of Malaga and the other ships in the harbour, and he saw a police car, and then, in a little while, policemen leading out a passenger in handcuffs and driving away with him. As Ingo said, not even document Imodium was going to cure that kind of document irregularity!
This was a silly post, but nothing exciting happened today, although it was a nice day and Torsten played with his little friend Simone and another little boy, Aaron (who is loud and made Torsten cry because of his volume - but he's actually a very nice boy).
Monday, April 28, 2008
Shazam and Gargamel in Malaga
Good news – Torsten is fine and we all thoroughly enjoyed Malaga. We woke up a bit late, which was all to the good, as it allowed us to miss the initial rush of people taking the shuttle bus into Malaga. From the bus drop off point, we walked up to the cathedral, which is massive and truly imposing. However, it was teeming with tourists and would have cost 3.50 Euros to go in, so we gave it a miss. It was quite amazing, how rude people pushing around were! Luckily, Ingo had Torsten in the backpack, so Torsten was protected from the worst of the shovers.
Our main goal for sightseeing in Malaga was to see the Alcazaba, an old Moorish castle that was built on top of some Roman ruins (they’re excavating a coliseum at the foot of the castle). The Alcazaba apparently has a nice museum inside. Unfortunately, the Alzacaba is closed on Mondays, so we continued on up the steep hill to the Castille de Gibralfaro, which is actually older than the Alcazaba (8th century) and more or less adjacent to it. As Ingo said halfway up the climb, it seems as though someone said “Great, we’ve built this wonderful, defensible castle that nobody can overrun – but there are so many freakin’ steps to climb; let’s build another one, lower down”. As the names were a bit tough to remember, we nicknamed them Shazam and Gargamel.
From the Castille (which is at the pinnacle of the hill), we had a wonderful view of the city, including a view overlooking a bullfighting arena. No fights were in progress while we were there. There wasn’t a museum up there, just ruins and ramparts to walk around, but Torsten had a lot of fun running around, and we had a nice refreshing drink up at the top, at the strategically placed café.
Making our way down the hill was quicker, but a bit trickier, than going up, as the pathways were comprised of large, smooth flagstones set in cement. As they were quite steep, you can imagine people trying to storm the castle and being repelled by losing their footing on flagstones made slick with olive oil. Halfway down the hill, we took a different pathway, which led us to a broad pedestrian boulevard lined with trees and overlooking the harbour. Malaga seems to have quite a number of parks, and there are a lot of flowers and trees in evidence – it made for a very pleasant walk. Coming down the hill was so pleasant, in fact, that Torsten fell deeply asleep in his backpack; it was really funny.
We then visited a little wine shop, where we bought some Malaga sweet wine (it was popular in Victorian England, where it was called “mountain sack” – not sure why), and from there we made our way back to the ship. Actually, we made our way back to the shuttle bus pick up point, discovered that the bus pulling out had filled up, waited for a bit, and when we saw that people were going to try to pile onto the next bus regardless of the queue, we decided to walk. It took us half an hour, but it was totally worth it – we gained a leisurely perspective of the harbour, and were spared the scrum of rude people on the bus.
Currently, Torsten is taking a nap, while Ingo is on deck trying to get a good photo of the sailing cruise ship berthed ahead of us. We are somewhat late in pulling out, but no matter. Tomorrow is our last sea day – after that, we have 5 port days in a row, with the last port being our final disembarkation. It’s hard to believe that we’re over halfway through the cruise!
LATER
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but Torsten has collected quite the fan club – more so, I think, than any other kid on board. Waitresses stop and say, “Oh this is the famous cute baby I’ve heard so much talk about!”, and other passengers say “Oh look, it’s the cute little boy, the one that was wearing the hat, in the knapsack!”. People are always talking to him, waving at him, and, in the case of various elderly persons in Lisbon, touching and kissing him. He has special friends in the crew – one of the cleaning staff (whose name I’ve forgotten), our two cabin stewards, John and Mochahmad, and one of the hospitality staff, Melania. Torsten eats it all up. It’s going to be hard to get him to settle back into the quiet life in Waterloo!
Our main goal for sightseeing in Malaga was to see the Alcazaba, an old Moorish castle that was built on top of some Roman ruins (they’re excavating a coliseum at the foot of the castle). The Alcazaba apparently has a nice museum inside. Unfortunately, the Alzacaba is closed on Mondays, so we continued on up the steep hill to the Castille de Gibralfaro, which is actually older than the Alcazaba (8th century) and more or less adjacent to it. As Ingo said halfway up the climb, it seems as though someone said “Great, we’ve built this wonderful, defensible castle that nobody can overrun – but there are so many freakin’ steps to climb; let’s build another one, lower down”. As the names were a bit tough to remember, we nicknamed them Shazam and Gargamel.
From the Castille (which is at the pinnacle of the hill), we had a wonderful view of the city, including a view overlooking a bullfighting arena. No fights were in progress while we were there. There wasn’t a museum up there, just ruins and ramparts to walk around, but Torsten had a lot of fun running around, and we had a nice refreshing drink up at the top, at the strategically placed café.
Making our way down the hill was quicker, but a bit trickier, than going up, as the pathways were comprised of large, smooth flagstones set in cement. As they were quite steep, you can imagine people trying to storm the castle and being repelled by losing their footing on flagstones made slick with olive oil. Halfway down the hill, we took a different pathway, which led us to a broad pedestrian boulevard lined with trees and overlooking the harbour. Malaga seems to have quite a number of parks, and there are a lot of flowers and trees in evidence – it made for a very pleasant walk. Coming down the hill was so pleasant, in fact, that Torsten fell deeply asleep in his backpack; it was really funny.
We then visited a little wine shop, where we bought some Malaga sweet wine (it was popular in Victorian England, where it was called “mountain sack” – not sure why), and from there we made our way back to the ship. Actually, we made our way back to the shuttle bus pick up point, discovered that the bus pulling out had filled up, waited for a bit, and when we saw that people were going to try to pile onto the next bus regardless of the queue, we decided to walk. It took us half an hour, but it was totally worth it – we gained a leisurely perspective of the harbour, and were spared the scrum of rude people on the bus.
Currently, Torsten is taking a nap, while Ingo is on deck trying to get a good photo of the sailing cruise ship berthed ahead of us. We are somewhat late in pulling out, but no matter. Tomorrow is our last sea day – after that, we have 5 port days in a row, with the last port being our final disembarkation. It’s hard to believe that we’re over halfway through the cruise!
LATER
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but Torsten has collected quite the fan club – more so, I think, than any other kid on board. Waitresses stop and say, “Oh this is the famous cute baby I’ve heard so much talk about!”, and other passengers say “Oh look, it’s the cute little boy, the one that was wearing the hat, in the knapsack!”. People are always talking to him, waving at him, and, in the case of various elderly persons in Lisbon, touching and kissing him. He has special friends in the crew – one of the cleaning staff (whose name I’ve forgotten), our two cabin stewards, John and Mochahmad, and one of the hospitality staff, Melania. Torsten eats it all up. It’s going to be hard to get him to settle back into the quiet life in Waterloo!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
So much for Cadiz.
Well, Cadiz has a lovely container port, and there seem to be some nice buildings around the town, including an imposing cathedral, but that’s pretty much all I can say about it from the distance of our balcony on the ship. Torsten was unfortunately sick last night, throwing up a few times (just liquid though, oddly – his dinner, consumed hours before, stayed down). He continued the trend this morning before breakfast, after having just a bit of water and breast milk. We were understandably very worried, and took him to see the ship’s doctor. She examined him, and didn’t think he had any infection or even dehydration, so she said to keep him off solids, milk and breast milk for at least the next 12 hours, and to give him some Pedialyte (basically a rehydrating drink) for the next few hours to see if he kept that down.
We’ve therefore spent the day on board the ship, and actually, for a sick boy, Torsten is very chipper. He still wants to run around and explore, and his main, very loud and crying complaint is that we aren’t feeding him (especially me). However, he hasn’t thrown up since just before we took him to the doctor, and he was able to eat a tiny bit of bread without any problems, so we’re probably going to accelerate the doctor’s orders and give him some plain white rice and bread for supper, together with apple juice and chicken broth. He’s taking a long nap right now, and I have high hopes that he’ll be fine tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
We’ve therefore spent the day on board the ship, and actually, for a sick boy, Torsten is very chipper. He still wants to run around and explore, and his main, very loud and crying complaint is that we aren’t feeding him (especially me). However, he hasn’t thrown up since just before we took him to the doctor, and he was able to eat a tiny bit of bread without any problems, so we’re probably going to accelerate the doctor’s orders and give him some plain white rice and bread for supper, together with apple juice and chicken broth. He’s taking a long nap right now, and I have high hopes that he’ll be fine tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Port in Portugal!
Port today, in more than one sense! We docked at Lisbon at 8 this morning, and Torsten again spent the first little while admiring the buses and cars off our balcony. After a quick breakfast, we disembarked and waited in line for the infrequent shuttle bus to take us into the city centre (it dropped us off at the Placa de Commercio).
Torsten rode happily along in his backpack as Ingo and I speedily made tracks away from a particularly annoying, loud and ignorant group of fellow passengers who had been debating the merits of a sightseeing bus where you’d have to pay versus wandering around the city and not knowing what anything was. The novel concept of doing some research in advance had apparently never occurred to them – they had no idea what was in Lisbon, and, to quote one of them “once you’ve seen one European city, you’ve seen them all, right?”.
Lisbon is a delightful city, and we only saw a tiny part of the Alfama, which is the old Moorish quarter. The streets are narrow, cobbled, winding and very steep, and the houses have lovely wrought-iron balconies. Our goal was the Castele del Sao Jorge, which was supposed to have a good view, excellent museum, and beautiful grounds. However, we didn’t make it there, as we stopped at the Church of St. Anthony de Sé to look at the crypt there, and then stopped at the Sé (Cathedral) itself. The Cathedral had beautiful chapels off the transept, and the niche with the baptismal font near the entrance was tiled in lovely blue and white azulejos – ceramic tiles for which Portugal is famous. (Actually, a lot of the houses we saw had those azulejos on them – it made for a very colourful and unique display) The Cathedral also had a treasury which contained numerous reliquaries (some containing relics of St. Vincent), vestments worn throughout the Catholic year, and some old music books with Gregorian chants in them. The treasury also afforded a close-up view of the rose window, which depicted Jesus and the 12 apostles with the symbols of their martyrdom.
After the Cathedral, on the way to the Castele, we stopped for lunch at a little terrace café. We started with a fantastic gazpacho, and then I had grilled sardines and a Fanta, while Ingo had an excellent Sangria and some roasted squid. Although it was such a hot day, we decided to finish off with an espresso for Ingo and a cappuccino for me, since the coffee onboard the ship is frankly awful. By that time, Torsten was getting a bit cranky and wanting to go, so we packed him into his backpack, whereupon he proceeded to say bye-bye to everyone in the café – I think everyone turned to look at us and smile as we left!
Continuing up the roads to the Castele, we stopped at an antiquarian shop to look at antique azulejos, and then stopped again to buy some water for Torsten to drink, as he was both thirsty and tired. Ingo, however, decided to pour half a bottle of the freezing water onto my pants. He CLAIMS he was aiming for the cup that Torsten was holding, and that Torsten moved, but I have severe doubts. Two shops down the road was a shop that sold port – so we stopped in to look around, and wound up buying 2 madeiras and 2 ports. The lady in the shop was very nice, and kept holding things up for Torsten to identify, like pens, magnets with pictures of chickens on them, grapes, etc.
Finally, when we reached the Castele, we looked at the time, and we only had an hour before we had to head back to the ship – so we decided not to go in. Instead, Torsten walked up one of the streets and spotted a cat lying in the sun, and spent quite a bit of time telling all passers-by that it was a cat. He was so enthralled by it that he actually sat down on the road to continue staring at it. Eventually, we managed to tear him away from the cat and walk back to the shuttle pickup point. A bus arrived shortly after we got there, but there was no room for us, so we settled down to wait for the next one. By this time, Torsten had fallen asleep and I was carrying him in his sling, so we were in no real rush. However, quite a large crowd had gathered when the next one arrived, and instead of forming an orderly queue, everyone just barged in at once – I started shouting “Watch out! Baby!”, as big men pushed past me to get onto the bus. It was unbelievable how rude some people were. Luckily, Torsten was really tuckered out and was largely undisturbed by the scrimmage.
When we arrived back at the ship, we got through security without a hitch and made our way back to the stateroom – where Torsten woke up. He and Ingo went out to play while I did a bit of work, then we went to have dinner. We bumped into the nice Swiss family there, and Torsten was very happy to see Simone (the little girl) again. As her father calls her “Simi”, Torsten has picked that up, and ran after her, saying “Imi, Imi!”. Heads turned in the dining room, and there were an awful lot of “awwwwws” at that.
Tomorrow is Cadiz – hopefully it’ll be as much fun as today was!
Torsten rode happily along in his backpack as Ingo and I speedily made tracks away from a particularly annoying, loud and ignorant group of fellow passengers who had been debating the merits of a sightseeing bus where you’d have to pay versus wandering around the city and not knowing what anything was. The novel concept of doing some research in advance had apparently never occurred to them – they had no idea what was in Lisbon, and, to quote one of them “once you’ve seen one European city, you’ve seen them all, right?”.
Lisbon is a delightful city, and we only saw a tiny part of the Alfama, which is the old Moorish quarter. The streets are narrow, cobbled, winding and very steep, and the houses have lovely wrought-iron balconies. Our goal was the Castele del Sao Jorge, which was supposed to have a good view, excellent museum, and beautiful grounds. However, we didn’t make it there, as we stopped at the Church of St. Anthony de Sé to look at the crypt there, and then stopped at the Sé (Cathedral) itself. The Cathedral had beautiful chapels off the transept, and the niche with the baptismal font near the entrance was tiled in lovely blue and white azulejos – ceramic tiles for which Portugal is famous. (Actually, a lot of the houses we saw had those azulejos on them – it made for a very colourful and unique display) The Cathedral also had a treasury which contained numerous reliquaries (some containing relics of St. Vincent), vestments worn throughout the Catholic year, and some old music books with Gregorian chants in them. The treasury also afforded a close-up view of the rose window, which depicted Jesus and the 12 apostles with the symbols of their martyrdom.
After the Cathedral, on the way to the Castele, we stopped for lunch at a little terrace café. We started with a fantastic gazpacho, and then I had grilled sardines and a Fanta, while Ingo had an excellent Sangria and some roasted squid. Although it was such a hot day, we decided to finish off with an espresso for Ingo and a cappuccino for me, since the coffee onboard the ship is frankly awful. By that time, Torsten was getting a bit cranky and wanting to go, so we packed him into his backpack, whereupon he proceeded to say bye-bye to everyone in the café – I think everyone turned to look at us and smile as we left!
Continuing up the roads to the Castele, we stopped at an antiquarian shop to look at antique azulejos, and then stopped again to buy some water for Torsten to drink, as he was both thirsty and tired. Ingo, however, decided to pour half a bottle of the freezing water onto my pants. He CLAIMS he was aiming for the cup that Torsten was holding, and that Torsten moved, but I have severe doubts. Two shops down the road was a shop that sold port – so we stopped in to look around, and wound up buying 2 madeiras and 2 ports. The lady in the shop was very nice, and kept holding things up for Torsten to identify, like pens, magnets with pictures of chickens on them, grapes, etc.
Finally, when we reached the Castele, we looked at the time, and we only had an hour before we had to head back to the ship – so we decided not to go in. Instead, Torsten walked up one of the streets and spotted a cat lying in the sun, and spent quite a bit of time telling all passers-by that it was a cat. He was so enthralled by it that he actually sat down on the road to continue staring at it. Eventually, we managed to tear him away from the cat and walk back to the shuttle pickup point. A bus arrived shortly after we got there, but there was no room for us, so we settled down to wait for the next one. By this time, Torsten had fallen asleep and I was carrying him in his sling, so we were in no real rush. However, quite a large crowd had gathered when the next one arrived, and instead of forming an orderly queue, everyone just barged in at once – I started shouting “Watch out! Baby!”, as big men pushed past me to get onto the bus. It was unbelievable how rude some people were. Luckily, Torsten was really tuckered out and was largely undisturbed by the scrimmage.
When we arrived back at the ship, we got through security without a hitch and made our way back to the stateroom – where Torsten woke up. He and Ingo went out to play while I did a bit of work, then we went to have dinner. We bumped into the nice Swiss family there, and Torsten was very happy to see Simone (the little girl) again. As her father calls her “Simi”, Torsten has picked that up, and ran after her, saying “Imi, Imi!”. Heads turned in the dining room, and there were an awful lot of “awwwwws” at that.
Tomorrow is Cadiz – hopefully it’ll be as much fun as today was!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Ponta Del-Da-Da
Yesterday was our very first shore day, at Ponta Delgada (or, rather, Ponta Del-da-da, since whenever we said “Ponta Delgada”, Torsten would chime in with “Dada” and point at Ingo). We docked around 9 am, and took a bit of time to get ready, since our stateroom balcony faced the dock, and Torsten was fascinated by the shuttle buses outside – he kept saying “bus”.
The shuttle took us to the end of the pier, as we were docked past the industrial port and pedestrians weren’t allowed to wander around there at will. We then put Torsten into his knapsack carrier, and made our way to the tourist information centre, along the promenade by the ocean. It wasn’t a very large office, and there weren’t any brochures, so we just picked up a map and started following the walking tour that I’d photocopied out of our Azores travel book.
It turned out to be a lovely walking tour – we saw the old city gates, which were where the harbour used to be (a lot of land has been reclaimed), and the houses with lookout posts on the roof, where servants watched for ships coming in. We saw the church of Sao Sebastian, which is a nice little church with a strange mix of Baroque and Romanesque style. The verger seemed to like us a lot – possibly because we comported ourselves as people should in a church, rather than like obnoxious tourists. He gave us a thumbs up when we left.
Ponta Delgada is a nice town, with narrow streets and crazy traffic (although not as crazy as a larger city like, say, Rome or Paris). It has a lot of squares where pedestrians can walk around, and a lot of beautiful parks and gardens. In the Praca 5, which is the main square where they hold festivals, we let Torsten out of the knapsack so he could run around. He headed straight for the carousel, and Ingo took him on twice – he loved it, and cried when we wouldn’t let him keep going for rides. He was only distracted by a flock of pigeons, and he promptly singled one from the pack and started following it till it flew away. On the square was a lime-sherbet coloured building that was once the main hospital, but is now a maternity hospital, and also a convent which contained a sacred statue, the Ecce Homo. Since tourists were pouring in and out of the convent, we decided not to go in.
Continuing on, we passed by a number of other churches, and walked down the small pedestrian road, where shops sold a variety of consumer goods. Actually apart from the Sao Sebastian church (mentioned above) we didn’t go into any of the buildings; Torsten was a bit tired and cranky, and we thought it would be better just to wander around. We came to a garden dedicated to Anthero de Quental, a poet, with a nice monument, a small expanse of grass cut by paths, and a fountain. Torsten had a good time running around there, and discovered that tree bark feels neat.
Then it was lunch time, and we found a place called the Terrace Café, attached to the Hotel Talisman. The service was slow, but we expected that – we are, after all, in Europe, where people linger over their food. We ordered a blood sausage with pineapples (presumably Azores pineapples – yum), limpets, and squid with olive oil and garlic. I wasn’t that keen on the blood sausage, finding it a bit peppery, but the limpets and squid were outstanding. By the time we were done, it was almost time to get back to the ship. However, we had promised Brady’s that we’d send them a postcard from the Azores, so we popped into a souvenir shop, purchased a couple of postcards (we’d purchased 2 stamps from a machine earlier that day), realized that we didn’t have a pen, bought a pen, dashed off the postcards, and walked briskly back to the shuttle bus pickup point. We were just in time.
Torsten actually fell asleep in the knapsack, leaning his head on my hand, so we took him out of the knapsack, and he slept through the shuttle ride back to the boat, through the security check, and for an hour or so after we got back to the cabin – hurrah! After that, he woke up full of vim and vigour, and tore around the ship for a while, making friends.
Today is a sea day, and tomorrow is Lisbon, and the start of many shore days!
The shuttle took us to the end of the pier, as we were docked past the industrial port and pedestrians weren’t allowed to wander around there at will. We then put Torsten into his knapsack carrier, and made our way to the tourist information centre, along the promenade by the ocean. It wasn’t a very large office, and there weren’t any brochures, so we just picked up a map and started following the walking tour that I’d photocopied out of our Azores travel book.
It turned out to be a lovely walking tour – we saw the old city gates, which were where the harbour used to be (a lot of land has been reclaimed), and the houses with lookout posts on the roof, where servants watched for ships coming in. We saw the church of Sao Sebastian, which is a nice little church with a strange mix of Baroque and Romanesque style. The verger seemed to like us a lot – possibly because we comported ourselves as people should in a church, rather than like obnoxious tourists. He gave us a thumbs up when we left.
Ponta Delgada is a nice town, with narrow streets and crazy traffic (although not as crazy as a larger city like, say, Rome or Paris). It has a lot of squares where pedestrians can walk around, and a lot of beautiful parks and gardens. In the Praca 5, which is the main square where they hold festivals, we let Torsten out of the knapsack so he could run around. He headed straight for the carousel, and Ingo took him on twice – he loved it, and cried when we wouldn’t let him keep going for rides. He was only distracted by a flock of pigeons, and he promptly singled one from the pack and started following it till it flew away. On the square was a lime-sherbet coloured building that was once the main hospital, but is now a maternity hospital, and also a convent which contained a sacred statue, the Ecce Homo. Since tourists were pouring in and out of the convent, we decided not to go in.
Continuing on, we passed by a number of other churches, and walked down the small pedestrian road, where shops sold a variety of consumer goods. Actually apart from the Sao Sebastian church (mentioned above) we didn’t go into any of the buildings; Torsten was a bit tired and cranky, and we thought it would be better just to wander around. We came to a garden dedicated to Anthero de Quental, a poet, with a nice monument, a small expanse of grass cut by paths, and a fountain. Torsten had a good time running around there, and discovered that tree bark feels neat.
Then it was lunch time, and we found a place called the Terrace Café, attached to the Hotel Talisman. The service was slow, but we expected that – we are, after all, in Europe, where people linger over their food. We ordered a blood sausage with pineapples (presumably Azores pineapples – yum), limpets, and squid with olive oil and garlic. I wasn’t that keen on the blood sausage, finding it a bit peppery, but the limpets and squid were outstanding. By the time we were done, it was almost time to get back to the ship. However, we had promised Brady’s that we’d send them a postcard from the Azores, so we popped into a souvenir shop, purchased a couple of postcards (we’d purchased 2 stamps from a machine earlier that day), realized that we didn’t have a pen, bought a pen, dashed off the postcards, and walked briskly back to the shuttle bus pickup point. We were just in time.
Torsten actually fell asleep in the knapsack, leaning his head on my hand, so we took him out of the knapsack, and he slept through the shuttle ride back to the boat, through the security check, and for an hour or so after we got back to the cabin – hurrah! After that, he woke up full of vim and vigour, and tore around the ship for a while, making friends.
Today is a sea day, and tomorrow is Lisbon, and the start of many shore days!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I can be a hermit anywhere!
Just a short update to let you all know that I'm still seasick, so I spend most of my days in the cabin. You'd think that I could get work done because of that, but no - unfortunately staring at agreements makes me really dizzy and queasy. Oh, all right - it's not just agreements, it's the computer in general.
Torsten is very popular with the crew, one of whom calls him "smart baby". Others have learned his name, and they all seem overjoyed to see him. I know it's their job, but they do seem to be genuinely charmed by him - which isn't hard, since he's a little ham when he's tired, dancing around and smiling at everyone. A lot of passengers have complimented us on him as well - mostly Ingo, since he's the one running around the ship with Torsten.
One funny thing - we were having a coffee break, and Torsten had milk - but that wasn't good enough for him; he wanted to drink my coffee. I gave him a sip on the assumption that he wouldn't like it and would therefore stop asking, but NO! Our little gourmet wanted more! That's gotta be Ingo's genes.
Well, back to lying down.
Torsten is very popular with the crew, one of whom calls him "smart baby". Others have learned his name, and they all seem overjoyed to see him. I know it's their job, but they do seem to be genuinely charmed by him - which isn't hard, since he's a little ham when he's tired, dancing around and smiling at everyone. A lot of passengers have complimented us on him as well - mostly Ingo, since he's the one running around the ship with Torsten.
One funny thing - we were having a coffee break, and Torsten had milk - but that wasn't good enough for him; he wanted to drink my coffee. I gave him a sip on the assumption that he wouldn't like it and would therefore stop asking, but NO! Our little gourmet wanted more! That's gotta be Ingo's genes.
Well, back to lying down.
Monday, April 21, 2008
It's swell...and that's why I'm popping Gravol.
Luckily, Torsten seems to have inherited Ingo’s sea legs and lack of motion sickness! The wind began to blow quite hard yesterday evening and has continued all today, causing quite a lot of movement on the ship. Torsten takes it all in stride.
Yesterday was pretty uneventful – we tried out the main dining room for breakfast, and were a bit taken aback at the small portions and slow service. Upon consideration, that’s the drawback of “Freestyle” cruising – everyone wants breakfast around the same time, and as there’s no assigned times or seatings, there’s bit of a scrimmage. The poor servers are kept hopping, and many passengers get vaguely disgruntled. The same thing occurred at lunch. Scattered around the ship are displays that inform passengers of how busy each restaurant is, but it’s only of limited assistance.
We met a nice Swiss family with a little girl around Torsten’s age, and they played reasonably well together in the “Under 2 Zoo” (which consists of a room where they’ve scattered random age-appropriate toys for toddlers to play with). Other than that, we spent most of yesterday exploring the ship – looking at the tacky tourist stuff in the ship shop, checking out where all the bars and cafes were, and generally following where Torsten led. He received many compliments and really enjoyed being able to run the length of the ship. More importantly, there are loads of stairs to climb! He showed us his new skill – climbing a few steps without the benefit of holding hands, rails or other support. We also discovered a new skill – calling room service for snacks!
Today we woke up to a moderately rough sea, which caused me some difficulty. I popped a Gravol and some ginger pills, but they only helped a little bit. Happily, we found a table for breakfast that was outside but sheltered, so that I could get some fresh air. At 10, I headed off to the spa/salon to get a haircut. Unfortunately, the motion of the ship was quite extreme there, so I was thankful when the girl cutting my hair made a quick job of it, with only a quick blow dry to finish off, not the usual eternity of blow drying and styling. Gratuity is included, but I felt a little bad about simply scrawling my name and running off – I’m not even sure my name hit the signature line anywhere!
After a few deep breaths of fresh air outside on deck by the pool (where nobody was sitting – the only people I saw were hurrying to shelter from the wind), I went off to find Torsten and Ingo, who turned out to be on the deck above. We wandered around outside for a while, but it was a bit too windy – one gust propelled Torsten a few feet into my arms! The deck below was a bit better, as it had some shelter, and we stayed there for a bit. There was even a small buffet area where I snagged an apple (which was really tasty). Sadly, we couldn’t stay outside for the entire day, as it was too cold, so we went inside. Being inside made my head spin, so we went down to the cabin where Torsten and I lay down for a nap. After Torsten woke up, he and Ingo went out for lunch while I continued to nap. They came back an hour later with lunch for me (a nice fresh hamburger and fries), and, after I ate it, they went out to explore some more while I went back to sleep. That Gravol really knocks you out!
All in all, we’re having a pretty good time. Torsten is having a nap right now, but when he wakes up, we’ll go for dinner, look around a bit more, and then – what else? Sleep!!!
Yesterday was pretty uneventful – we tried out the main dining room for breakfast, and were a bit taken aback at the small portions and slow service. Upon consideration, that’s the drawback of “Freestyle” cruising – everyone wants breakfast around the same time, and as there’s no assigned times or seatings, there’s bit of a scrimmage. The poor servers are kept hopping, and many passengers get vaguely disgruntled. The same thing occurred at lunch. Scattered around the ship are displays that inform passengers of how busy each restaurant is, but it’s only of limited assistance.
We met a nice Swiss family with a little girl around Torsten’s age, and they played reasonably well together in the “Under 2 Zoo” (which consists of a room where they’ve scattered random age-appropriate toys for toddlers to play with). Other than that, we spent most of yesterday exploring the ship – looking at the tacky tourist stuff in the ship shop, checking out where all the bars and cafes were, and generally following where Torsten led. He received many compliments and really enjoyed being able to run the length of the ship. More importantly, there are loads of stairs to climb! He showed us his new skill – climbing a few steps without the benefit of holding hands, rails or other support. We also discovered a new skill – calling room service for snacks!
Today we woke up to a moderately rough sea, which caused me some difficulty. I popped a Gravol and some ginger pills, but they only helped a little bit. Happily, we found a table for breakfast that was outside but sheltered, so that I could get some fresh air. At 10, I headed off to the spa/salon to get a haircut. Unfortunately, the motion of the ship was quite extreme there, so I was thankful when the girl cutting my hair made a quick job of it, with only a quick blow dry to finish off, not the usual eternity of blow drying and styling. Gratuity is included, but I felt a little bad about simply scrawling my name and running off – I’m not even sure my name hit the signature line anywhere!
After a few deep breaths of fresh air outside on deck by the pool (where nobody was sitting – the only people I saw were hurrying to shelter from the wind), I went off to find Torsten and Ingo, who turned out to be on the deck above. We wandered around outside for a while, but it was a bit too windy – one gust propelled Torsten a few feet into my arms! The deck below was a bit better, as it had some shelter, and we stayed there for a bit. There was even a small buffet area where I snagged an apple (which was really tasty). Sadly, we couldn’t stay outside for the entire day, as it was too cold, so we went inside. Being inside made my head spin, so we went down to the cabin where Torsten and I lay down for a nap. After Torsten woke up, he and Ingo went out for lunch while I continued to nap. They came back an hour later with lunch for me (a nice fresh hamburger and fries), and, after I ate it, they went out to explore some more while I went back to sleep. That Gravol really knocks you out!
All in all, we’re having a pretty good time. Torsten is having a nap right now, but when he wakes up, we’ll go for dinner, look around a bit more, and then – what else? Sleep!!!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Embarkation and off on our adventures!
It turns out that the Pope is in New York, so our bus transfer to the port was a bit late. We then had to wait a little while longer, as a couple of passengers inexplicably didn’t show up (and never did). Finally, we set out on a circuitous route to the port (again, because the Pope was, to quote the bus driver, “marching down Fifth Avenue” – this led to mild speculation between Ingo and myself as to how that would actually look).
Upon arriving at the port around one, we found that we had to first line up to get through security – which wasn’t too bad, as the line moved at a steady rate – and then had to get into a much slower line to get our boarding passes for the Norwegian Gem. It took quite a lot of ingenuity to keep Torsten happy in the lines, as we hadn’t had lunch, and he only had a bit of a nap in the bus going to the port. After all, lines aren’t much fun when you’re an adult – it must feel like a pointless eternity to a 1 ½ year old! The only upside was the view of the ship, which was very pretty with all the brightly coloured gemstones painted on the side.
After getting our boarding passes/keys/ship credit cards – amazing how they make one small bit of plastic perform all those functions – we trundled aboard the ship and into our stateroom. Our mini suite is awfully nice; it’s got a lot of stowage, and a sitting area that can be separated from the bed area by means of a curtain. The sofa turns into a bed, so it’s perfect for Torsten. The balcony is fairly spacious, and you’re prevented from falling over the side by a glass half wall; that means that the view is relatively unobstructed – an improvement over unsightly bars. As there is a small gap between the half wall and the floor, however, we will have to prevent Torsten from playing with his Hot Wheels on the balcony. Or anything else small, for that matter.
We changed Torsten’s diaper when we got to the stateroom, and relaxed there for a bit…until we realized that Torsten had – um – become stinky. This led to the appalling realization that we had just used his last diaper; all of his other diapers were in the checked luggage being loaded aboard the ship. Ingo went to take a look in the ship’s shop to see if they sold diapers, but the shop was (a) closed while we were in port, and (b) unlikely to carry diapers. Then, shortly after Ingo returned from his fruitless search, the siren wailed for the mandatory emergency drill, so we put clothes back onto Torsten, hoped that his odour wasn’t too off-putting, and joined the throngs headed to their emergency stations. The drill wasn’t really that good, in my opinion – the emergency stations were in various lounges on the ship where people could sit down, and so the vast majority of people weren’t paying attention. We never went out to the lifeboats, and the drill mainly consisted of some weak speeches on the importance of not setting fire to your room and a perfunctory demonstration of how to put a life vest on. Some crew members wandered around, peering at the stateroom numbers on passengers’ life vests, and checking them off a list.
After the “drill” concluded, we went back to the stateroom, hoping that our luggage had been delivered. It hadn’t. However, shortly thereafter, it was. Luckily, the bag containing all the diapers was the first to be delivered, and so we were finally able to destinkify Torsten, after which we unpacked our bags (the second one followed the first very quickly), stowed everything away, and set out to look around the ship.
Our first stop was the Kids’ Club – which Torsten loved. It’s a beautiful room with a small jungle gym at one end, padded mats along ¾ of the length, small tables and chairs in the remaining ¼, and windows along the whole length of the room. Torsten is unfortunately too young to participate in the Kids’ Club activities, and even more unfortunately too young to be allowed to play on the jungle gym, but unexpectedly, there are activities for under 2 year olds – the parents simply have to stay and supervise – and he also received a wrapped present which consisted of a stuffed lobster (a toy, not the food), a colouring book, and some crayons. I will be interested to see what they are like. He had a great time just running back and forth along the mats.
After the Kids’ Club (the preceding paragraph makes it sound like a simple stop, whereas we spent a considerable amount of time there), we promenaded on deck, passing bundled up people shivering on deck chairs – as it was late afternoon, it was getting chilly – and also a few hardy souls swimming. I will permit myself a bit of meanness and say that those swimming were mostly protected from the cold by a good layer of blubber. As it WAS getting chilly, we headed inside, and as we were rather hungry – and in Torsten’s case, getting tired – we decided to have dinner. We had it at Cagney’s Steak House, one of the cover charge restaurants, which was completely worth it. For a $20 per person cover charge, Ingo got an appetizer of crab cakes, a large veal chop with foie gras croutons, and side dishes of creamed spinach, shoestring onions, and mashed potatoes. I got a lobster bisque, a 14 oz prime rib (where they brought the whole roast to the table and cut it before my eyes), and the same side dishes. Torsten had bits of our dinner and had an additional plate of creamed spinach. He was a big hit with the serving staff, who kept trying to find something to bring for him. Towards the end of dinner, he started getting quite antsy, so we decided to skip dessert – only to find that the wait staff didn’t want us to, and so they offered to bring it to our room for us! Mmmm, crème brulée!
A quick stop at the Internet Café to enter for a draw of 500 free minutes, and then into our stateroom for our normal bedtime routines. Good night!
Upon arriving at the port around one, we found that we had to first line up to get through security – which wasn’t too bad, as the line moved at a steady rate – and then had to get into a much slower line to get our boarding passes for the Norwegian Gem. It took quite a lot of ingenuity to keep Torsten happy in the lines, as we hadn’t had lunch, and he only had a bit of a nap in the bus going to the port. After all, lines aren’t much fun when you’re an adult – it must feel like a pointless eternity to a 1 ½ year old! The only upside was the view of the ship, which was very pretty with all the brightly coloured gemstones painted on the side.
After getting our boarding passes/keys/ship credit cards – amazing how they make one small bit of plastic perform all those functions – we trundled aboard the ship and into our stateroom. Our mini suite is awfully nice; it’s got a lot of stowage, and a sitting area that can be separated from the bed area by means of a curtain. The sofa turns into a bed, so it’s perfect for Torsten. The balcony is fairly spacious, and you’re prevented from falling over the side by a glass half wall; that means that the view is relatively unobstructed – an improvement over unsightly bars. As there is a small gap between the half wall and the floor, however, we will have to prevent Torsten from playing with his Hot Wheels on the balcony. Or anything else small, for that matter.
We changed Torsten’s diaper when we got to the stateroom, and relaxed there for a bit…until we realized that Torsten had – um – become stinky. This led to the appalling realization that we had just used his last diaper; all of his other diapers were in the checked luggage being loaded aboard the ship. Ingo went to take a look in the ship’s shop to see if they sold diapers, but the shop was (a) closed while we were in port, and (b) unlikely to carry diapers. Then, shortly after Ingo returned from his fruitless search, the siren wailed for the mandatory emergency drill, so we put clothes back onto Torsten, hoped that his odour wasn’t too off-putting, and joined the throngs headed to their emergency stations. The drill wasn’t really that good, in my opinion – the emergency stations were in various lounges on the ship where people could sit down, and so the vast majority of people weren’t paying attention. We never went out to the lifeboats, and the drill mainly consisted of some weak speeches on the importance of not setting fire to your room and a perfunctory demonstration of how to put a life vest on. Some crew members wandered around, peering at the stateroom numbers on passengers’ life vests, and checking them off a list.
After the “drill” concluded, we went back to the stateroom, hoping that our luggage had been delivered. It hadn’t. However, shortly thereafter, it was. Luckily, the bag containing all the diapers was the first to be delivered, and so we were finally able to destinkify Torsten, after which we unpacked our bags (the second one followed the first very quickly), stowed everything away, and set out to look around the ship.
Our first stop was the Kids’ Club – which Torsten loved. It’s a beautiful room with a small jungle gym at one end, padded mats along ¾ of the length, small tables and chairs in the remaining ¼, and windows along the whole length of the room. Torsten is unfortunately too young to participate in the Kids’ Club activities, and even more unfortunately too young to be allowed to play on the jungle gym, but unexpectedly, there are activities for under 2 year olds – the parents simply have to stay and supervise – and he also received a wrapped present which consisted of a stuffed lobster (a toy, not the food), a colouring book, and some crayons. I will be interested to see what they are like. He had a great time just running back and forth along the mats.
After the Kids’ Club (the preceding paragraph makes it sound like a simple stop, whereas we spent a considerable amount of time there), we promenaded on deck, passing bundled up people shivering on deck chairs – as it was late afternoon, it was getting chilly – and also a few hardy souls swimming. I will permit myself a bit of meanness and say that those swimming were mostly protected from the cold by a good layer of blubber. As it WAS getting chilly, we headed inside, and as we were rather hungry – and in Torsten’s case, getting tired – we decided to have dinner. We had it at Cagney’s Steak House, one of the cover charge restaurants, which was completely worth it. For a $20 per person cover charge, Ingo got an appetizer of crab cakes, a large veal chop with foie gras croutons, and side dishes of creamed spinach, shoestring onions, and mashed potatoes. I got a lobster bisque, a 14 oz prime rib (where they brought the whole roast to the table and cut it before my eyes), and the same side dishes. Torsten had bits of our dinner and had an additional plate of creamed spinach. He was a big hit with the serving staff, who kept trying to find something to bring for him. Towards the end of dinner, he started getting quite antsy, so we decided to skip dessert – only to find that the wait staff didn’t want us to, and so they offered to bring it to our room for us! Mmmm, crème brulée!
A quick stop at the Internet Café to enter for a draw of 500 free minutes, and then into our stateroom for our normal bedtime routines. Good night!
Looooong train ride
We got up bright and early on Friday morning to catch the 8:30 am train to New York and joined the line up at platform 13. Courtesy of our little man, we were jumped up in the queue and got priority boarding, which was very nice indeed.
The first few hours of the train ride passed happily by, as we congratulated ourselves in bypassing the insanity of the airport and settled comfortably into our business class seats. Torsten was quite good, and we read, ate a few snacks, and watched some Little Grey Rabbit on the laptop. Torsten also enjoyed running up and down the aisle.
Later on, after Customs (which we cleared handily, but which some people did not - and, as a sidenote, are Customs and Immigrations officers taught to be brusque, aggressive, and borderline rude? It seemed so unnecessary, and they were much more stringent than in the airport - they made me fill in an additional form because I had a different last name. The only exception was the Customs officer asking about fruit and meat being brought into the US - he came along asking, "Are you bringing any food into the US?", and when he got to us, we were munching on cookies, so I said, "Cookie?" and he quirked a smile. What was I saying? Oh yes...)
Later on, after Customs, the hours began to weigh a bit more heavily. This was not aided by the realization that the snack car sold only very limited hot food (cheeseburger, pizza, hot dog and a few other microwaveable items), and quickly ran out of them. Our meals were therefore somewhat unsatisfying. It's a good thing we brought some snacks. On the bright side, we were entitled to free pop and coffee, as we sat in business class, so at least we could quench our thirst in the dry atmosphere of the train. This, on the other hand, did not help with the mild stench that wafted through our compartment when the restroom vent broke; the conductor left the doors open in the carriage while the train was moving in order to air things out a bit.
Torsten took a couple of short naps, but was otherwise awake until the train pulled into New York at 10:15 pm (and STAYED awake till we got to the hotel at 11:15) - what a trooper. He made a couple of friends on the train, but there were a couple of people who stolidly ignored him, so it all balances out. All in all, a decent way to travel - although not if you're in a hurry.
We made our way to the subway, found that the Rangers had won the game that night, took the E train to our hotel (Torsten was beginning to flag at that point), checked in, and collapsed.
And today....it's onto the ship with us!
The first few hours of the train ride passed happily by, as we congratulated ourselves in bypassing the insanity of the airport and settled comfortably into our business class seats. Torsten was quite good, and we read, ate a few snacks, and watched some Little Grey Rabbit on the laptop. Torsten also enjoyed running up and down the aisle.
Later on, after Customs (which we cleared handily, but which some people did not - and, as a sidenote, are Customs and Immigrations officers taught to be brusque, aggressive, and borderline rude? It seemed so unnecessary, and they were much more stringent than in the airport - they made me fill in an additional form because I had a different last name. The only exception was the Customs officer asking about fruit and meat being brought into the US - he came along asking, "Are you bringing any food into the US?", and when he got to us, we were munching on cookies, so I said, "Cookie?" and he quirked a smile. What was I saying? Oh yes...)
Later on, after Customs, the hours began to weigh a bit more heavily. This was not aided by the realization that the snack car sold only very limited hot food (cheeseburger, pizza, hot dog and a few other microwaveable items), and quickly ran out of them. Our meals were therefore somewhat unsatisfying. It's a good thing we brought some snacks. On the bright side, we were entitled to free pop and coffee, as we sat in business class, so at least we could quench our thirst in the dry atmosphere of the train. This, on the other hand, did not help with the mild stench that wafted through our compartment when the restroom vent broke; the conductor left the doors open in the carriage while the train was moving in order to air things out a bit.
Torsten took a couple of short naps, but was otherwise awake until the train pulled into New York at 10:15 pm (and STAYED awake till we got to the hotel at 11:15) - what a trooper. He made a couple of friends on the train, but there were a couple of people who stolidly ignored him, so it all balances out. All in all, a decent way to travel - although not if you're in a hurry.
We made our way to the subway, found that the Rangers had won the game that night, took the E train to our hotel (Torsten was beginning to flag at that point), checked in, and collapsed.
And today....it's onto the ship with us!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
We're off!
It never fails - we always underestimate the time it takes to pack, get the house in reasonable order, and do all those other last minute things that need to be done (including work, picking up Swiss francs, taxes, all that good stuff). However, we finally left the house - hopefully with nothing major undone - and got to Toronto around dinner time. Poor Ingo had to take the car up to my parents' place, so his dinner was delayed - and consisted of our leftovers. Torsten and I had a lovely room service picnic at the Royal York - although I do wonder why I bother ordering from the children's menu for Torsten. Chicken fingers are so yesterday - mummy's Butter Chicken Curry with Pappadums is SO much better (frankly, I'd have to agree - nothing wrong with the chicken fingers, but the curry was truly lovely).
And so to bed, preparatory for an early morning train to New York tomorrow!
And so to bed, preparatory for an early morning train to New York tomorrow!
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