TravelStream™ news feed for member gtrob on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/gtrob en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:40:31 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/3/1223408340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/3/1223408340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/3/1223408340/tpod.html Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:40:31 -0400 Map filler - nothing to read

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Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland

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Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

some pics...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1212090240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1212090240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1212090240/tpod.html Thu, 29 May 2008 15:45:58 -0400 A summer in Germany, getting paid to blow stuff up

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Munich, Bavaria, Germany

My time in Munich was conflicted. Somehow, Munich has firmly established itself on the mainstream American-going-to-Europe route. Instead of sharing a hostel with an eclectic mix of travelers from various parts of the world and with various worldviews, I was basically in a big, transplanted fraternity house. Munich is the self-proclaimed beer capital of the world. Though I did drink some beer, I did manage to avoid the Hofbrauhaus, the most (in)famous of all beer halls. I did, however, take a great free walking tour, and saw such things as where Hitler attempted to seize control of Bavaria (southern province of Germany, the capital of which is Munich) but failed, after which time he went to prison for 11 months, wrote Mein Kampf, and decided that he would work within the system in order to gradually control Germany rather than simply seizing it in a coup d'état. And also there were a bunch of old churches and stuff. The Germans graciously share downtown Munich during this high tourism season, it seems, with more tourists than they do other Germans. It's the classic cycle of a place being found to be great to visit by the masses, visited too much, then considered by the very people visiting it, such as myself, overly visited. Why this detracts from the experience, I cannot figure out at this time, but it does.

Which brings me to Dachau. Dachau was one of the first concentration camps, located a half-hour outside of Munich. What made it unique is that it was the prototype camp on which most other camps were built. It was also used to train guards, mostly aged 16-18, which went on to man however many other camps, so conditions were among the most brutal. As if comparing one camp to another has much meaning. Touring Dachau by far overshadowed the rest of my trip to Frankfurt, Munich, and back. It's difficult to describe, but just imagine standing next to the actual, original crematoriums where unspeakable things were done, or walking through the actual, original, once-functional and used gas chambers, standing where many once stood for the last time. At the beginning of the tour, meandering through sterile exhibits, with words and statistics, the concept was still distant, like reading it in a textbook, difficult to grasp. I don't feel like myself, or very many people alive today, fully grasp the gravity of the situation, but I was not nonetheless, slowly, throughout the course of the afternoon, deeply jarred.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211917260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211917260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211917260/tpod.html Thu, 29 May 2008 15:43:26 -0400 A summer in Germany, getting paid to blow stuff up

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Frankfurt, Germany

I arrived in Germany May 14, which left me almost three weeks to travel, well, wherever I wanted to go that wasn't too expensive. Two summers ago when I was in a similar situation, I couldn't seem to bear staying in the same city for more than a couple nights. The inertia from the flight kept me moving the whole summer. The laws of travel inertia, though, vary slightly from those of classical physics. The more I have travelled, the more I yearn to travel deeper and not wider. To slow down and let a place get to you, instead of just getting to places. In South Africa I made it a rule not to leave the country, even though I could have driven five hours in five different directions from where I was working and find myself in the capital of five different countries. The time that could have been spent country hopping was instead spent gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of the nation of South Africa, both of its physical terrain and national psyche.

Basically, I intend to follow a similar, but more relaxed, philosophy during my time in Germany and, eventually, Switzerland. In this vein, I booked a hostel in, and a train to, Frankfurt, the central German city known for banking and, presumably, other things. It took me about a week to actually get around to doing this, though, as backpacker after backpacker came through Cologne, took a look at the cathedral, and charged on to Amsterdam or Berlin. This was, of course, me two years ago. As they rushed through, I lay dormant, making casual trips to U of Cologne, or to Bonn, apartment and bicycle searching. I eventually found an apartment in Bonn, right next to the train station (good for commuting), and coincidentally with two very cool roommates, which I learned at one of their birthday parties a few days after agreeing to move in. It was a great time spent on the Rhine, in a park next to a beer garden. For the uninitiated, a beer garden is just a bar next to a park, along with some picnic tables. You can bring your own food, but are generally expected to buy the drinks there, if you sit at the tables. Or you can bring your own food and drinks and sit in the park. But you can always use their bathroom.

So I dropped by my apartment to drop of some dead weight off before, finally, heading off to Frankfurt and, on my way out the door, one of my (German) future roommates told me that Frankfurt is no good, that I should skip it, go on south to Munich or Stuttgart. Nein, I say, with six million people surely there will be some interesting stuff to see or do. Well, she was right. Frankfurt is very, in a word, American. The city sprawled, the downtown was more or less abandoned on the weekend, and the architecture was all modern and inconsistent. It is definitely the German Atlanta. Pedestrian-friendly space was limited. I didn't get around to the German architecture museum, something that would have probably been great, but I still couldn't give a city high praise based on a museum alone. The hostel, though, was great; many interesting people, free pasta one night, very fun, etc, none of which spoke of the city of Frankfurt itself. And then I went to Munich.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211107800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211107800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gtrob/4/1211107800/tpod.html Sun, 18 May 2008 06:51:28 -0400 A summer in Germany, getting paid to blow stuff up

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Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Note to all: "Brooks Blog", by the creator of the documentary 'A Map for Saturday', is great. Highly recommended. The quality of his blog has motivated me to, this time around, actually put some effort into mine and make actual attempts at using correct grammar and maintain a reasonably coherent flow, rather than just jotting things down haphazardly as I've done in the past.

Anyway, I have now received my luggage, obtain access to money, and accomplished little else. For one day I had literally no money, except for a credit card which I feared using due to international fees. I have eaten a whole lot of bread and peanut butter, and the occasional two euro frozen pizza. It is now time to devote all of my energy into finding a place to live for the next three months, either in Cologne or Bonn. Where I will be working is NE of Bonn and SE of Cologne.

Which brings me to this morning. I thought that I was over the jet lag, but for some reason I shot awake at about 4 this morning. After an hour laying awake and an hour of internet surfing, I am now riding the train from Cologne to Bonn in order to scope out the city, the public transportation to where I will work, and possible look for a place to live. Walking to the train station, I realize that 6:00 in the morning is a strange time for the world.

At 6:00 in the morning, two groups of people who otherwise tend to avoid one-another are forced to share public space. I am of course speaking of clean-cut individuals who wake up at 6:00 in the morning on a Sunday to get a jump on things, and the drunken revelers still going from Saturday night. Walking through the station, I passed a small circle of nuns immediately followed by a lone man with the right side of his face caked in fresh dried blood from a wound near the temple. He walked as if he didn't even know about it. And so it continues. Businessmen in suits on their way to do businessy things along with youths guzzling beer from half-liter cans, jovially chatting and slapping each other on the back. Though, in fairness, you can see people walking down the street, beer in hand, at literally any second of any day, and not in any sort of low-class way, in most cases. It's simply what's done here.

As I type this, at 7:26 in the morning, I share the car with a half dozen bustling football fans, all wearing Cologne team colors and gear; jerseys, scarves, hats. All quaffing jumbo beers drawn from a sack full of them. Whether the match was yesterday or will be today, I have no idea.
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Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The first-travelogue-entry-to-be that got partially written, forgotten about, and never posted was a story of optimism. The days leading up to my departure were chaotic and haphazard, but everything fell into place, and I was completely ready by the time my plane left the ground. What I wrote about before was how, on the morning of the day of my departure, I was advised to bring a suit for occasional use during my internship. Since I didn't owne a suit, a miserly couple of hours were allotted to this task, and all eggs were placed in the single Dillard's going out of business sale basket. All eggs hatched, of course, as we learned that the last remaining suit on the premises happened to fit me perfectly, match my taste, be pre-tailored, and cost just $100. It seemed safe to assume, at that stage in the game, that the travel gods were on my side. In fact, they might have been. If they were, I have wronged them dearly since.

I sit here today a nearly broken traveler. Orbitz managed to give me a nearly impossible itinerary for a second time in a row. More accurately, they gave me a completely impossible itinerary last time and a nearly impossible one this time. The three boarding passes I was handed in Cincinnati for my three consecutive flights were actually one boarding pass and two meaningless pieces of paper, calmly advising me to check in before departure. In order to do this, after arriving in Washington I had to leave the passenger-only area, brazenly cut in front of literally about a hundred people waiting in line before me without explanation, check in, go through security, again, take a bus to my terminal, again, and eventually make it to my flight with minutes to spare. And the steps in between that I didn't mention were all spent at a dead sprint, making me a bit soggy by the time I reached my gate.

This, however, is not the bad part. It's not even a bad part, just something that happened. I flew on to London, and then Duesseldorf, without event... until neither of my bags showed up in baggage claim. Still, being a moderately seasoned traveler, I did not panic. I reported it and was told that it should be delivered to me that night or the next day. The next day is now winding down, and it has not been found, much less delivered to me. So I sit here without my meticulously assembled ensemble of material goods that essentially represented the entirety of my material existence. Highlights include my brand new digital camera, my (not critical) prescription medicines, my mini-library of highly specialized and difficult to acquire engineering software, my brand new (first ever) suit, and my carefully assembled travel-sized wardrobe. And a bunch of other little things. Furthermore, Skype has inexplicably refused to work, making phone calls prohibitively expensive, and my cell phone refuses to work in Germany. So I sit here filthy from wearing the same clothes for four days, including the sweat worked up sprinting around the Washington-Dulles airport.

It could though, of course, always be much, much worse. I do have my laptop, I-Pod, and health. In that order. And it least I'm not rebounding from decongestants like the last time I was in Germany starting a trip (see my first travelogue for details).
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New York City, New York, United States

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Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States

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Appleton, South Carolina, United States

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Charleston, South Carolina, United States

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