It's an OMEN!

The coming of the caramel icecream! IT'S A SIGN!

(August 1, 2016 at 12:06 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: It's an OMEN!

The coming of the caramel icecream! IT'S A SIGN!

Well....

it is white.

DIRT-AY!

You know it!

But is it salty?

I didn't taste it.... yet. I would imagine there might be "some" salt in it, but I'm hoping for really sweet instead.

(August 1, 2016 at 10:49 am)Alex K Wrote:

(August 1, 2016 at 10:42 am)Jenny A Wrote: Reveling in being home and over jetlag. Considering a walk in the woods.

Walk shmalk, we need a detailed report here!

You are asking for a novel. We were gone over a month.

Extremely short version. We were hot. We were tired. We museumed, wandered, ate too much, had lots of beer and hard cider. We had a blast.

Short version: We ate many sausages, and much cheese. I sampled much beer. We all had hard cider and wine. We drank coffee hot and cold with and without froth, but mostly with. We had ice cream most days. I cooked four meals out of five. We had fun navigating strange grocery stores. We ate frog legs, snail (that was a lunch out in Paris), elk (the grocery in Prague had it), much lamb, duck, and other things harder to come by at home. In Alkmaar I discovered I like mustard soup. We ate Middle Eastern at the Nachmarket in Vienna. We hit Austria and The Czech Republic during mushroom season and took full advantage of that.

We climbed up hundreds of stairs to look down at least once everywhere we went and often more than once. We walked, sometimes to get places and sometimes to be places. We crossed bridges to be on the bridge, to look at the river and sometimes to get to the other side. We learned five different metro systems. We rented bikes at least once a week. We rafted and paddled boated. We took a boat tour and rode a dinky tourist train. We rode commuter trains, high-speed trains, regional trains, and trains that go under the English Chanel, and night trains.

We also took private cars in Czech Republic to get to Cesky Krumlov and Tabor. Driver number one was a chatty outdoor men hippy having a midlife crisis. Driver two was a driven grad student in his twenties finishing his a masters in archeology. We had long talks with locals and expats, on trains, in churches, and on boats. The Trump question followed us around like a bad smell.

We stayed in five very different apartments. In Amsterdam, we had four levels with a ladder pretending to be a staircase between each floor. In Vienna all our views were of overgrown interior courtyards. In Paris the sound of jazz and plates floated in through the windows all night. In Salzburg we could see the castle from the windows. In Prague it was the Dancing house we saw across the river. In London our flat was modern and faced a gated lawn. We enjoyed tall double windows and squeaky parquet floors. I learned about machines that promise to both wash and dry clothes but don't quite. I learned about ventless dryers with compressors. showers are smaller in Europe and bidets more comon. I learned that for Europeans turning things off is not enough, you must also unplug them. I made coffee in ibreks, Nespresso machines, drip machines, stove top espresso pots, and French presses. Once I had the choice of all of those things plus a sad and very old percolator. I learned that Dutch, German, and Austrians keep things very clean and once again learned that the French don't.

What do Europeans have against ice?

We explored narrow streets. We admired architectural details. We walked along rivers and in hilly parks above cities. We followed pre programed walks. We wandered.

We saw much Van Gogh, Mucha, Frans Hal, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Klimt, Monet, Manet, Schiele, Bruegal, Turner, Henry Moore, Rubens, Rodan, and Picasso. We avoided instalation art. We skipped the Louvre this time, but did The Cluney. The d'Orsay, and The Rodan remain two of my favorite museums. I added, The Van Gogh Museum, The Leopold, the Kunthuhistoriche and Tate Britan, to my short list of great museums.

We saw many churches (Gothic, neo Gothic, Roman, Borroque, Rocco) and a handful of synagogues. We saw castles, palaces, opera houses, shopping arcades, mansions, bits of Roman buildings, old city walls, art nouveau icons and the Eiffel Tower.

I sketched. My husband and I photographed. My husband and eldest daughter sang The Portal Song in front of many places while I video taped them and my youngest daughter pretended she didn't know us.

We had dinner with my husband's Oxford buddy, his wife and kids, and their German students. Also in London we met our daughters American boyfriend and his sister and had them for dinner twice and spent a day with them.

We survived our nineteen-year-old's solo trip to Berlin. We got used to letting the girls do city things on thier own.

My husband and I took romantic evening walks while our daughters recuperated from long days.

We liked Amsterdam and Prague the best. Amsterdam is just a pleasant place to be. The people are friendly, informal, competent, and gorgeous. There is fine art there and in the smaller towns around it.
The red light district and the drug shops add a certain something. We saw Delft, Alkmaar, and Harlem as well. We stayed in The Jordan where everything cost 35% less than things four blocks away in the real tourist district.

Prague is eye candy everywhere you look. Every building has its statuary. The Czechs are proud of their country and will stop you on the street to suggest free places to go. Cesky Krumlov was best before nine while everyone slept. But we had our best meal out while there- beef loin with brie and cranberries, eally good bread, wild mushrooms.

Vienna has the very best museums, even a bit better than Paris. But it felt cold to us even in 90 degree weather. The buildings feel too big for people and the streets too wide to wander.

We got a half day each in Munich and Cologne. We only visited (and climbed) cathedrals and wandered streets, markets, and beer gardens. We will do more of Germany.

Paris is really many smaller places. We like the Left Bank and the Jewish Quarter. We go elsewhere for the museums.

London is London the land of traffic, free museums, monuments, and expensive churches and transport. The is better because it is now mostly French and Italian. Oh and they raise the very, very best lamb. It melts in your mouth.

I'd go again in a month or two if I could.

Listening to some Ranking Roger.

Oh Jenny! That sounds like the trip of a lifetime!

Awesome trip, Jenny!

You have to do southern Europe, sometime...

(August 1, 2016 at 1:06 pm)Jenny A Wrote: What do Europeans have against ice?

Nothing... it's just not necessary, for the most part.

Why are Americans so yearning for ice?!