Where in the world are Jess & Amir?: July 2010

Paris
We flew from Dublin to Paris on July 13th via Ryan Air, the super budget European airline that makes Southwest look like a luxuryliner. The chairs didn't even have the option of reclining. The funniest thing by far, though, was the flight attendant walking down the aisle offering smokeless cigarettes for sale to all the poor nicotine addicted Irish folk who couldn't bear the thought of an hour long flight sans cigs. If only smokeless cigarettes were the norm!

Nic met us in Paris and we all stayed at his parents' lovely apartment in the southern part of the city for about five days of intensive sightseeing. I think my sneakers are officially worn out at this point from all the miles and miles of walking we did every day. Paris is absolutely gorgeous. The highlights were the Louvre, Tuilleries, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Monte Martre, the Arc d'Triumphe, the Champs Elysees, Bastille (which is just a monument marking the spot of where the Bastille used to be), the church St. Germaine des-Pres and the Eiffel Tower. The food was also excellent; we ate countless baguettes, pate, cheeses of all varieties and white, rose and red wines. Nic celebrated his 30th birthday while we were all there so we spent part of it on the top of the Eiffel Tower at night looking down on the Parisian city lights.

Amsterdam
Amsterdam was calling our names so we took a train up for a quick two-night stay in a hostel on the outskirts of the city center. I think we walked the downtown area just about in its entirety over the course of our one full day and two half days there. The Van Gogh museum was a real treat but I personally enjoyed the Rijksmuseum even more (housing several Rembrandts and Vermeers). The city has numberous gorgeous canals lined with four to seven story buildings of brick or stone. Some of them were listing to the side due to the sinkage caused by the proximity of the canals. The city was just as beautiful as Paris but in a more austere way.

Berlin
Nic left Amsterdam to return to the US via Paris and Amir and I headed to Poland via a one-night stay in Berlin. Can't say much about Berlin aside from Alexanderplatz, which we spent a half day walking around and admiring before boarding the train to Poland. We can, however, strongly discourage anyone who reads this from staying at the Amadeus Hostel. It was dirty, the dorm room had about 20 beds filled with the world's loudest snorers and the staff were ridiculous, some trying to charge us extra for bed linen because they claimed our sleeping bags could be dirty. On a more positive note, we visited two churches that were painted mostly white inside which made for a brighter atmosphere in a church than I have ever before experienced.

Poland
Our first stop in Poland was the town of Poznan in the northwestern region of the country. I had read about an interesting daily phenomenon occuring at the town hall at noon involving mechanical goats and wanted to see it for myself. Sadly, it poured rain steadily the first full day of our time there so we limited our activities to food foraging and watching Predators (Amir). The hostel we stayed at was formerly a mental institution and currently a dorm during the school year which made for lots of closet space and a sink in the room. We liked it and the town enough to extend our stay to three nights. The next day was clear so we ventured forth to explore the quaint, historic downtown area (the whole area was historic) and made it to the town square well before noon. When the hour finally arrived, we were joined by a large crowd of tourists all craning their necks upward to stare at two tiny doors beneath the clock high up on the gorgeous town hall building done in white with pastel trimmings. The clock chimed twelve times and then the door opened to reveal two mechanical goats who made their way slowly outside the doors and then turned to face off like Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. They then butted heads twelve times before turning back around and reversing back through the little wooden doors amidst the oohing and aahing of the rapt crowd. Totally worth choosing the town for!!! We afterwards spent a few hours browsing the 1500's to 1900's paintings and odd Ikea gardening tool displays of the National Museum.

From Poznan, we boarded a second class local train bound for Krakow. That is where we learned that our Eurail passes do not cover Poland. Oops. Fortunately, we were able to buy tickets on the train and they were pretty cheap thanks to the slow, second class train we were on. At least we somehow managed to get a free ride from Germany into Poznan. Krakow has rained steadily and sometimes quite heavily for the last two days. Since we arrived in the evening of the only decent weather we have seen since we got here, we haven't seen any of the sights yet. We have, however, gotten very familiar with the megamall about 6 blocks from our hostel and with all the nearby grocery stores that also, thankfully, sell beer, wine and alcohol. Poland is apparently known for its vodkas so we have thus far tried the one known for the single blade of bison grass inside (super flavorful and definitely my favorite vodka so far) and the honey vodka called Krupnik which is a little too sweet for casual sipping.

We're hoping that Weather.com holds true and the rain lets up tomorrow afternoon long enough for us to fully explore Auschwitz (an hour and a half away from Krakow by bus). If not, we'll just get drenched while we are there. We'll try to explore the rest of the downtown area, especially the famous Jewish quarter, later that evening because we are planning to head out Friday morning to Prague, Czech Republic for a few days.

Rain, rain go away.