Here some general shots of how the garden’s looking these days:

We’ve started putting black, plastic trash bags over the areas we’re not planting over the winter to prevent weeds from taking over.

The zucchinis still amazingly make some zucchinis, though it’s been dwindling the last few days… We used to get 2 or 3 every other day, but now it’s about two a week — they’re definitely winding down for the winter.

The strawberries are also still hanging in there. They’ve spread a bit, with lots of runners, so we’ve made their enclosed wire mesh area bigger, but they’re still not making much fruit, and it’s hard to keep those weeds out… We’ve maybe had 3 or 4 strawberries this whole time, but I think they’ll start producing more next year. I think we finally made it secure enough that nothing’s stealing the fruit at least.

The pepper plant is still there and is finally making some fruits, but they’re not doing so well — a lot of them are a little spotty…

The rose is also still there, but is still doing great! Still covered in blooms even though it’s the middle of November! Great freebie.

And as for our produce already harvested — here’s one of the four-or-so tasty miniature watermelons we got:

And here’s our carrot harvest from our raised bed! We also got about 7 or so beets from it — they were quite tasty in some borscht!

And now for the new stuff…
Speaking of raised beds — one morning Andrew made an amazing raised bed from some wooden boards and wire mesh we bought! (You can also see it in the back of the zucchini picture.) We’ve planted a row of carrots (left) and some snow peas (right) in it. Even though we have it covered with wire mesh and bird netting, something got in and ate off a lot of the carrot tops and most of the peas… We fixed it by securing a wire mesh top, but it was a bit too late for the peas. I planted some more a few days ago, and so far it looks like nothing else has eaten the remaining plants…

We also dumped out our salad mix buckets (they were really pretty done — some non-tasty greens had taken over in eat pot) and planted some carrots in each — we’ll see how they do!

And speaking of carrots — we planted some more, with beets, in the old raised bed… Should be seeing them popping up soon!

And lastly, we planted some peppermint mint to make some peppermint tea! Since it grows like a weed, we figured it might survive in our garden! It’s going quite well now, and we’ve already made a couple glasses of tea from the plants I’ve had to thin out.

And that’s it for the fall garden update! Hopefully there will be more happy news in the next update! Thanks for reading!

We started the day off early so we could beat the rush to one of the “attractions” in Paris that Andrew had been dying to share with me — the catacombs. The Paris catacombs are basically underground tunnels filled with the anonymous bones of some six million Parisians. They were started in 1786 when Paris citizens decided to get rid of all their cemeteries, since they were taking up much space and raising sanitation concerns, and move all of the bones into an ossuary. Conveniently, miles of underground tunnels for out of commission limestone quarries were just outside of the city — this is where all the bones were transported to. This undertaking took decades. Carts of bones were accompanied by priests, and, when all the bones from a church were laid to rest in the ossuary (forming piles of bones five feet high and often 80 feet back!), a plaque was left indicating which church/cemetery all the anonymous bones were originally from.

We arrived at the entrance to the catacombs about half an hour before they opened, but there was already a line! We waited, and the line grew much larger behind us before the catacombs finally opened. They only let so many people in at once so it’s not too crowded in the limited space (I wish places like Disneyland would learn from such practices).

When we finally were let in, we quickly descended a staircase leading down 60 feet, without breaks. Once down there, there were many limestone tunnels without bones for a long while. Some tunnels had carvings/sculptings of buildings by a man who was trapped in a cave-in, and who eventually died in the tunnels.

It was quite moist in the tunnels — there were occasional puddles of water, and water droplets often dripped down from the ceiling. There was a well the miners used which still clearly had much water in it.

And then we got to the ossuary… Famously, as you enter the actual ossuary, there is a placard that reads: “Halt! This is the empire of the dead” (in French). Of course everyone ignores it and continues on. And then there were bones… piles and piles of bones done countless passageways. They were mostly organized so that all of one bone type was facing the front (the piles were consequently very stable, even though they were often over two centuries old). Sometimes designs were made, often with skulls, such as crosses or just lines. But, behind this organized “facade” the piles of bones were not at all organized… they were just a pile. (Apparently, originally these bones were not “organized” at all, but during the mid-1800s priests/church officials came in to create these designs, and create some order out of the randomly-deposited piles of bones.)

There were placards all over that had sayings about death in French. Andrew interpreted a lot of them, but after a while there were just too many to keep translating… They were often interesting… and depressing! But more saddening were the piles of bones from different “cemeteries of the innocent,” which, we think, were where children were buried. We saw some skulls that were certainly from children — in some the plates had not yet fused together.

Some other observations: Being the biologist I am, I was really examining the bones we saw. Interestingly, I didn’t see any skulls with teeth, even when the skulls themselves were mostly intact. We also saw hardly any rib bones or torso bones in general — I’d imagine the rib bones might have broken to pieces easily, but I don’t know about the rest of the torso bones (such as spinal columns, hips, shoulder blades). In general, it was amazing the bones were in as good shape as they were, I think… Lastly, it was interesting to see how other people were reacting to it all — there was one mother with an older daughter (late-teen) and a younger son (about 12) — I have no idea why they brought the son, as he was often just making little jokes and clearly felt uncomfortable there. When we climbed a single staircase going up (with warnings to take it slow!), at the exit a couple of men were sitting there to make sure no one stole any bones! They simply asked us if we had any bones, and when we said “no,” they let us walk out… Guess we don’t look suspicious. There were some bones with them, so I guess it’s not that unusual for tourists to try and get away with.

After an hour walking in the limestone tunnels covered with bones, we were ready to get some late breakfast and hit museums! There were some amazing mini quiches we admired, and other pastries:

We then went the the Orsay museum, but were not allowed to take pictures! The Orsay has the greatest number of Impressionist paintings, and we enjoyed it a lot. It was not as large, and intimidating, as some of the art museums we’d been to, which was a nice change. Basically, it walks through Neoclassicism (of the mid-1800s), then to Impressionism of the late 1800s with works from Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, and many others. There were even post-impressionist paintings too. I’ve always really liked Monte, so it was quite enjoyable to see it all up-close, looking at the brush strokes and “true,” bright colors, and in such a wide array.

Heading out of the Orsay, we decided we wanted to visit the Louvre one last time, as we hadn’t made it to all three main branches! However, when we got to the Louvre, we got a bit distracted — we realized we were hungry, and then noticed there was a carnival right in the park out in front of the Louvre! Grabbing a crepe at a street stand, we headed into the carnival (and admittedly felt a bit guilty for being in Paris and going to a carnival!). It turned out that it was actually a pretty good-sized carnival, with churros (felt like we were back in California) and claw machines! The vacation was now complete for me, and I could check off in my checklist of countries I’ve played claw machines in (the U.S., Japan, Spain, and now France!). Yes, I admit I have a problem, but at least it includes possibly winning little stuffed animals that can crowd our bookshelves. There were also some cute rides that tempted Andrew, though I think he was above the height limit (and we didn’t bring bathing suits, so the King Kong/T-Rex water slide was out).

After enjoying the carnival, we decided to have some more “refined entertainment” back in the Louvre. We went to the Richeliu Wing, which we hadn’t seen yet — it contains some of the Louvre’s biggest and oldest artifacts, including about 2000 years of Iraq’s ancient history.

Entering the exhibit, some of the detail on, and completeness of, several thousand old objects was amazing. There were clay pots about 4.5 thousand years old, and rather modern-looking carved figures of the same age! There were several ancient obelisks covered in writings.

The artifact that floored Andrew was the Code of Hammurabi — we didn’t actually even know it was in the exhibit until we saw it. The Code of Hammurabi is from about 1790 B.C, Babylon — under the rule of the 6th Babylonian king, Hammurabi, 281 laws were written down and turned into the Code. It’s one of the earliest collections of laws, and was really quite complete for controlling normal code of conduct.

In an adjoining room there were huge statues from Sumeria, around 2200 to 2100 B.C. It was amazing to me how intact that truly ancient statues were! And hard to imagine what kind of journeys they went on to finally arrive in the Louvre today.

Exiting the ancient artifact section, we (rather oddly) found ourselves in a neoclassical statue courtyard/section. We saw a statue we’d seen at Versailles before:

Before saying goodbye to the Louvre, I had to visit my favorite statue one more time — the bust of the amused satyr! And Andrew said goodbye to the boy strangling the goose (what is with that, anyway?).

We decided the one other place we really wanted to see before leaving Paris was Montartre, the artists’ hill above the city. After walking around the central square and watching the artists hard at work (and hard at work trying to get work), we settled down at a cafe just off the central area, and did some good Parisian-style people watching. A violinist, who clearly knew the cafe owners, came by and played for a little while. Unfortunately, it started to rain soon thereafter, and he packed up (but really, he wasn’t that good).

Heading down the hill, we made our way to the familiar subway system, and caught our public transportation ride back home.

And that’s it for our last full day at Paris! The next day we caught our plane out of France. But before heading to the airport, in the early morning, we quickly went to the local food district, the Rue Cler, for breakfast. Unfortunately, our favorite place, the creperie Ulysse en Gaul, was not open, but we had some very satisfying pastries at a nearby pastry shop. Then we were off to the airport!

We’re very glad we arrived at the airport several hours before our flight because we needed all the time we could get — we went through about half a dozen security checkpoints and were worried we’d miss our flight! It was very disorganized and not stream-lined at all. But, on the bright side, they did have conveyor belt ramps! Settled into our seats on the plane, we enjoyed some airport Parisian pastries and our awesome iPad.

And that’s it for our Europe 2010 trip! It was perhaps a bit exhausting, but a whole lot of fun and we learned lots (as you can probably guess, if you’ve been reading the whole travelogue!). The only thing we’ve decided we want to change in the future is to insert more purely entertainment attractions — after going to the Parisian carnival on the last day, we realized this was something we’d been missing. Maybe you’ll get to hear all about that on our next international trip, wherever it may be to! Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts/comments!

The Palace of Versailles was created by King Louis XIV in the mid-1600s. It’s about 12 miles outside of Paris, and while it was mostly countryside when it was founded, it has now become a suburb of Paris (though we just headed for the Palace and didn’t really look at the little city). It was originally a little camping lodge retreat for King Louis XIII, and Louis XIV fondly remembered spending some childhood vacations there. Louis XIV moved the center of France’s political power from Paris to Versailles in 1682, when he was about 44 years old (he lived quite a long life — died just before he turned 77!). It was the center of France’s political power until the French Revolution in 1789, when the Palace was stormed, the royal family taken and executed, and many ornate historical artifacts destroyed. But more about that later!

We hoped on to a few subways to catch a quick train out to Versailles (only about 30 minutes long). We got there just as it was opening, beating the huge crowd and lines we’d see later. It’s hard to capture how large the entrance area is, but here are some shots. We kept imagining bedazzled horse-drawn carriages coming on these cobble stones centuries earlier…

With our Paris Museum Pass (which is totally worth it), we got in for “free.” But, we decided it’d be good to book a guided tour, so went and did that. It didn’t start for 30 minutes, so we wandered around the back of the Palace to the famous Gardens behind it. The most amazing thing is just how huge the gardens are — they’re about nine miles long!! And pretty wide as well. Here are some pictures are the back side of the Palace.

And here you can see the “Garden Canal” stretch far off into the distance! More on it later.

More of the beautiful gardens near the Palace:

So, this one big “Garden” is so huge and amazing that it actually is made up of several smaller gardens, made “private” by paths surrounded by well-maintained hedges and trees. We were a bit hungry and noticed that one of the nearby gardens had a cafe marked on the map, so we had to check it out. Sure enough, there it was…

It was getting time for our tour, so we had to go back to the front of the Palace and meet with it there. Amazingly, only about 30 minutes after we’d arrived, there was a huge line to get in! One line was for tickets (which we already had, thanks to the Museum Pass), and another line was for security (which we had gone through when it was short, but we’ve heard is quite painful).

Our guided tour was definitely worth it. We basically got to see a lot of the “apartments,” for the lower-class servants and the royalty (one of their many rooms) and our guide gave a lot of interesting details, from what kind of taste different kings/queens had, to what they did in the different entertainment rooms, to how many, many items were stolen or destroyed from the Palace during the French revolution. Again and again we heard that such-and-such valuable furniture piece was here (they know from records), but then gone after the Revolution. Amazingly, many furniture pieces have shown up in the last couple decades — they’d made their way to dealers who knew they were from Versailles, and decided to sell it back to the museum, or, very graciously, donate it. (Yes, the walls really have gold-leaf decorations on them.) Here are some apartment pictures:

Interestingly, one of the Louis (I forget which king), was very into clocks/watches. These were luckily not destroyed during the Revolution because they were considered achievements of technology. The most amazingly clock (the second one photoed) still keeps true time to this day — the maker, centuries ago, made it while keeping in mind leap years, and it not only displays the time, but the correct date as well. And it’s quite lovely.

Another interesting thing was a huge bookshelf where they said international spies had all their files and notes stored. These books are now empty, but the guide said all the files are kept in government offices in Paris.

We even got to see a royal bathroom — the toilet cushion was red, reminding them that they were royalty even when sitting on the pot… Rather humorous, I think.

Interestingly, here and there you could see places on the wall where some ornate designs had been removed — Andrew told me this was most likely where the royal seal was marked, but was removed during the Revolution.

We eventually made our way out of the Royal Apartments and down into the old opera house. The opera house was small, but amazing considering it was built just for shows at the Palace. But, apparently there was not too much foresight when it was being built — when it was created, it was often too expensive to use it because of the great number of the candles required to light it up for a night. So it was actually rarely used. Like much of the Palace, it’s been restored a lot. It’s actually now used for shows once again.

Thus, our guided tour ended. We didn’t realize it, but the guided tour only covered this area that the public normally couldn’t access, which was very nice, but it didn’t cover any of the part that was publicly open! So, we continued with the main tour of the Palace. This included the more famous, large halls, the Chapel, lots of paintings of French royalty, and beautiful views of the garden outside in the back.

Of course, there’s a chapel attached to the Palace. It was hard to get a good view, but it has beautiful, intact paintings on the ceiling — here’s the view from the second floor (yes, it’s very tall!) — it’s hard to see anything beyond the crowd on the first floor.

And more beautiful artwork in amazing rooms… Sorry for not giving more specific details, but it all started blending together… But the main point is is that Louis XIV made these amazing rooms to wine and dine the French nobility. He would call them here, away from their business, so he could better run the country without them interfering. They would compete with each other for his attention constantly, even over petty things like who got to be the one carry his candle as he walked to bed, or be near him at the dinner table. This made them forget about their real political concerns, letting Louis XIV effectively manage the country, and do a good job of it. He was quite a loved ruler.

And then we came to the most famous room in the Palace of Versailles — the Hall of Mirrors. It’s a long hall that is covered by mirrors on one side, and huge windows opening to the garden on the other side. This was made in a time when people were quite proud of their appearance, and nobility loved to see themselves in these mirrors. And a huge collection of fine mirrors such as seen here was quite rare.

Next up were the royal bedchambers. It was a little underwhelming after the Hall of Mirrors, as they were relatively quite small, but still quite ornately decorated.

Moving on, we entered halls filled with paintings from Napoleon’s time (the last one to rule in the Palace). We also saw many paintings that were in the process of being restored.

By this time, we were feeling quite ready for a picnic in the garden! We fled the Palace and went to security, where our food had been stored (no food allowed in the Palace). We had stored it in a bag with bagged ice which had apparently melted — this caused the bag to leak a little, which made security move it to an area in the back… consequently, it took several minutes before they found our bag (we were worried we’d lost our lunch!), but with it in hand we made ourselves back around to the Gardens.

We first stopped at the “Orangerie,” a huge orange orchard that’s entirely in wheeled pots. Louis XIV wanted to have fresh oranges, and so got all of these trees imported and put them in wheeled pots to take outside and store inside during the winter (under the Palace, I believe). Really amazing. This is one of Andrew’s favorite parts of Versailles.

We walked out into the gardens, heading towards the Canal (more on that in a minute). We went through several side-gardens. Each one of these had it’s own kind of “centerpiece,” either a pond, and/or sculpture, or something grander, such as the huge, enveloping columns in one shown below. A lot of the artwork had an Apollo theme, as Louis XIV thought of himself as the Sun King. Interestingly, the “walls” that separated the paths and gardens from each other were not actually that dense, but mostly made of sparsely-planted shrubs — I think the fences were a recent addition to keep tourist from wandering in them…

We eventually made our way to a pond (the “Apollo Basin”) right at the edge of the “Grand Canal.” Here’s the Apollo Basin:

And it was here we decided to have our delicious picnic, facing the Apollo Basin, and right next to many others who had similar ideas. We had some fun people-watching while eating our amazing cheese, crackers, and prosciutto purchased from a local deli, along with amazing pears (they’re so good here right now!) and some chocolates for desert. And, of course, Orangina.

After a refreshing lunch, we set off again, this time heading for the Grand Trianon. To get there, we walked along the “Grand Canal” for a little ways. Basically, there’s a huge Canal that’s about 1.5 miles long, and it’s intersected by a slightly smaller canal going the opposite direction mid-way through, making it a giant cross-shape. It’s so huge that they rent kayaks there — we were tempted, but it was a very hot day and we enjoyed the shade too much. (The French were obsessed with Venice at this time.) We walked along some beautiful, shady paths with trees all around for a ways to the Grand Trianon. We kept wondering who planted all the new trees since the Palace wasn’t used much since the mid-1800s, after Napoleon…

We eventually reached the Grand Trianon. The Grand Trianon is where King Louis XIV went to retreat from the constant public eye (well, nobility-eye really). He normally only spent about one night a week there to relax. So, it was much smaller, but still very ornately decorated. It was interesting to see how his life was when he wasn’t being constantly watched and serving for a model for others. While everyone admired King Louis XIV and he was a great leader, loved by peasants and nobility alike, his successors didn’t do so well, and part of it is because they were quite reclusive — while Louis XIV only spent one night a week at the Grand Trianon, his successors spent most of their time at such removed buildings, away from the Palace.

Leaving the buildings of the Grand Trianon, we wandered through more amazing gardens, slowly making our way to “The Hamlet,” Marie-Antoinette personal retreat. Here’s some of the neat stuff we saw as we tried to find it:

And then we discovered “The Hamlet.” This was one of the most beautiful and fascinating things I think I saw at Versailles. Basically, Marie Antoinette secretly wanted a “simple life of a peasant,” except for the hard labor… She wanted to live in a fairytale world, and since she was queen, she created one. (Marie Antoinette was married to Louis XVI — because Louis XIV had lived so long, his successor was actually his great grandson (Louis XV), who started to retreat from the public, and the successor of Louis XV was actually his own grandson, Louis XVI.) Louis XVI almost retreated entirely from the public, not wanting to have the duties of being king, as can be seen by his wife’s creation of “The Hamlet” — their negligence of their real-life duties is part of what brought about their executions during the French Revolution.

But… “The Hamlet” was quite lovely, and even featured its own small vineyard and several vegetable gardens at each little cottage.

There were also several very hungry, huge goldfish in a large, central pond! They were eating so noisily, we heard this strange gulping sound about 30 feet away, before we had any idea what it was!

After “The Hamlet,” we started making our way back to the Palace to head on out — we were quite exhausted, and the museum was starting to close! Along the way, we stopped by the “Temple of Love,” a rather isolated temple devoted to, you guessed it, love. In the center of this temple, surrounded by Corinthian columns, is a statue of Cupid turning Hercules’ famous club into a bow (to use for inciting love!). This reflects the attitude at the time — the nobility were more concerned with love than war and politics. As Rick Steves’ puts it in his guide, “When the Revolution came, I bet they wished they’d kept the club.”

And so we decided to conclude our visit to Versailles. We wandered back past kayakers in the “Grand Canal,” past the grand entrance to the Palace, past its statuary, visited a few gift shops in the town of Versailles, and then caught the train back to Paris.

And that was pretty much it for Day 12 of our 2010 Europe trip! Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for Day 13, our last full day in Paris, which includes a visit to the Orsay art museum, the Paris catacombs, a carnival outside of the Louvre, and one last visit to the Louvre itself.

We started the day off right, which meant a quick jaunt to a bakery on the Rue Cler, for amazingly tasty little quiche to go.

From there, it was only a short walk to Champ du Mars, and Le Tour Eiffel.

Despite some trepidation from Teisha, who doesn’t really enjoy heights, we set out to scale the steel and cable behemoth. The elevator to the first landing was unbelievably crowded, so we opted for the quicker, cheaper, and much more tiring path: Walk the stairs. Ugh. But it was kind of fun, filled with little posters describing the construction, and Mr. Eiffel, and the tower’s role and perception in Paris throughout the decades. Once we reached the top, the view was suitably epic, and Teisha amused herself with using the zoom lens on our camera to find other Paris monuments.

Just a few panorama shots.

Here’s Montmartre.

The Arch de Triumphe.

The Orsay Museum.

One thing that very few pictures of the tower show is what the viewing platform actually looks like– it’s not just a bare metal lacework. In fact, when you’re inside, browsing the gift shops, you forget that you’re so many stories up in the air.

Once we returned to Earth, we continued the steady gorging process by getting yet another amazing Ullysses en Gaul crepe.

After sating our appetite, we set out for the next sight of the day– The Pompidou Center and the Museum of Modern Art contained within. The Pompidou is famous for being constructed “inside out”, although with the recent trends in America towards exposed pipes and such, it probably didn’t look as edgy to us as it did when it was first built in 1977.

To be honest, the museum left us a little flat. Okay, a lot flat. The spawrling first floor was filled up with an endless parade of what I would call art (though many wouldn’t). I’d just call it bad art. Art for the sake of shock and weirdness, art that shows no actual artistic talent. It was frustrating for both of us, who wanted to embrace the contemporary art. But so much of it was crudely made, poorly executed, and clearly just intended to be so avant-garde that hopefully no one will notice their lack of dextrous skill. It did have a funny (and sadly true) piece on the difficulty of being a female artist.

Luckily, the upper floor contained their gallery of art from ~1905 to 1960, which while still “out there” actually had pieces that looked like they took skill and dedication and an artist’s eye to realise. It had a lot of picasso, a lot of conceptual art, and lots of other names to drop: Chagall, Matisse, Dali, Ernst, and many more. This was actually a lot of fun, and we captured quite a few pieces.

Two famous sights down, what next? We headed to Pere Lachaise Cemetary, for the main reason any non-Parisian ever does: To see Jim Morrison’s grave. What’s funny is that, despite it receiving far more attention than any other grave, they don’t want to emphasize an American over all the French buried there. In fact, the cemetary’s guidemarkers and maps make a point of deliberately excluding his grave from their listings. Nevertheless, we found the grave (and a crowd of others come to see it), and paid our respects.

We also took a moment to honor Chopin, who is buried fairly close nearby, as well as the oldest grave in the Cemetary, containing Heloise and Abelard, star-crossed lovers and scholars who died in 1164 and 1142.

This day was full of famous sites, and perhaps the last one we visited is, in some ways, the most famous of them all: Notre Dame Cathedral on the Isle of the City. Everything you’ve heard is true– it’s so big, so ornate, so daunting, that even a non-believer feels a sense of awe in its presence. But before we touch on that, it’s worth pointing out that after capturing its iconic front, Teisha used the zoom lens once more to pick out the tiny, distant figure of the cathedral’s most famous, bored gargoyle.

Inside, the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows just cast an elegant stillness over everything inside. That said, the thronging crowds of gawking tourists kind of break the mystique. It’s still a neat place to see, though.

Suitably exhausted after traveling this way and that across the whole of Paris, we retired to the shops of the Isle of the city, getting some excellent gelato and enjoying a charming little candy store.

Thanks for reading!

We started off our first full day in Paris by exploring the Rue Cler (which we had explored a little at the end of Day 9, though most of it was shut down by that time). The Rue Cler is only a few blocks long but has all sorts of food stalls, food shops (selling fruit, wine, and/or amazing baked goods), and cafes open early and late. We mostly went there for the crepes at the little creperie “Ulysse en Gaul,” possibly our favorite little eating place in Paris that we discovered. It’s amazing how the Rue Cler is not really that big, and not that crowded, but full of amazing food on this little cobblestoned street (with cars driving down it occasionally, causing pedestrians to slowly slink out of the way).

After a quick breakfast on-the-go at the Rue Cler, we headed down to the Metro, which always has a stop within a 10 minute walk of anywhere you are in Paris! Again, like most European public transportation, the Paris Metro is amazing and so much better than almost every public transportation system in the U.S. Well-organized maps are all over and you pay for the ticket before entering the subway area (though sometimes this was a hassle because most ticket dispensers don’t take Euro bills (only coins) and often credit cards don’t work). But even if you have some trouble getting down there, trains come every couple minutes, so you never wait long, and a sign is up for when the next one arrives. Usually we had a 2 minute wait before our train arrived, and the longest time we ever had to wait was 6 minutes. There are also convenient drink and snack machines at almost every stop. Overall, it was comparable with the amazing subway system in Tokyo, but Paris’ is a bit dirtier and maybe a little less organized (hard to compete with the Tokyo subway).

I (Teisha) have never been to Paris before and so much of our journeys in Paris were Andrew sweetly showing me around (he’s been there twice before for extended visits). I decided I was most excited about seeing the Louvre, and so we decided to do that with our first full day in Paris to get the excitement and anticipation out of the way. Getting up early, we got to the Louvre at 8:30AM. Although it didn’t open until 9AM, there was already a line forming! We stood waiting as the Louvre employees actually created a line around us (with posts and tape). It wasn’t so boring – we got to look at some neat prismatic rainbows created in the little inverted pyramid right by the museum entrance (from the subway – the underground entrance). There are also a ton of shops underground by the museum – it’s basically a little mall – though they were mostly closed.

However, when it did open, because we got there so early we didn’t have to wade through many lines. We walked in, had my bag security checked, and got our ticket from a machine (later we’d get the Paris Museum Pass to let us skip very long lines at the museums, but hadn’t gotten it yet unfortunately), and we were in the Louvre!

It was amazing being in the world’s most visited museum, and many would say the world’s best art museum.
The Louvre building itself has a lot of history – it was originally a fortress from the 1100s AD, and over time many kings and queens of France lived in the Louvre and changed it a lot. King Louis XIV was really the first royalty to leave the Louvre, moving the capital to Versailles in 1682 (more on that in a few days). Consequently, not only are the collections in the Louvre amazing, but the building itself is a work of art, decorated by marble floors, beautifully painted ceilings, and much more.

The Louvre basically has three sections. We headed into the main “classics” wing first, the Richelieu (the one with probably the most famous pieces). It’s mainly Greek and Roman sculptures and European paintings from about the 1400s to 1700s.

First we went through several large rooms of Greek and Roman sculptures. The two things that probably stood out most to us were (1) how well-preserved and in-tact so many of the sculptures were after being kicked around for over 2,000 years and (2) how beautifully they had gotten so many things right! It can be easy to forget that over 2,000 years ago people had figured many things out, such as making beautiful, lasting statuary such as this, and it makes me want to learn more about how things went so wrong for nearly a thousand years during the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire… It’s hard to imagine how far “ahead” we might be today if we hadn’t gone through the Dark Ages.

It’s amazing how many things have survived. This really struck us in seeing a Roman glass bowl from about 200 B.C and many other very elaborately decorated bowls, etc, from this and earlier Roman times.

One myth we saw depicted over and over again – Hercules with his club and the Nemean lion pelt (this lion was said to have had a pelt that could not be pierced, so Hercules killed it by stunning it with his club, then strangling it):

In a room near the middle of the Greek and Roman sculpture section was the Venus de Milo. Even though we were there early, right after the museum opened, it already had a crowd around it so it was hard to see it up-close or even get a clear picture. Part of this approx. 100 BC Greek statue’s appeal is how it is “balanced,” if cut down the middle, but also asymmetrical. It’s interesting that it was only found around 1820 AD by a Greek peasant, and this discovery helped stimulate the “neo-classical” movement with renewed interest in creating art that was beautiful by early Greek and Roman standards. It may be blasphemous, but I am surprised that since it was discovered over a century ago nobody has dared to “restore” it with complete arms and legs, since this has been done to so many other discovered Greek and Roman sculptures.

After seeing the Venus de Milo, we wandered through the remaining, surrounding Greek & Roman sculpture rooms. Here some general room and crowd shots:

And we developed some “favorites.” Andrew really liked this sculpture of a cupid strangling a goose, so much so that he did an endearing pose next to it.

I fell in love with this bust of a satyr (it was originally an entire satyr statue, along with others in a dancing scene, known because of other records that had been found). Apparently the only way you could know it is a satyr is because of its pointed ears and slightly unusually small teeth, but I think it was fairly obvious from the mischievous expression… It’s such an expressive face!

And there was a sculpture hallway just of famous Roman leaders and notables:

But we often preferred the fantasy sculptures, such as that of the satyrs, over the Roman leaders.

And then we came to another famous piece – the head- and arm-less “Winged Victory.” Made around 190 BC, it celebrated a naval victory of the Greeks. It stands on a pedestal that represents the prow (front) of the ship, and how its clothes are depicted makes the viewer feel the wind and misty spray that must be blowing across the scantily clad figure at the front of the ship.

Leaving the sculpture sections behind, we moved on to the paintings. Some of the oldest were frescos by Botticelli (late 1400s AD). The faces were so expressive, and yet not so different from the Greek and Roman statues we’d just seen that were created over 1,000 years earlier – again, what had happened??

Having been burnt out on paintings of the Mother Mary and baby Jesus from painting museums we went to in Germany (our eyes quickly got glazed over again), in the Louvre we focused more on other types of paintings. Again, satyrs are awesome and so is Pegasus (these were from the early 1500s AD):

But really, I’ve always been a big fan of Roman and Greek mythology, so it was neat to see the myths brought to life in the paintings, and try to figure them out (since nearly all the painting descriptions are in French – Andrew was a great translator, but I could only have him translate so much!).

I especially loved this painting (early 1800s AD) of one of my favorite myths, of how the sculpture Pygmalion had his beloved statue, Galatea, come to life – you can see the humbled awe on the sculpture’s face as she turns into flesh:

And there was also a statue of Bacchus as a hermaphrodite… haven’t seen that before…

And then there were several paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, including the super famous Mona Lisa. Several of his paintings were on the side of a long hallway, altogether, easily located by the small crowds that surrounded each. They were mostly Christian paintings, with Jesus as a baby and his mother Mary.

The room with the Mona Lisa was off on the side and while there were several other, much larger paintings in this room, the huge crowd huddled around the Mona Lisa, which was in a huge glass case, surrounded by a wooden railing, then taped off, and the entire crowd was herded around it by several guards so everyone got to walk by then exit the one-way traffic… I’ve seen much better, clearer pictures of it in books and online! The painting itself is surprisingly small, but it was still quite neat to see her faint smile in person.

There were several paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte, including a rather famous, huge one of him crowning himself emperor (he considered only himself to be worthy of the deed, casting the Pope aside even after he had come from Rome to do it):

And a favorite of Andrew’s — a devastating shipwreck scene just as hope is within sight:

And some cute tigers playing:

We were getting pretty tired by this point, but were not even halfway through the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, so we pressed on! We next entered yet another huge hall of statuary, which included some famous pieces by Michelangelo (“The Slaves,” one very sensual slave and one raging against his stone), a statue Andrew loved that was amazingly veiled (really, how do they do that with stone??), and another mythological couple, Psyche and Cupid.

Finally needing a break from art-overload, we escaped to the central area of the Louvre (where you enter and buy tickets). We watched the swarm of people entering the Louvre, including baby strollers going on a neat platform that could go up and down (like an open elevator).

After a little snack and break for our feet, we were off again! Instead of trying to finish the rest of the Richelieu wing (we probably only saw about 75%, if that much), we moved on to the Sully wing, which mainly had Egyptian art/artifacts – quite a change.

Entering the Sully wing, we could see the foundations of the old fortifications that were on the same locations centuries ago! They were still so intact, even after having been buried for so long.

The first part of the exhibit we saw was a huge sphinx about 5,000 years old.

There were amazingly preserved artifacts, including several papyrus sheets with writing – one was even a medical text from about 1500 B.C.! – and stone tablets with hieroglyphics and guides on how to interpret them. There was also a beautiful beaded tapestry nearly 4,000 years old… again, it makes me wonder why we haven’t come further over the past 4,000 years! If only it weren’t for the whole Dark Ages thing – image where we could be!

Sketches on stone before the stone drawings were cut into the stone:

Ancient Egyptian jewelry:

Mirrors, combs, and more:

Tools to de-frizz/curl curly hair (the thing on the far left)!

Games and game pieces (called “20 cases” – looked like a cross between table-top hopscotch and chess):

Musical instruments:

Sooooo many statues:

My foot is so tiny:

Many statues of the lioness goddess Sekhmet, goddess of power and disease:

And then so many sarcophaguses:

Including (and what I had been waiting for the whole exhibit!) a mummy! The person was thought to be of about average social standing, so it was not “elaborate” but seemed pretty amazing to me.

After 6 hours in the Louvre (!!) we had had enough for the day! Hopping onto the Metro, we headed up to Montmartre, a district in Paris that overlooks the city from a hill and is distinguished by the Basilica of the Secre Coeur. We went there not only for the amazing view of the city, but also because it has long been a center for artists – Dali, Monet, Picasso, and van Gogh have all lived there.

Looking at Paris from the Basilica on Montmartre…

We saw the Notre Dame cathedral (I’m quite grateful to have an awesome camera with amazing zoom capability!):

The Pompidou Center (a modern art museum):

And there are several great cafes in Montmartre. We ate in one of these cafes in the very center of the artists’ square. Mmm – French onion soup, Croque-monsieur, and, best of all, wine-soaked salmon with cheese and mussels! And flan for desert!

Montmartre is also home to the Salvador Dali museum. While it is a fairly small museum (about two large rooms), it was one of my favorites. I actually entered the museum not especially liking Dali’s pieces (I found them often disturbing), but left it feeling much better about them after reading his explanations of the pieces. I also didn’t know he did statues!

Of particular note – some amazing snail-spoons and snail-knives:

A series on Alice in Wonderland (the figure with the jump rope is Alice):

His take on classic art (great to see after seeing the originals at the Louvre!):

A winged snail we loved:

His idea of God – the big finger in the middle:

Neat take on the mythological muse of dance:

There was also a little gallery attached that had pieces you could buy! I can hardly image how much they’d cost – no price tags were shown… We saw a recurring motif in our trip though — a rhino with armor, similar to one we’d seen at a museum in Munich (and one we actually saw later somewhere else in Paris)… I suspect the Freemasons…

Probably one of the things I found I most liked about Dali was how he really didn’t take himself too seriously, even after becoming so famous. He also had a great mustache.

And then we wandered Montmartre a bit… and saw a historic vineyard!

And the famous café where Amelie worked:

And the Moulin Rouge, at the base of the hill of Montmartre. Several girls were doing the “Marilyn Monroe” on a subway vent on the road across from the Moulin Rouge – very cute:

On the same road are several other strip clubs and, unsurprisingly, the Museum of Erotic Art. We were feeling pretty museumed-out by this point, so we didn’t check it out past the entrance area, but I get the feeling you could see most of this stuff online for free, if you wanted!

Exhausted from museums and wandering Montmartre, we wandered home, grabbed some crepes from our favorite crepe stand, and collapsed!

Thank you for reading this super long post on our adventures in the Louvre and on Montmartre! Stay tuned for hopefully less exhaustive accounts of our adventures in Paris!

Back when Andrew was just 10 or 11, his family hosted Sascha Kuhn (18 at the time) as an exchange student. Andrew mostly just remembers that Sascha was tall. That first impression certainly hasn’t changed, with Sascha making even fully-grown Andrew feel short. But beyond that, we were both lucky enough to find an intelligent and kind man. Sascha was in Munich visiting his partner, Andreas (Sascha currently lives in Dusseldorf; the timing of our visit worked out perfectly). They met us for breakfast, guiding us through Munich away from the tourists and to a little musician-themed breakfast nook. We managed to snag a few pictures of Sascha and Andreas with us (Sascha is in black), and had a great chat about Germany, traveling, and life. Sascha and Andreas are both lawyers (Andreas does copyright law, which I’ll forgive), and both have lots of travel experience as well. The breakfast was quite good, too.

After breakfast (which Sascha sneakily paid for; although I suppose his lawyer salary trumps our grad student/post doc wages, it was still very kind of him), Sascha and Andreas offered us more of their time, and proposed a list of interesting Munich places to visit with our last few hours in the town. We ended up selecting a local cemetary, which looked very historic and peaceful. We got to see some impressive gravestones, chat with Sascha and Andreas a bit more, and Teisha, ever focused on the wee things of the earth, found a snail she adored.

After that, it was time to catch our train, so we had to bid farewell to Sascha and Andreas (but through the magic of Facebook, they won’t be far away).

Our train ride from Munich to Paris was fairly uneventful– German trains are a wonder; they are clean, efficient, and cozy. Indeed, the first leg of our trip had onboard Wifi access and electronic outlets!

Our second, much longer leg of the trip didn’t have Wifi, but it did have a dining car (which we didn’t actually use, but hey).

What it did have was ample opportunity for sight-seeing, and for Teisha, photo-snapping. Here’s a few highlights from the trip.

We arrived on schedule in Paris, the City of Light, and made our way through the metro (which you’ll hear more about on coming days), and to the Hotel du Turrene, located on Rue Tourville, next to Champs des Mars (the garden surrounding the Eiffel Tower) and the Rue Cler (a street with tons of great eateries and artisan food shops). For once, we lucked out on the hotel- reasonably priced, nice beds, free internet (for more than one computer at once!), and sweet, sweet air-conditioning.

Once we’d unloaded our stuff, we headed out to the Rue Cler, where we stopped off at a friendly, and incredibly tasty, local Creperie to get a dessert crepe with Nutella. That creperie, Ulysse en Gaul (Ulysses in Gaul; run by a family of Greek immigrants), has been and will be one of my favorite places in all of Paris. Andrew was overjoyed at the first crepe (and Teisha loved it, too!).

Suitably equipped, we ventured to the garden surrounding the Eiffel Tower, 2 blocks from our hotel, and had an enjoyable first evening seeing the Tower aglow with light and the murmuring throngs of tourists. Ah, to be in Paris.

Thanks for reading!

(Bonus shot: Teisha thought that this animal-girl advertising soda in the Metro was hilarious.)

Again we ate at the breakfast buffet at our hotel (since it was included with our room, and was a pretty good little buffet). As usual, we had mostly breads with various meats and cheeses – very tasty. Of particular note – about every day in Germany Andrew would get a soft-boiled egg (commonly served), some bread with Nutella (basically a chocolate spread which, sadly, many Americans don’t know of), and some fruit (as mentioned before, a wide variety of which is often available in German buffets, contrary to the “meat and potatoes” stereotype of German food). In Munich a specialty is “weisswurst,” a white (“weiss” in German) sausage (“wurst” in German), which is one of the few German sausages you need to remove the skin to eat, and it’s eaten with mustard, as you can see on Andrew’s plate on the right. Altogether, it was quite a delicious breakfast and good start to a long day!

Heading out bright and early, we made our way to the Alte Pinakothek, which is considered the best painting museum in Bavaria (a state in Southern Germany). It has an amazing collection of paintings from the 1300s to 1800s, in particular from several famous artists of the Italian Renaissance (Leonardo, Raphael, Botticelli). We could also take pictures (without flash) so we snapped quite a few! Here are some of particular note…

One of Teisha’s famous artists is Hieronymous Bosch, a late 1400’s Netherland’s painter, (we have a poster of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” at home) and, making Teisha happy, there was actually a Bosch painting at the entrance to the gallery, but only one in the whole museum.

Moving on, one of the famous paintings in the museum is “The Battle of Issus” (Alexander the Great defeating the Persians), showing a world continually at war, impossibly stretching across the Mediterranean.

Then there was the Italian Rennaisance! (1200s to about 1600 from Medieval culture to early modern European culture.) Starting it off was Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin and Child,” with halo-less Jesus and Mary. He used a blood-red carnation of Jesus’ eventual death but, luckily, da Vinci later got rid of such symbolism from his works (good riddance).

Raphael then showed us his take on the baby Jesus with his mother Mary, in his “Holy Family at the Canigiani House.” Father Joseph got to feature in this one too! Altogether, with also John the Baptist and his mother, they formed a pyramid-shaped family.

Painting the baby Jesus with his virgin mother Mary is a super popular theme in paintings from this time… and earlier and later… And we quickly got over-exposed and glazed over a bit every time we saw it again… So it was refreshing to see some Greek/Roman mythology-based paintings. That said, Andrew loved this painting of Venus, Mars, and Vulcan. The myth the painting is based on is basically the following – Venus is married to Vulcan but, due to neglect, cheats on him with Mars. Vulcan storms in and finds Venus and knows her lover cannot be far (he’s hiding under the table), and is outraged as he enters the scene. The whole painting has a sense of motion as the figures seem to nearly fall out of the painting.

After a brief Roman/Greek mythological break, we saw the museum’s centerpiece, Peter Paul Ruben’s “Great Last Judgment.” The museum was actually constructed specifically to house this huge 300-square foot canvas. And, yes, it is about Judgment Day, as Jesus is shown judging at the top while sinners are cast down on the right and the righteous are taken up on the left to heaven. The dead have mostly re-grown flesh, except for a few (mostly hidden) skeletons at the bottom.

Interestingly, there was another room full of sketches that Peter Paul Rubens had made – it’s noted that Rubens made lots of these sketches and then probably had students/assistants make the large canvas drawings… so probably hardly any “Rubens” were actually painted by him… Here’s a paired example.

There was also an interesting painting period in the 1600s and 1700s when Europeans were obsessed with African nature. One drawing we found really amusing – there was a rhino covered with armor because this is probably what Europeans thought rhinos were like from descriptions… And then later we saw a statue of this in the Dali museum, but it didn’t credit this little-known painting as its inspiration! Hmm..

After seeing so many paintings of baby Jesus with mother Mary, we really enjoyed a much later piece making fun of this long-standing trend – a dirty, rather disturbing and sleazy-looking painter is standing in a room offering the viewer his painting of the Madonna and child.

After about 3 hours in the Alte Pinakothek, we headed to the English Garden (see Day 7). We went there to meet a relative of Teisha’s. Some of Teisha’s distance relatives were from Germany and so she actually has a third-cousin (they share the same great grandparents!) who lives in Munich – her cousin’s name is Diana Frank. We had a nice leisurely stroll through the English Garden to where we met, at the Chinesischer Turm Beer Garden (one of the two big beer gardens in the Garden – it seats 6,000!). There was a great array of deserts, meats, cheeses, prepared foods, and, of course, beer at the Beer Garden. Meeting up with Diana, we grabbed some tasty food and enjoyed the shady, outdoor Beer Garden environment and good company.

After a lunch of catching up on family and life, Diana (who bikes everywhere, as is the way in German cities,) showed us to a local hotspot in the English Garden – in the last couple years it’s become popular to surf in Munich! This is done in one place on a river that flows through the English Garden, at a point that has just the right flow to create perpetual waves perfect for surfing. It’s really funny to think of Germans, in a land-locked country, becoming obsessed with surfing! But some of them were really great, lasting on the wave for minutes, while others, waiting nearby for their turn, watched on.

This area of the English Gardens really reminded us of Santa Barbara at the beach – just downstream of the surfers, countless people (mostly high schoolers) were in bathing suits sun bathing or jumping into the river, letting it take them down stream like a “lazy river” at a water park. Diana told us that some people hop in, float on down, and then take the tram back to where they started, doing it all over again! We really enjoyed getting the chance to meet Diana, chatting about family, and having her take the time to show us around Munich a bit. Hopefully we can return the favor when she comes by California or Colorado in the future!

After the English Gardens, we decided we hadn’t had enough of Alte Pinakothek and actually walked back to it (it also helped that it was a cool, indoor museum and outside it was extremely hot). Here are a few more we just had to photograph on our return visit:

Walking the mile-or-so back to our hotel from the museum, we discovered that a subway entrance near our hotel actually was an indoor, underground mall! Of course we had to take some pictures.

After relaxing at our room a little and letting our feet recover, we were soon off again! (So much city to see, so little time!) We wanted a filling, quality German dinner and (after consulting Rick Steves’ 2010 Germany guide, which has been very helpful) we settled on a place near Marienplatz (the real center of Munich). It was a great time for strolling down to Marienplatz – along the way (on the pedestrian mall) we saw many street musicians, though none quite as entertaining as we’d seen the night before.

We found our way to the restaurant of our choice, Altes Hackerbrauhaus, known for its good, authentic food, and environment of nooks adorned with paintings, posters, and other decorations. We split a large sampler plate (with five kinds of meat smothered in gravy and deep-fried onion bits, a buttered potato, and sauerkraut) and another Radler beer. Mmmmm…

For desert, we had “Dampfnudel” (white bread balls covered by vanilla sauce, which was like a thin vanilla pudding really).

Full and exhausted, we happily headed back to our hotel room. Thanks for reading Day 8, and stay tuned as we travel to Paris!

We started our day, as per usual, with a tasty buffet from our hotel. This was our first chance to sample Hotel Europaischer Hof’s menu, and although it was less grandiose then our previous hotels’, it was still tasty and varied.

We headed out the same way that we explored last night, heading to Karls Tor, where we captured a daytime view of the magnificent fountain.

Andrew also remembered to capture an image of one of the Munich trams. Munich, like most German (or indeed, European) cities, is simply covered with public transportation options. Munich has an two extensive subway lines, a system of trams above-ground, and buses covering what ground the trams don’t reach. There’s simply no reason to own a car in most European cities. Combined with all the solar, wind, and nuclear power we’ve observed in Germany, and one can quickly see why they are much less concerned with foreign oil (and don’t need to send soldiers to die needless deaths to enforce our cheap oil policies).

Marienplatz was a very different experience during the day, hopping with energetic tourists and sellers– the square was practically covered with stands that were set up! (Including, of course, lots of fruit stands)

We also captured some nice shots of the glockenspiel and some statuary that was difficult to capture at night:

One of the stores on Marianplatz that we couldn’t resist visiting was Max Krug, a specialist in cuckoo clocks, as well as custom beer steins. Amusingly, his sign had German, English, Italian, and Japanese– including a large Japanese inscription saying “O Miyage”, or “Souvenirs!” (Yes, the original Karate Kid’s mentor was named mister souvenir).

Past Marienplatz, we visited the Viktualienmarkt, a large open-air fresh food market and beer garden. It reminded me of the Boulder Farmer’s Market by the Tea house (if you replace the tea house with a beer garden).

At the Viktualienmarkt, our sleep deprivation and general grouchiness started catching up with us, so we decided to grab a meal at the beer garden- schnitzel (which andrew has fallen in love with) and chicken, smothered in mustard (along with disappointing rolls). Of special note, we decided that since we in Germany, in a Beer Garden, on a hot summer day: Well, it was time to actually try a beer. I went with a local favorite, a Radler, which is 1/2 strong German beer and 1/2 Lemon Lime Soda. Amazingly, it was quite good and refreshing– as you can see on both Andrew and Teisha’s faces.

Lunch in our bellies and beer in our throats, we headed out for our real destination of the day– the Deutsches Museum! The Deutsches Museum is Germany’s equivalent of the Smithsonian Institute, a sprawling museum dedicated to science, engineering, and technology.

And boy howdy, does it celebrate engineering. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more gears, levers, engine blocks, and lathes. Don’t get me wrong, it was fascinating. Just a little overwhelming. Here’s a few of our many representative shots.

We took turns choosing which areas to explore, which worked well except for a period forever more known as “Teisha’s Folly”. Still feeling the hot Summer day outside, Teisha chose the underground Mining exhibit. Little did we know that the mining exhibit was an incredible (and incredibly long) tribute to the German craft of mining, with over a mile of detailed reproductions of different mining conditions, bore shafts, and mining techniques. Seriously, after we turned off one coal shaft into a salt shaft into a tubbings-lined shaft into… they started to blend together. It was so surreal that we made a game out of skipping from one room to the next, taunting each other that it would never end. When it did end, we were treated to some fantastic exhibits on early metalworking.

The museum also had a neat biology section, although (and this does my Biochemist heart proud), they call it the “Pharmaceutical Section” and it opens with a large banner proclaiming “All Life is Chemistry”. Boo-ya, and take that biologists. Lots of larger-than-life cell components and exhibits on early drugs were to be had.

We detoured into a great exhibit on early microscopes and telescopes (which segued into some work on holograms that we didn’t even attempt to capture on film).

Next up was a cool exhibit on the history and evolution of musical instruments– including almost twenty pianos, and dozens of oboes, guitars, and much more.

While we explored, the museum allowed an extremely talented Asian man (maybe a visiting musician?) to play on on of their grand pianos. And play he did! It was some of the most beautiful piano I have ever heard in my life, and made Teisha a little depressed. “Depressed?”, I inquired. Teisha explained that it made her wonder how good she could have been, if she had chosen that path. I think she’s chosen a great path, though– and soon, her concern was overwhelmed by the quality of the music.

One of the coolest exhibits was about the evolution of computers- from abacus’ and early calculators, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to circuit boards. It also had a neat section on logic and mathematics– and Andrew was in love. Note Andrew proudly displaying the Moebius Strip.

Between our main exhibit visits, we caught some other interesting tidbits, like a huge industrial loom and several displays of the history of robots.

On the roof of the museum is a Sundial Garden; not too impressive given that it was overcast when we finally climbed our way up. But it did give us some great views of Munich, and of the Deutsches Museum’s clock tower, which is instead a Hygrometer and Barometer– a great concept!

The last major exhibit we saw was a big temporary exhibit hall on emerging technologies, which had lots of hands-on, thought-provoking multimedia displays. It had some showcases on stem cells (which Teisha enjoyed), lots of demonstrations like a huge bowl of feroomagnetic fluid or non-wetting surfaces based on lotus leaf, and lots of “how technology makes our life better” stuff which was great.

Thoroughly brain-blown from information overload, we decided to retire to the English Gardens– the largest city park in continental Europe, and one of Munich’s greatest attractions. It was a beautiful, forested expanse which immediately reminded us of Tokyo. Jokingly, we both commented that we half expected to see a Japanese Tea house in the middle… which it has. Ha!

We stopped for a much earned dinner at Milch Hausl (The Milk Cottage), a little organic food beer garden in the middle of the park. There, we sat on a huge rocking chair and watched children play with hammocks beside a playground. The best sight was a brother and sister of 7 or 9 were playing really rowdy in the hammocks, trying to crash into each other. Unlike America, where people might have freaked out, most people seemed content to let it proceed. All the kids seemed extremely happy and playful– great dinner entertainment. Germans seem much more relaxed than we expected, more like mid-west Americans.

Exhausted but happy, we made our way back through Marianplatz and to our hotel.

Thanks for reading!

We started the day with more amazing food at our hotel buffet; not only delicious meats (Teisha’s has developed a real taste for pickled herring, the small purple thing in the top left), but also very tasty fruits (we’ve had some especially amazing pears here).

Teisha had to get a picture of herself next to her poster. The night before, she stood by it tirelessly for three hours answering questions and getting ideas from others at the conference – it’s one of the best reasons for a grad student to go to such a conference. And after listening to talks all morning and getting a quick lunch, Teisha was done with her conference and we started on our journey to our next German destination: Munich.

Before leaving the conference, Andrew had to make sure to get some pictures of the escalators. Why the escalators, you ask? Well, because they’re amazing – they usually go very slowly, until someone steps onto them and then they immediately speed up to a “normal” speed. Since the conference, we’ve seen these escalators all over Germany… And it just makes sense. Why should an escalator be using the same amount of energy when it’s not even being used? I’ve only seen escalators that do this in the U.S. at one major events center (at a conference in San Fran) – they should really be everywhere…

Bidding farewell to the conference, we took a nearby, quick tram ride to the major train station (a “hauptbahnhof”). The train stations are amazing. Inside it has a variety of stores from food stands, restaurants, and shops or convenience stores. For all major German cities nearby, they have a train arriving about every hour. The train yard, where the trains arrive, had huge, reinforced domes and was very peaceful to wait in. The schedules were also clearly displayed and easy to figure out.

For every train that would pull into its given docking lane, there were even “maps” laying out what “car” would line up with what part of the platform, so you’d know exactly where to stand and board for your car before it even arrived!

To get to Munich we first caught a train to Leipzig, and from there caught a train to Munich. The seats were quite roomy and we even had a folding-out table to use (but we were in “first class” because it was the only way to completely ensure we had a seat). On our way to Leipzig, still in the area around Dresden, there were a number of rather decrepit, abandoned buildings, often next to rather new ones. Funnily, we passed the conference building we were just in. Passing something that looked like a carnival but was completely empty, we headed over the Elbe river and stopped at just a few other stations before arriving in Leipzig.

Outside of Dresden on the way to Leipzig, we saw some beautiful German countryside. There were many wheat fields, some fields with young corn, and at least one field with tons of beautiful sunflowers. Little villages, usually with a central church, were scattered off in the distance from the train, here and there. We also passed over or near tons of rivers and streams– it’s a very well-irrigated country.

And while we didn’t see too many houses with backyards in Dresden, we saw many houses with nice yards (and often flower gardens) further in the country between Dresden and Leipzig.

Also, the Germans are all about “alternative energy.” There were a ton of wind turbines all over the country! We saw some very huge ones off in the distance. Also often in “little” villages there would be several houses with entire roofs covered by solar panels. And later (on our way to Munich) we saw what we thought was a nuclear power plant …

Somehow our train to Leipzig became (surprisingly) delayed and was about 20 minutes late arriving to Leipzig, meaning we missed our very short (4 minute) connection for our train to Munich. Luckily, this was quite easy to solve – there was another train heading to Munich in less than an hour, and all we had to do was explore the Leipzig train station waiting for the next Munich train. I love the transportation here.

The Leipzig train station was huge, basically a 3-story mall. We didn’t explore the shops too much, but did enjoy a Nutella crepe from a crepe stand and a huge cup of fruit from a fruit stand (yes, Germany has tons of wonderful fresh fruit all over!).

And then we caught our (on-time) train from Leipzig to Munich. The train from Dresden to Leipzig was only about an hour long, not giving us too much time to settle in, but the train from Leipzig to Munich was about 5 hours, giving us plenty of time to get comfortable. We worked on our laptops and played some games on our new iPad (it has been a lot of fun for this trip!). Along the way, we saw more little villages and mostly thick, beautiful, green forests and some farm fields. And what we think was a nuclear plant off in the distance…

Getting into the Munich train station about 9PM, the train station was bustling! Again, it was like a mall where trains happened to arrive.

Our hotel was only about a block from the station, so a nice easy walk. We were rather disappointed with our hotel, Hotel Europaischer Hof, but it was all we could find when booking only a few weeks in advance and at a reasonable price (about 85 Euro a night). The staff was fine and the room functional, but a little small, with no air conditioning, a tiny shower, curtains that hardly blocked any light, and right by a very, very noisy street (I had to use earplugs to sleep well). The worst part was the heat because it probably never got below 85 to 90F in that room (plus high humidity), due to the heat wave, making it quite hard to sleep in (or to want to hang out in at all). And we had problems setting up the internet… but it eventually got fixed. But, as we say, the hotel room is just a place to sleep in – the rest of the time you’re supposed to be exploring the area, right? So we threw down our stuff and went out into the city to check things out, even though it was about 10PM by then.

We headed towards the tourist center of town, called Marienplatz (any “platz” literally means a “plaza,” but really is a “square”), which is just a little under a mile from our hotel. Along the way, we saw some neat scenes.

We passed Karlsplatz, a square with a huge water fountain constantly spraying water towards the center, surrounded by big shops. Lots of people were enjoying the mist on this hot night. Right by the Karlsplatz is Karl’s Gate – this used to be a main gate to the center city (and going out from the gate was a wall surrounding the city, but this wall has become a road circling the inner city).

From Karl’s Gate to Marienplatz, there’s basically a wide pedestrian mall with people wandering it all the time. Even this late, there were still many musicians out on the street performing. We saw a really good group who did classical songs with a re-mixed modern twist. The lead singer/violinist was what really got the audience – he shouted out to people to sing along to the classical songs, and, of course, spoke only in English. (There’s much more English here in Munich than Dresden, as it’s more of a tourist town.)

And then we made it to Marienplatz, and it was quite worth the walk. We were tired and weren’t quite sure what to expect when we turned the corner and saw the amazing “New Town Hall” (built in the late 1800s) (which, due to fires, is actually older than the re-built “Old Town Hall” next to it). Although New Town Hall is an impressive building with neat architecture and sculptures, it’s really famous because of its Glockenspiel clock. We could see the several figurines, in the center of the building near the top, but didn’t see them move until the next day (they only do their dance 3 times a day).

Lastly, we realized we needed dinner! We’ve actually seen a lot of Italian restaurants in Germany and we were so tired we finally gave into eating at one of them, splitting a 12” Hawaiian pizza (which, sadly, wasn’t as good as the one I had in the Philadelphia airport the week before!). We were quite grateful that we had an indoor table, as it started completely pouring 5 minutes after we sat down! Despite the heat, we even saw hail for a minute.

Overall, it was a good, relaxing day of travel. Stay tuned for what we actually did once in Munich – tasty food, beer we actually drank (for those of you who know us, you’ll understand what a big thing that is!), and so many awesome museums!