regenbogen

slept in and had brunch with josh at this fantastic little cafe in the southern suburb of schoeneburg; it's the bilder buch (picture book) cafe, where even at 11 am on a weekday a pianist was playing lovely little whimsical tunes to a packed room lined with bookshelves and filled with mismatched old furniture. it was all perfect save for the exceptionally rude waitress, who had zero patience for our pitiful attempts at ordering in german. most amusing was bryan's "ananassaft, bitte" ("pineapple juice, please"), to which she responded "orangensaft?" ("orange juice?") and immediately darted off with impressive speed before he could correct her. good times :)

berlin

somehow we've been in berlin for four days now and have barely done anything here. part of the reason is that we came here to visit friends, so we've been spending time with them, but the other reason is that we tried a new travel experiment, planning our trip on the go, but it's been a sad, sad failure. especially as we're here during the peak season, we're just wasting our time and money and stressing ourselves out. back to the hardcore advance planning in the future :)

we did spend all day yesterday in the city, mostly visiting museums as it was raining steadily outside and i'd recently thrown our last umbrella away in disgust when it failed to withstand the christchurch winter winds. we wandered around museum island (though the lines were so long that we didn't actually want to be in any of the museums), eating wurst with hot mustard and cheese pretzels from the street vendors in the shelter of the neues museum's long portico overlooking the river.

 after lunch we took the underground train (getting anywhere takes three trains...no matter how close it may be) back to potsdamer platz to hit up the film and tv museum...can you guess who was particularly keen on seeing that? the displays looked cool, but didn't actually give enough information for us to understand why this particular director/film/actress was important to german and world cinema. there was a big exhibit on fritz lang's "metropolis", a very small one on michael haneke's "the white ribbon", and plenty of information about marlene dietrich, but overall we were a little disappointed. that didn't stop us from seeing the final harry potter movie at the english-language kino next door, though, and overhearing this conversation in the row behind us, just as the film was starting (the cinema had assigned seats):

young man: excuse me, but i think this is my seat. i wouldn't normally say anything, but it's quite full and we've actually just had to move as well.
woman: i'm sorry, but i'm sitting here now. you'll need to find somewhere else.
young man: it's just that the theater's quite full, so there aren't any other seats together. i did see a seat at the back that you could sit in, though.
woman: i'm not going to move. the movie's about to start.
young man: what can we do, though? these are our seats!
woman: you could find a cinema employee and they could find you other seats.
it continued in this way for a bit, but the guy finally gave up and he and his girlfriend went down to sit in the front row. poor guy.

my highlight of the day was our evening visit to the gemaeldegalerie, which houses the paintings of the berlin gallery that survived the bombings of WWII and subsequent fires in the underground storage locations where they were hidden. in new zealand i'd had a copy of the berlin gallery guide from the early 80s that painted a bit of a pathetic tale about the then-current state of the collection, divided as it was into multiple inadequate gallery spaces on different sides of the city and having lost many of their principal works during the war, so it was exciting to see the collection back together in a new building, looking towards the future. i got to see andrea mantegna's "madonna with sleeping child", a lovely, delicate tempera painting that i'd admired in pictures but had never seen up close. travelling in europe is so much fun...

-rachel

prague

clockwise from top left: st vitus' cathedral, bryan eating pig's knee, view of prague castle from charles bridge, st agnes' convent, wallenstein gardens, aidan and franta fighting over the "missile launcher"

prague is a very cool city, and we have spent a fantastic four days here with bryan's cousin matt, his wife olivia, and their two boys, aged 6 and 8. they lead the kind of life that we aspire to - no car, top-floor apartment in a historic building in the central city, raising their kids to be comfortable in a foreign culture. it's immensely attractive and a lot of fun to be able to experience their lifestyle for a few days.

in the time that we've been here, we've learned that the hearty czech cuisine need not be bland (delicious goulash and the huge hunk of meat that is pig's knee are proof of this), we've seen evidence of the arts and culture scene that's been thriving here for hundreds of years, we've gotten sunburned while paddleboating on the vltava river, and we've been impressed countless times by the public transport system, which has never been overcrowded, even at the peak of the tourist season. will write more later - this is just a glimpse of a city that we're absolutely loving. leaving today for berlin...by train :)

-rachel

leaving already?

flying to prague this afternoon - how is it already time to leave london? we definitely didn't allow enough time for this portion of the trip, and will have to schedule a few more days here at the end.

yesterday was devoted to seeing london city, the old part of town with ancient roman walls and beheadings at the tower of london and such. it was...fine..., but i am now convinced that i will never again come to london in the summer. the tower of london was horrendously expensive (and they include a 10% donation in your ticket price that you have to awkwardly ask them to take off if you don't want to pay it...what crap!) but completely unenjoyable because you're stick in one endless line, pushed past anything you might want to pause to read about by the pace of the crowd behind you. seeing the crown jewels was like going on a theme park ride that seems not too crowded by the size of the line outside but is secretly hiding a much longer line inside the building. yuck. it was a little bit cool seeing the crowns (apparently there's one for coronations and a different one that is then worn for the procession out), and i think bryan liked checking out the armor and weaponry in another building, but otherwise i would have been happy walking around the outer perimeter of the building...for free. had fish and chips for lunch but didn't get any vinegar with it, which i had been led to believe was standard. hmm.

crossed over the river via the tower bridge, which was more colorful than i'd imagined it, wandered past the globe theater and the prison that gave the moniker "the clink" to the rest of the world, then re-crossed on the harry potter bridge (you know, the one that's destroyed by the death eaters...) and spent some time at the museum of london, learning about londinium and plagues and great fires and beatles and telephone booths. it's amazing to realize that this city has 2000 years of history behind it already - how much fun it must be to be an archaeologist here! maybe i'll go back to school...

-rachel

art, how i have missed thee!



frans hals' "young man holding a skull (vanitas)"



i used to be a frequent visitor at the institute of the arts in minneapolis. my trips there were usually alone, often when i'd taken the day off of work or in the evening when bryan was working late, and i was familiar enough with the collection that i could head right for the one piece or area that best fit my mood for the day. since living in christchurch, where the small and fairly mediocre art museum has been occupied by the city council since the earthquake in february, i have had to resort to guidebooks for other great museums in an attempt to satisfy my artistic longings. the one that was most dear to me was the companion guide to the national gallery in london, which depicts and describes their 200 best paintings in detail, and which i read cover to cover during the months that i was unemployed.

so with that bit of background knowlege, maybe you'll understand how exciting it was to get to visit the national gallery today and see nearly all of those great works in person. while the crowds clustered around the monets and van goghs, my heart was thrilled at the sight of a few favorites by slightly lesser-known artists - frans hals' "young man with a skull" in its wide black frame, fra filippo lippi's "the annunciation", slightly smaller than i'd imagined, and robert campin's beautiful portraits of a husband and wife that feel much more modern than their 15th century creation would suggest. two hours there just wasn't enough...but it was for bryan, and it was for me when the crowds really started pressing in, so we had to move on. now i really can't wait to hit up the great galleries in d.c. over the next few months...

-rachel

we're here!

arrived in london this afternoon, exhausted yet exhilared after 27 hours of nonstop travel. we were farewelled by 16 amazing friends at the airport on sunday night, which couldn't help but be a tearful encounter, and took the midnight flight on budget airline airasia x through its hub at kuala lumpur to london. being wedged into the center seat on both 12-hour flights, i slept barely a wink but somehow am functioning well this evening and hopefully won't suffer the horrendous jet lag that lingered for days in auckland. we didn't think we were going to make our connection to london, as the plane was an hour late and check-in was closing minutes from our arrival, but we speed-walked through the surprisingly small transfer terminal (it doesn't look anything like the international hub that it is) and just made it. saw a couple of palm trees and lots of military-looking airport officials, but that's the end of my impressions of malaysia. disembarked on the tarmac instead of directly into the terminal, though, so i'm glad to say i have stepped foot on asian soil. was a bit freaked out by the announcement made over the PA system upon arrival in kl, "passengers should be aware that possession of illegal drugs is taken very seriously in malaysia and carries a mandatory death sentence", as i had just finished a bag of lollies and was concerned that the sugar left in the bottom might look a bit suspicious. guess they can tell the difference between cocaine and candy :)

arrived in london at 3:30 pm but didn't get to our hostel way-the-heck-on-the-other-side-of-town until almost 7:30, involving a scenic train ride through the english countryside, a frantic transfer to the tube in the middle of central london's crazy rush hour, a second transfer up to willesden green station on the jubilee line, and a 10-minute walk. looks like it will totally be worth it, though, as the hostel's in a really quiet and beautiful residential area and seems to be very well managed. we are finding london to be crazy expensive, as everyone has said, but we'll enjoy the time that we have here and hit up lots of those free museums. already wondering if we can work out a way to come here for a year or so...great history, lots of walking tracks and great tramps within a few hours' drive, steady supply of cadbury's chocolate...

-rachel

our little bundle of joy :)



last fish and chips from the local shop, 1040 takeaways,
eaten in a very empty apartment



anticipation...

so we haven't really planned much of our europe trip, despite the fact that we'll be there in less than a week. that's out of character for me, who usually delights more in the planning than in actually experiencing the trip, but we've been so busy wrapping up things on this end that we've just run out of time. we realized our mistake when we popped online this afternoon to check out hostel prices for london and realized that most of the good hostels no longer have availability for the days that we'll be there next week. fearing a terrible experience like our arrival at the city groove hostel in auckland two years ago, we reserved our beds immediately when we finally did find one that looked halfway decent. from our budget accommodation experiences in new zealand, we've learned that the main things we're looking for are, in this order, cleanliness, size (the smaller the better), location and price. our booking with palmer's lodge - hillspring got us what we wanted on the first two items, if not the last two, so i think i'm happy. it's a good ways out of town but close to the tube, so we'll just have to plan to go into the city for the whole day and not be able to pop back in at the hostel for lunch. free breakfast, free internet, interesting old building...there are plenty of opportunities for this to be a good experience. we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

-rachel

winter tramping

last night we returned from a two-day tramping trip out at mt oxford, our last trip out to the wonderful nz backcountry for a while. we still have a long list of great tramps left undone - the st james walkway, the tongariro crossing, the harpers pass track, the kepler, mt. somers - which will just have to wait for our next trip to new zealand. though i'd been working hard to keep this weekend open, for a while it didn't look like this trip was going to happen as we don't have a car or even driver's licenses that are valid in nz (our ability to drive with overseas licenses expired in may), so i was thrilled when bryan arranged on thursday for our friend phil to drop us off and pick us up from the wharfedale track on the weekend.

the wharfedale track is part of a series of connecting tracks through the mt oxford forest, located in the foothills of the mountains just behind the town of oxford, an hour northwest of christchurch. having flexible transport meant that we could be dropped off at and picked up from different locations, so we planned a hike that would take us up to the summit of mt oxford, drop down to the wharfedale hut in lees valley, and then follow a low ridge out to the view hill carpark a few miles to the west of our starting point. the big draw was hiking above treeline on mt oxford, which would give us more then just beech forest to look at along the way. i don't know if bryan will ever forgive me for this decision.

we were on the trail by 9:15 am on saturday morning, having been dropped off at cooper's carpark, maybe 200m above sea level, aiming to reach the 1365m summit of mt oxford by lunchtime. it's the dead of winter here, which means mild temperatures on the plains but plenty of snow on the mountains, and by the time we emerged from the dense forest about 11 am, there was plenty of snow and some ice underfoot. the views were incredible - we could see bigger mountains to the west, the plains and the ocean to the east, and the port hills to the south. having become quite friendly with our couch in recent months, neither of us were in particularly great shape so the climb was strenuous to say the least. as we continued to rise, the snow became deeper and we were thankful for the footsteps of someone who'd been up before us, leading the way and saving us the effort of sinking down with every step. during the last hour we made the next orange marker pole our goal, resting two or three times between each one, counting down to the final pole just below the top of the mountain.

 at 1 pm we finally reached the trig at the top and sat down on some exposed rock to have our lunch. this much-needed break gave me new energy, but the sight of our ham and crackers made bryan nauseous and he expelled the contents of his stomach over the side of the mountain, surely the most dramatic place he's ever vomited. we didn't linger long here, since we still had quite a ways to go (though at this point we weren't entirely sure how far - 3 hours? 5 hours?) and not many daylight hours left. unfortunately, bryan started feeling even worse as we began heading down the western arm of the alpine ridge, complaining of leg cramps that were obviously causing him excruciating pain with every step and which didn't respond to efforts to stretch them out. the snow was also terrible at this point, being about knee-deep and covered by a thin crust that could almost hold a person's weight but always snapped through at the last second. progress was slow, and i began to worry about our decision not to bring a tent with us on the journey. we always bring a tent, even when we're planning to sleep in a hut, but decided against it this time in order to save weight. later he told me that running through his mind at this point was "i can't be helicoptered out because of leg cramps...that's lame!".

to our great relief, bryan gained more control over his lower limbs as we reached the shallower snow levels at lower altitudes and we were almost enjoying ourselves as we turned onto the mt. oxford route that would take us down to the hut next to the river. for the first hour of this part i wondered why it was classed as a rough route and not a standard tramping track, and found my answer on the second part when the path descended so steeply that we opted to slide down on our butts for much of the way. at times when we thought we could stay on our feet, the muddy path usually intervened and sent us down in a seated position anyway. just as the last rays of sunlight were departing from the mountaintops, we arrived at wharfedale hut where four mountain bikers already had a roaring fire going. good on them. in bed by 7 pm.

day two was much better, since we'd already done all of the difficult ascents and descents on saturday, and only had a gentle climb to a low saddle and then a gentle downhill meander to the view hill carpark. we made great time and emerged at the carpark at 12:20, leaving us with more than a 2 1/2 hr wait until our prearranged pickup time of 3 o'clock. the views were nice but the wind was chilly, so we used the weak cell phone signal to text phil for an earlier pickup time. in the end this didn't save us any time at all, since his car couldn't ford a stream at the beginning of the mountain road and we had to walk about an hour to meet him after all. oh well - just part of the story i guess :) we'll definitely miss these kiwi tramping adventures, though i suppose there are some good ones to be found in the states as well.

-rachel