sometimes vacation is all about the anticipation and piece of mind that it affords you before it begins, and then there are the vacations where your anticipation and expectations are totally inadequate. that latter perfectly summarizes ash and i's last two weeks as we traveled through europe.
our trip begins just as any other executed in the nyc area does, sitting in traffic on the way to the airport willing to sell your spleen on the black market for a chance to leave the concrete jungle a moment earlier than you already are. after the 2 hour trip from jc to jfk, we made our way onto the plane and headed to london to begin what was going to be one hell of a long journey to finland. the flight over to heathrow was fine, save for the fact that i was racked with excitement and unable to secure any winks on the plane. we made our connection to stockholm, where it was expected that we would have just enough time to pick up a few items for the paraguay/sweden match in berlin in several days. well we were off by about 14 hours, as air traffic control went down and we were lampooned in the airport overnight...with no place to sleep. thankfully for us, the swedes are a peaceful bunch of social democrats and they did everything to make their wooden benches hospitable. while we were laying about on the benches, we had the pleasure of meeting a lovely, young swedish woman, who we engaged in 5+ hours of conversation and even a breakfast of coffee and swedish rolls over a spot of rikki lake on the tele. she is from a part of sweden we have never seen and we got along smashingly, so vacation 2007 may be starting to take shape.
after saying goodbye to eva and sweden, we finally made it to finland, a day late and completely exhausted, but still ready to see what the city had to offer. with a limited time in the city, we wanted to cut throught the crap an experience the "true" helsinki. after encountering countless amazing design items and some stunning architecture, we identified the "essence" of helsinki...beer. forget the aalto vases and soaring public buildings, the fins cherish nothing more than really, really, really cheap and plentiful malted beverage. young and old alike, no one is immune from the call of this sudsy siren. so with 20 hours of sunlight and some nice spring weather, you can imagine the scene for yourself. once we got acclimated to beer replacing water in our diet, we discovered that we had found ourselves in a very foreign country. of course the language and customs are always different when abroad, but the fins are a different breed of european (or even scandinavian for that matter). one thing that they have that is decidedly in their favor is that the majority of the city of helsinki is something right out of a james bond movie, where kgb could emerge from behind a curtain or meet you in a hallway and "take you out of the traffic". fortunately for us the closest we came to kgb was a drunk, finnish weapons dealer whose sage advice to ashley kept her identity hidden from anyone who asked. the only thing that can rival beer (& conan o'brien) in popularity in finland is coffee. dark, rich and strong coffee that somehow seems totally appropriate before, after, or with beer. of all the things that you come to miss when you leave a european country, the coffee is the hardest to shake. with the sun high and the people always partying, our time in helsinki was a caffeine enriched, beer soaked blur that left us wanting more. however it was time to saddle up and get on to deutschland!
as the world cup was the genesis of our plans in germany, it was appropriate that we landed in stuttgart with just enough time to get a quick look at the town square before the united states took on the czech republic. since it took the usa two shakes of a lamb's tale to fall out of this match we were able to focus on visiting and catching up with a friend that had agreed to put us up in heilbronn (an hour south of stuttgart) for two days. as is the case with good friends, we picked up our conversation without a hitch, despite not having seen each other in over a year. the conversation was lovely and soon we were in a historic town square eating a delicious regional meal and savoring some of the cherished local vino (reisling to be exact). we could have stayed out all night celebrating with the hundreds of italians that were out enjoying their country's win over ghana, but we needed a bit of rest as we would be seeing more of germany's stunning landscape, namely the nekar river, the black forest, and heidelberg the following day.
after a lovely cafe and pastry enjoyed al fresco, ashley, steffi, and i boarded a sweltering (that's right, i said sweltering) hot train bound for the castle filled hills of heidelberg in the south of germany. the views alone would have justified the trip, but we managed to get so much more out of our time in the city. kisses (both physical and chocolate), students from leipzig, and uber-cool record shops (with honest to goodness vinyl) are only a few of sites and sounds we witnessed. in a very weird cultural exchange, we took lunch in a quaint cafe beside a 400+ year old german church and dined on sandwiches and flatbread named after b-list american movie stars. anyone for a matthew perry panini or christopher lambert salad? the germans really now how to capture the american cultural zeitgeist, first hasselhoff worship and now naming food after anne heche.
sadly, as we laid our heads down to sleep deep into the evening it was knowing that we would have to say goodbye to our lovely hostess and the picturesque beauty of south germany. we were off to berlin and there was much that laid ahead of us in the capital city. the whirlwind began as we were met in the airport by thilo and whisked off to the panzerbeiter house for a quick bite to eat, before we were off to the heart of berlin, the mile long stretch between the brandenburg gate and the victory column, to hang with 500,000+ crazed germans and sing songs, eat sausage, drink copious amounts of pilsner and watch germany take on poland. being surrounded by the german people as they hung on every movement in the game, made it easy for ash and i to get swept up in the moment and adopt deutschland as our temporary mother country. thankfully for us a late goal for the home side set off a party that raged long into the night and it goes without saying we made many friends and partook in more than a number of high fives.
as sweden was set to take on paraguay in berlin the following day, there was an insane number of gold-clad swedes roaming the streets during the germany match and somehow we managed to acquaint ourselves with several hundred of them. as i have an "in" with my fellow vikings, we quickly took to discussing the national team and what they had to do to win the following day. before long, cultural and linguistic borders were crossed and the streets rang out with the sounds of "eins, zwei, drei...crush paraguay!" lead by yours truly. at some point in this revelry, thilo disappeared and we only located him as a conga line of swedes and germans marched by with him at the head. berlin was shaping up to be quite an adventure.
the next morning, we joined the hordes of swedes that had descended upon berlin and took to the streets of the magical city to experience the sights & sounds. although we came to berlin for football, we had to make some time for culture and this came in the form of a trip to
the memorial to the murdered jews of europe. public art can sometimes operate at a distance and alienate the public that it co-exists with, however this is not the case with this moving public memorial. about the size of three football (the soccer variety) fields, the memorial is an undulating sea of stones the shift with the landscape. underground, below the markers sits the accompanying museum which is some pretty heavy stuff. the numbers and reality of the holocaust are mind-blowing enough but this museum takes it to a new level by supplementing the facts and figures with deeply personal stories of victims who would have otherwise remained nameless and faceless. i would encourage anyone who is in berlin to pay it a visit, as it is a shining example of what public art/memorials can be.
fresh off a great day in the streets of berlin we moseyed back to the homestead to refuel on some schnitzel, sausage, and spaetzle before we headed to the olympic stadium (also a work of public art) to cheer on sweden. we left the flat looking like a small posse of nordic hooligans ready for action. as we came upon the stadium the size and scope of the event began to come into effect. this was a party that all of the world, save for america, waits for 4 years to partake in and here we stood surrounded by 100,000 of our newest comrades and friends. it did not take long after sharing the same physical space with the swedish national team for ashley to unveil her latent desires to marry one...any player and become the posh spice of the scandanavian set. this revelation was of no concern to me as i was only focused on the need for sweden to capture the full three points for the victory so that they could remain eligible for qualification to the second/knock-out stages. long story short, sweden shredded my nerves for the first 89 minutes of the game, causing horrible flashbacks to their opening round game against trinidad and tobago, but ye of little faith were taught a lesson. my man freddie ljungberg scored a picture perfect goal off a sweet set-up and sent 70,000 of the 73,000 fans at the olympic stadium into a frenzy. now when i say frenzy, i mean flares in stands, strangers kissing, rain falling on a sunny day frenzy. the scene from the time the ball bulged the net to a good 10 minutes after the final whistle were some of the most exciting and entertaining minutes i have ever witnessed. the train ride back to the berlin neighborhood of stieglitz was a party on rails, as thousands of delirious scannies packed the trains and sang the virtues of the men in yellow. we made it back to the flat, cracked some fine german brew, and soon laid our heads down knowing that the day had been a day of the highest order and that all was right with the world.
the following day, our final full day in berlin, saw another nice combination of culture and football. ash and i made our way to mitte, which is a bohemian neighborhood in former east berlin, complete with all the trappings of a place you could see yourself wanting to move to, only to smoke french cigarettes, drink espresso and argue the validity of freud's theories day in and day out. a highlight of our time their was a fantastic show at the
C/O BERLIN gallery featuring work from 1 moroccan, 1 english, and 2 american artists. the work of the american richard sohm, dealing with life along the mississippi river was particularly interesting and prompted ash to comment, "these photos make us look like f*#kin' nuts!". you can't really argue with astute observations like that.
to clear our minds of the work we had just seen, we slipped into the coolest half brazilian, half german speakeasy/cafe in berlin and help ourselves to some scrumptious lunch and of course some perfect pilsner. it should be noted at this time that both the fins and germans do not waste their time with little 12oz. bottles of beer, ohh no..they go for half of a litre at a time. that being said with temperatures pushing 32 degrees celsius, and a couple bottles of pils in our swollen bellies, we were ready to leave the art and culture for now and get back to enjoying the "beautiful game" in all it's glory. to do so we headed to the adidas stadium, which is an exact replica of the olympic stadium built to scale and positioned directly in front of the reichstag (german parliament building and recipient of
one of the greatest architectural face-lifts compliments of british architect sir norman foster). we picked a dandy time to see a game, as it was the netherlands v ivory coast, a great match-up on football merits alone, but also because they had rather rambunctious supporters who had clearly enjoyed the local beer as much as ash and i prior to the game. holland won a cracking match and we left with a very favorable impression of the mini-stad.
as it was our final full day in berlin, it was only fitting that we celebrated in style with a party. not just any party, but an 80's german neue-wave party, complete with hours and hours with unadulterated synth-pop ecstasy! the germans are an odd lot. by day they are an uber-serious bunch, but by night they are dancing machines. i mean put a little wine+fruit in a plastic tub and pass it out upon entry and you've got yourself one hellava german soiree. as i don't really want to kiss and tell, all i can say is that in no particular order, we danced, received multiple double-cheek kisses, and even bought a bunny. i'm tellin' ya' this berlin place is worth a visit.
sadly, the next morning we had the unpleasant task of packing up and heading to london. in an attempt to make the most of our visit, we booked a rendezvous with our friend barbara for a coffee along the banks of the spree river. with caffeine coursing through our veins and with several good-byes to our dear german friends in the books we set adrift to the land of bangers and mushy peas. as we only had about 24 hours in london, which included some much needed time earmarked for sleep, we only had time for one real activity and the unanimous choice was a date with the tate modern. not unlike the reischtag in berlin,
the tate modern is an architectural marvel. it was once a power station along the southbank and it re-fashionedoned into a marvelous multi-purpose site that hosts a stunning collection of modern/contemporary art. several picassos, a few capacinos, and some very tired feet later, it was time to bring this most enjoyable holiday in the old country to an end.
as i mentioned, sometimes vacation is that light at the end of the tunnel that gets you through tough times with it's promise of fun and relaxation. this vacation was so much more than that, as it opened our eyes, created new friendships, and created memories that will undoubtedly last for some time to come.
view mfd in europe
