Family Reunion part II

The Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, the Medici Family, Michaelangelo, the David, the place where every Italian dreams of living, just happens to be the city, for which I took a whole semsester course at university to fulfill a General Education requirement and turned out to be one of my favorite courses at U of I. Florence. Of any other city in Europe, not Paris, not Rome, not London, I wanted to see and smell the real Florence. This was my top destination. And man! did it fail to reach my lofty expectations. Yes, the duomo is nice, yes the Uffizi has some renaissance masterpieces, and yes, you can kind of imagine the Medici family in the Palazzo Vecchio. But overall, you can hardly picture this city as the place where Europe revived itself during the 16th century and became the center of great thinking. I guess it's pretty hard to imagine being in the center of great thinking when you are queuing up for everything with a bunch of tourists. And that's all I need to say about Florence...







Now, Rome is a whole different story. Of course, there were more tourists here than anywhere else that I've ever been. But as someone who is very impressed with ancient monuments and buildings, I couldn't have asked for more from a city. The first day, we headed towards the Vatican City. Though I wasn't very impressed with the St. Peter's Basilica (seemed like any other grandiose church in Europe), the Vatican Museum was a sight to behold. Going through the complex with an audio guide, it seriously took half a day just to see the mains. And the finale of Sistine Chapel was stunning. I had only known about the Adam and God section of the Genesis so seeing the whole thing was a revelation.



And when I was walking through the streets, just wandering on my own, the first day, I cam across the Pantheon, which quickly became my favorite world monument next to the Great Wall of China. Just the fact that I was wandering through the streets and BAM! A 2000 year old, perfectly preserved structure. An interesting fact about the Pantheon - if we build the same structure with our technology using concrete 2000 years ago, it would have crumbled a long time ago (thank you Lonely Planet!)



If I mentioned everything that I had seen in 5 days in Rome, it would take awhile. The one other favorite remain of mine in Rome was the Roman Forum, not really the Colisseum or the Palatine Hill. Maybe because I took 5 years of Latin, but everything I read in Latin came back as I was standing in front of the Temple of Saturn. I knew that taking a dead language for so long would come in handy one of these days!





On Saturday, my parents had to leave Rome to go back to Japan while I had another day to hang around rome. Some of the people in my hostel (yeah I know, back to reality) and I went out hard to several places during the night.

Overall, I was very pleased with Italy, even though Florence was a bit disappointing. It was great to see my parents again, and I can't wait to travel with them again - even if they can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

Family Reunion (kind of) part I

I had been waiting for my parents to come to Switzerland for a few months now, considering we speak on skype every week, and the major topic is the travel itinerary. The only thing is that they only want to see Lausanne for half a day. So we decided to go to a country that none of us had gone before and is only a short train ride away - Italy! A chance to enjoy both my parents' company and their wallet!

So the last weekend of April (I know, it's June already, I've been busy), my parents accompanied by our family friends arrived in Lausanne. After a long plane ride, all they wanted was to go shopping and eat fondue. I escorted my mom through the city center to look for that one Swiss gift for herself - a watch. Without going into gross details, let's just say that I felt like I was with some royal duchess going for her routine shopping spree. Fortunately, she found her watch of choice, and we enjoyed a nice night out with fondue and wine.

The next day, I showed the university, and as always, my lab even though labs generally always look the same. i also took them to the world-renowned Rolex Center on campus. Before we left for Milano, we took in the beauty of Lausanne from atop the cathedral hill. They were very impressed as I was the first day when I arrived and even now to this day.

As always with my family (and our friends), when there is a chance to drink, beer or wine, they snatch the opportunity. So after a few cans and bottles, we were falling asleep on our way to Italy, sometimes missing the beautiful scenery. I had already been to Milano, and I was insisting that it's a waste of time,k but like the first time, I absolutely LOVE the first sight of the Duomo as I emerge from the metro station. That was when the first real impression of europe matched my imagination.



Another reason for coming to Milano was to go to a world-renowned restaurant, Cracco's, that I had reserved for months. With all of the extras, we must've had about 20 courses, and man, was it delicious. The only problem was that everybody else was still jet lagged and with 3 bottles of wine (150 bucks a piece), they were falling asleep before the desserts rolled around. But all in all, I was more impressed with Cracco's than Sendrens in Paris.





The morning quickly approached, and it was the ladies'turn to satisfy their reason for coming to Milano - shopping! Although I don't really remember if they bought anything in particular...

This Italian journey gets more impressive after Milano. We've only scratched the surface. Next we took a 2 hour train ride to Venice - a must see before it completely sinks in 2 decades. Known as the most beautiful city in the world, it certainly did not disappoint. But as everywhere else in Italy, the city is riddled with tourists and very few locals. The best thing to do in Venice is meandering through the maze-like paths to only find yourself in the same place that you started. As for historic sites, the Piazza San Marco contains the beautiful Basilica di San Marco and the historic Palazzo Ducale.






Now here is where it gets tricky when traveling with other people, including your parents. The men don't exactly fancy waiting in line (read: they hate it) and would rather rest and have a nice cold beer. And for whatever reason, my parents started fighting (read: bitching) which resulted in an awkward tense mood. And frankly I don't really care about the fighting, but they better not ruin my travel. So I just went with my mom to the palace, and that was that. All was well after. And did I say that I was taking advantage of their wallet? I hadn't eaten and drunk so decadently in over a year. And you should've seen the hotel that we were staying in! Oh love you parentals. After a nice gondola ride through the narrow streets of Venice, we headed southward - to the Renaissance capital, Florence!

Partying in Cologne!!

The big parties of March

First destination: Cologne!

The Karneval in Cologne, Germany is known to be one of the biggest parties in Germany, and oh my, was it! As soon as we arrived in the city center, the esplanade around the famous gothic cathedral was full of people, young and old, dressed in ridiculous costumes and make-ups. The fun thing about the Karneval was the fact that it wasn't just a bunch of college students drinking all day long until they puke on the streets. Everybody in the city was celebrating, and the city definitely had a sense of community that weekend (Although I met an old lady on the train to Dusseldorf after the parade who said that she left Cologne for this weekend because it's too loud and crazy).

The first day, I hung out with Caro's friends from Spain, and her friend that lives there was gracious enough to house us for the weekend. To be honest, I didn't do any sightseeing in Cologne. I really got to know the bars of the city, but I didn't even have the chance to enter the cathedral. On the second day, I hung out with my friends from Lausanne, all dressed as a bunch of Waldo's (or Wally in German, Charlie in French). Shouting KAMELLE (candy!!) repeatedly, pretending to sing German songs, drinking beer on the streets...

So no more words, here are some pictures!

Valentine's Day in Paris!

Ever since I had my first taste of French haute-cuisine, I've always wanted to go to Paris and splurge on a beautiful dinner at a 3 star restaurant. So back in December, I thought it would be the right time to make my dream come true, now that I'm in Europe (Paris is only a few hours away by train) and I have a girlfriend, to go to Paris for Valentine's Day. Afterall, it's the ville d'amour.

Since Valentine's Day fell on a Monday this year, I decided to book the train and the restaurant for the following weekend. That Monday though, I surprised Caro with the tickets while she surprised me with a wonderful Mexican dinner. Then on Friday, we were all packed up to go to...

PARIS!!

A pleasant ride on the TGV for 3 hours, Caro and I arrived at Gare de Lyon in the heart of Paris, just a few metro stops away from all of the famous sites that I had been hearing about for years - the Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Cathedrale de Notre Dame, etc etc. Unfortunately, I only had 3 days to see this giant city so we knew that we had to move. We stayed at a nice little hotel right by the Moulin Rouge, near Montmartre.

In a flurry, I visited the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides, and the Champs-Elysees. The weather wasn't fantastic, but I really enjoyed the hustle and the bustle of the city. It seemed like everywhere, absolutely every square meter of the city, had some kind of monument along with rich history. As for these famous sites that I had listed, I'd have to say that I was expecting something completely different. I thought that the Champs-Elysees would be more green with trees and lawn and less brands and rich people. As for the Eiffel Tower, I can kind of understand why it was supposed to be torn down after the International Exhibition, if it weren't for the fact that it was a good location for antennaes.





That night, we ventured out for a dinner and a night-out in the infamous district of Montmartre, famous for being the birthplace of cabarets, though nowadays, sex gift shops line the streets. Although already highly recommended by Lonely Planet, I would have to say that this little cozy restaurant near Moulin Rouge called Chez Toinette has been one of the pleasant surprises from my time in Europe. A great atmosphere and food, and above all, it was so cheap (around 15 euros per dish)! Of course, this may just be reletive to Swiss prices.



The next day, we ventured out to the Cathedral, Saint Chapelle, and of course, the Louvre. Although Caro made me wait over an hour to go to the Saint Chapelle, I have to agree with her that it is the most impressive church I have seen - it may not be as grandiose and famed as the Cathedral, but the array of stained glass in the Saint Chapelle is absolutely breathtaking. At the end of the day, we made our way to the famous (or infamous) glass pyramids, the symbol for one of the most visited museums in the world. But I had no idea that the place was so huge. I had allocated only 3 hours for the museum, which needless to say, was not even enough for one of the 3 wings. So we scurried though the various paintings and sculptures, making sure to get a glimpse of the "essentials."





Then at night, it was time to dine at Senderens, the restaurant that I had reserved for 2 months in advance. A night to make us smile and my wallet cry. Senderens is known for its superstar celebrity chef, Alain Senderens, who had previously headed the restaurant, Lucas Carton, arguably the finest restaurant in the world. But he decided to shut down the restaurant and open a new one - Senderens - that is a bit more casual and affordable (relative, I guess). Though he didn't want any stars from Michelin, the company had insisted that the star system is theirs, and forcefully gave the restaurant 2 stars. The place was so chic that we had a difficult time finding even the door to the restaurant (it was just a blank white door with a tiny "S" on it). It was really funny to watch Caro freeze up for the first 10 minutes, though. It was an 8 course menu with a wine pairing with half of them. After this fantastic dinner, though, we were a bit tipsy and couldn't help but to venture out into town for a "classy" evening at Hard Rock cafe, an American restaurant with a converted strip club upstairs, and an Australian club. All class, all day.





The last day in Paris, we took the walking tour of Montmartre from the same company that I had enjoyed in Barcelona. Montmartre was first known as the cheap area to live outside of Paris, a reason why so many artists flocked there in the beginning. An illustrious group of artists that include Van Gogh and Picasso had lived and painted on this hill. And as lower class and artists flocked, so did cabarets. The first cabaret, called Lapin Agile is also the cafe that Picasso had frequented and was served in exchange for his paintings, exclaiming that he would one day become the most famous artist in the world.



On top of the hill, there's the Sacre Coeur, a marble white church, but I preferred the story of St. Denis more. He is the patron saint of Paris, and he is known for having walked with his head to the top of the hill, preaching along the way, for 10 km after his decapitation.



This tour definitely made the city more enjoyable, up to a point where I think it's my favorite European city so far. The depth of history, plethora of monuments, and the cuisine makes this city very special for me. After the tour and a final crepe, we took the train back to Lausanne.

A memorable Valentine's Day in a memorable city.

- Ryoji

Spanish Adventure

So this new post is all about my mini backpacking trip through Spain, the country in which I know many people now, thanks to Erasmus. But since my holidays are limited to about 20 days, I have to use them wisely, which is why I chose to take 5 days off, which allows me to actually go on a 9 day vacation (well, I was going to take 17 days off and actually cross the canal to Morocco, but I'll explain that later). Seems like a short time, but I definitely packed in quite a bit in those 9 days.

I first flew from Geneva to Barcelona on a Friday night, just checking into the hostel (in a street full of prostitutes), having dinner (in a bar on the street full of prostitutes), and talking with a strange drunk old man from Romania. The next day, I woke up early to start my sightseeing, and I knew I had to hurry because well, people would think that I'm crazy to do all of Barcelona in 2 days. At first, I headed towards the...of course, La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's still unfinished masterpiece of a church with 18 soaring towers (like 6 of them are done so far?). It's apparently set to finish by 2050.



Other points of interest on the first day were La Rambla, the famous street with crazy street performers, tiny little shops selling everything, and of course, pickpocketers. I also went to 2 of Gaudi's apartment buildings, La Pedrera and Casa Batllo.





At night, my whole dorm room and I (8 of us) joined the hostel pub crawl without paying, which turned out to be a great way to get a glimpse of Barcelona's supposedly bumping nightlife. This may have been the first time in which everybody in a dorm room went out together and became friends. Fantastic! But I also didin't want to go out for too long because I knew that the next day was when I was going to see the last bit of Barcelona and take the train to Madrid to see my girlfriend!

Buuuuuuut, before that I need to give a shout out to the Free Tour of Barcelona for making this city so wonderful to me. We went through the tiny streets around La Rambla, where history and interesting facts were waiting around every corner. I don't want to ruin anything, but here's one great story: In the picture underneath is the art school where young Picasso used to attend, but also true was that he used to frequent the brothel that was just across the street. Now, fast forward a few years in Paris when he drew his first cubism painting - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. From the title, it sounds like this is a painting of women from the French city of Avignon. However, as the tour guide told us, and as you can see in the picture, the street on which the art school and brothel was located, was called Carrer D'Avinyo. And not surprisingly, the original title for the painting was The Brothel of Avignon. Bizarre.





After the fantastic tour, I headed over to the train station to take a nice long ride to Madrid, and believe me, the anticipation was killing me. By this point, I hadn't seen Caro for about 3 weeks so it was getting rough to say the least. If Barcelona was the city of design, then Madrid was the city of grandiosity. Everything just seemed big and grand. The street of Gran Via and adjacent roads (seemed like this city only had roads as opposed to little street and alleyways of other Spanish cities) contained huge government buildings and intimidating statue fountains.







Caro and I also visited the city of Toledo, a few km out of the city. What makes this city particularly interesting is the mixture of Roman, Visigoth, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures and architecture (although much of the city has been overtaken by McDonalds, H&M, and souvenir shops by now). It is also a city famous for sword making as well as being home for many famous Spanish artists like El Greco.



At night, I followed Caro like a puppy being shown off to her family and girl friends most of the time. But of course, I did my part, and I think I held my own. They were all great people, and that's exactly what made Madrid special for me. I may have enjoyed the city of Barcelona or Granada more than Madrid, but streets and history don't make a city come alive, the people do.

The next stop on my itinerary was the fabled Granada and its La Alhambra! The last Muslim city in Spain to be conquered as well as the Muslim capital for hundreds of years, this Andalucian city has everything a city needs - history, a UNESCO heritage site, a diverse student population, a great nightlife, and of course, free food! Yep, if you buy a drink in Granada, you get free tapas, and some student bars give out heaps of food for every drink so you come out of the bar drunk and full. In Granada, I stayed with my Lausanne roommate, who is from Granada, and his girlfriend. Although I didn't get to enjoy the nightlife as much, I wholly enjoyed La Alhambra, the Muslim fortress from the 11th century. The details on every wall were absolutely breathtaking.





And although I understand that this was a very touristy thing to do, I went to a Flamenco show (Caro insisted that Flamenco is something that just spontaneously happens at a bar). And trust me, it was worth every penny. I am obviously not sure, but I have a feeling that these professional Flamenco dancers put on a show with more skill than anything that's spontaneous. And here's a reason why people absolutely ADORE Japanese tourists. There was a Flamenco clapper seller going around the room selling them for 3 euros each. Some people buy one, maybe two, most of us, none. And obviously the old Japanese couple buys 20 pairs. I guess we like to receive nothing better than Flamenco clappers in Japan.



My last stop in Spain was Cordoba, another Andalucian city, and also where my friend, Dan, from University was living. I made sure to go to Cordoba on a weekend because I desperately wanted to go out with Dan. Like Granada, Cordoba is a city drenched with sunlight, streets lined with *fake* orange trees, and THE one historic site in Mezquita, a gigantic Muslim mosque from the 8th century with a gigantic cathedral build in the middle of it (which I think makes the Mezquita that much more interesting).





As intended, I enjoyed the bar scene of Cordoba, as well as the day drinking on the restaurant patios - a stark difference from Switzerland in January. Dan's friends/cousin joined us the next day for a wonderful time in the sun.



Now, the originial plan was to take another 8 days off and cross over to Morocco. I had already bought the ticket from Marrakesh to Geneva, but when I was in Granada, I started pondering. If I use 2 holiday weeks back to back, then I will only get 16 days off as opposed to 2 nine day holidays (5 days + 2 weekends on both ends). I had really wanted to see Morocco, but I thought it would be much better spent in Greece and Turkey for example (which I already bought tickets for in late May) or 9 days in Italy (which I already have tickets for as well). .....And I missed my girlfriend :)

Oh yeah, and my research is going very well too.

Soon, I'll update on my trip to Paris, Koln Karneval, and Dublin St. Patty's. Oh and skiing every other weekend. Jealous yet?

- Ryoji

Winter Vacation!

Now it's the middle of February, and I have A LOT to update since December - especially because it was the holidays. Again, I've been doing a lot of traveling, starting with Lyon, Munich for New Year's, and a backpacking trip through Spain, Swiss alps, Swiss alps, Swiss alps, and Paris just now. But I'm going to break them up into pieces...

Going to Lyon before Christmas was more of a spur of the moment kind of thing, as my girlfriend (Caro) and I wanted to go somewhere before she went back to Madrid for the holidays. The closest city that was do-able for one weekend happened to be Lyon, and it was fantastic. The morning of departure started off rocky as misconfusions after misconfusions left me pouty and upset (almost not going at all), but after much reconcilliation from Caro, we were on the train to France!

Lyon is known for its cuisine (in France!) as well as its charming UNESCO listed old town, but what I loved most about this city were the myriad of frescoes dotted around the walls of buildings known as Trompe l'Oeil. Here are some of the murals, with one of them containing a drawing of all of the famous Lyonnais people, including the author of Le Petit Prince.









Much of our time was spent walking around aimlessly through the old town, which had nothing in particular, but also everything wonderful. Little narrow streets where you hope to get lost, only to find yourself across from St. Paul's Church or the statue of the Sun King, Louis XIV.








For Christmas Eve, my American friend took pity on me and invited me to have a nice dinner with her and her family so that was delightful. Unfortunately, I didn't have the merriest christmas as most of my friends were gone for the holidays, and so my other friend who was left alone in Lausanne, well, we went to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas. But I knew that I was leaving to go to Germany and Spain in a few days so I didn't really care all too much.

I left for Munich on Thursday, the day before New Year's Eve with 2 of my English friends that I had met in Cambodia and live in Liverpool. They asked me if I was interested in joining up with them for New Year's in Munich, and I said, Hell Yeah. So I hopped on the train, an easy 6 hour ride to the capital of Bavaria, I go! Sadly, most of the time with my friends was spent partying until the wee hours of the night so sightseeing was left on the back burner.

Of the sightseeing that I managed to do, I quite enjoyed the museum, Alte Pinakothek, one of three world-famous museums in an art cluster of Munich. I chose to spend time in this one for its Renaissance paintings, Italian, German, French, and everything in between (not geographically, that would be Switzerland)

Now that I have enjoyed 2 Free Tours (Barcelona and Paris, more on this later), I wish I had done it in Munich, but I guess I just need to come back to this blue-and-white city once more. Marienplatz is the most prominent square in the center of the city, and the main tower houses the moving German figurines that kick the Austrian's ass at the end.



To the north of the city is the premier Nazi headquarters in the beginning of the reign, and some of the buildings are still intact. This is the city where Hitler tried a coup at the famous Hofbrauhaus (which is just a jolly good ol' drinking tent now)and tried to seize power, only to fail until a decade after. I visited the famous beer hall, not really to investigate the dark history, but to be greeted by liters of beer and sauerkraut, and drink with singin' Italian men (I'm not sure if true Germans ever come here...)



And of course, on New Year's Eve, we partied until 4 am in the city center where young hooligans were chucking fireworks at people (it was quite dangerous now that I think about it) and drinking champagne. It was strange to not be by a major body of water for New Year's for the first time.



And this is how I welcomed the year 2011. 2010 was a crazy, fun, marvelous year, and I hope this new year will bring as many adventures and surprises!

I promise I'll update very very soon.

- Ryoji