Clams and Fries

I guess Brussels was nice enough of a city, I guess. The one thing that I can say is that it's a really random city. The main attractions are a peeing boy and a giant metallic Iron (Fe) atom enlarged 165 billion times. The people (apparently) do not dress to impress, just whatever it comfortable. Many homes on the street talking nonsense. Beer and chocolate (huh?) as national claim to fame. Ziggy Marley and Martin Solveig at a street fair for free.





3 days, 2 nights. I came away more confused than the first morning when I arrived at the city at 5:00am.

But that's enough about the city. Let's talk about more important aspects of these 3 days. Friends and beer. In the European Capital (hah!), I met up with 2 friends I met in Cambodia, a guy from liverpool with whom I went to Munich, and a girl from Portugal doing an internship in Brussels. A bit of a Siem Reap reunion (sorry Megan, Australia is too far, and dammit Mark, you should've come). Basically all we did was go to Delirium Cafe to try out several of the 2004 beers that they sell (world record).




So what am I trying to say about Brussels? Random city, great friends, and a lot of beer. What else can I ask from the capital of Europe?

European cities, my very subjective rating

I thought it'd be fun to give some kind of a star system to the major cities in Western Europe that I had visited. Of course, it's really subjective and it REALLY depends on the people I was with or met there.

So here it goes... lowest to highest.

Innsbruck 2/5
Geneva 2/5
Strasbourg 2.5/5
Brussels 3/5
Munich 3/5
Milano 3/5
Lyon 3.5/5
Granada 3.5/5
London 3.5/5
Venice 3.5/5
Koln 4/5 (at least from what I remember...)
Dublin 4/5
Stuttgart 4/5 (I think it was a nice city...)
Zurich 4.5/5
Barcelona 4.5/5
Rome 4.5/5
Amsterdam 5/5
Paris 5/5
Lausanne 5/5 (I told you it was subjective)

Man, that's quite a few cities...
Maybe I'll do one for Asia and South America soon.

...and the rest of Europe

So I had said goodbye to all of my friends, packed my backpack, shipped things home, closed my Swiss bank account (unfortunately), and I was ready to go explore again. For the first 10 days of my trip, I decided to hit up the remaining major cities in Western Europe - London, Brussels, Amsterdam!

So first up, London.

It was an intimidating city, just from the number of sights and museums that the Lonely Planet had listed. Of all of the cities that I had visited in the world so far, I think London has the most recognizable must-sees, as popularized by novels and movies. So the first obligatory wander-around of the city on the first day...oh wait, yeah I can't get anywhere without getting on the tube. Problem #1. At least it was sunny...oh wait, it's raining every 30 minutes. Problem #2. So these were my first 2 sentiments about London. But maybe I was being a Negative Nancy because I was sad to leave Lausanne and was just taking it out on London.




To be completely fair, looking back, the 5 days I spent in London were rather spectacular. I met up with a friend from U of i who is now studying in London, and I met all of her friends at a lovely picnic - in the city center! So many huge parks! And it's absolutely fantastic that all of the museums are free. Hell, I even went to the National Gallery just to pee one time.



And another side note. Mom, Dad, if you're reading this, I want you guys to know that A LOT of childhood memories flooded my mind when I saw the painting at the National Gallery that used to hang in our living room growing up.

As always with many of the European cities, the Free Walking Tour turned out to be the highlight of the trip. Though disappointed with the city tour (can't really walk the city), I was very pleased with the old city tour. The London was we know it now is a congregation of small districts, and only a part of the city is really London. This was much more copact and do-able in 3-4 hours. I learned a lot of random facts about the Millenium Bridge, the Beefeaters, the London fire, the Bank of England, etc etc.




The nightlife was so-so. I went out 2 of the 4 nights, one of them being a great pub crawl. It was just so damn expensive! But I'm glad to say that I partied at the Ministry of Sound until the wee hours of the morning.

Oh yeah, and I found some guy in a Star Wars costume planking.



All in all, it was a city of extremely highs and lows for me. Loved the museums, hated the weather, loved the atmosphere, hated the enormity. I'd give the city a 3.5/5.

St. Patty's Day in Dublin

So I guess I forgot to talk about St. Patrick's Day in Dublin before so here it goes...

Goodbye Switzerland

Now that my fellowship is over, the time to leave Lausanne has regrettably come. The last 9 months absolutely flew by. A lot has happened. I've made many great friends, with whom I shared a lot of laughs and even some tears. Research proved to be fruitful - we are submitting our manuscript very soon. I became addicted to skiing. I partied hard. It was absolutely gorgeous everyday.

Ali and Alister left first. Then Lauren. Now, I need to leave people behind. Thank you everybody for coming out for my last night. I'm in London now, soon Brussels, then Amsterdam, before I fly to South America. I'm missing all of you guys, and I'll always remember you guys for giving me a wonderful year. Sante!

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!