Beer, glorious beer

I think there are two kinds of people in the world when it comes to food, and I have found the perfect way to distinguish between them.

Tonight I ate at a fantastic brewery called ERB. I started with a cheese dish recommended to me by the lovely owner of Hostel 6, where I'm staying. Google translated it as pickled, the menu as "spicy", but it is some sort of marinated cheese, covered in pickled onions and marinated peppers and served on a bed of oily goodness.

This, my friends, is pickled Camembert:

Now, when it comes to food, you are either the kind of person to whom that sounds delicious, or not. That's it.

In case you couldn't tell, I thought it was magnificent. And that was just the start.

I had 3 courses and 3 beers. Big time splurging going on over here, but oh man was it worth it (especially at less than 2€ a beer).

First, the basic lager with the pickled cheese.

Next, the dark, smokey stout, with garlic soup and croutons (described on the menu as fried bread, which I suppose is quite accurate).

And finally, the dessert - "pancakes" with warm raspberry sauce and whipped cream, and a Weizen beer, which the waiter kindly suggested to me several times as a beer very good for women. I didn't have the heart to tell his smiling, eager face that I will take a stout over a hefeweizen any day.

This is hardly the first time I've encountered this opinion either - people seem to think that women don't like beer, or if they do they prefer blonde beers. I went on a date once when I ordered a dark beer, and the guy ordered a Riesling. For those who don't know, that's a generally very sweet white wine. The server who brought the drinks gave me the wine and he the beer. What's with the assumptions? I know plenty of girls who like beer as much as I do.

To be fair, the Weizen was particularly wonderful for a beer of its type. It was subtle without being boring, with a light and refreshing flavor and a very slight sweetness reminiscent of citrus (but not oozing that lemony, orangey taste like some beers do).

But, back to the point (which is the description of this experience, in great detail, so you can understand exactly why I have devoted an entire post to one meal).

Shiny, massive copper devices used in the production of beer and warm wooden tables filled the room, with little vases of tiny purple flowers, which make me happy both because they remind me of lavender and because this is a plant that bees flock to, and walking by a bush of it in Boulder in the summer sounds like walking by a beehive. There were sconces lining the walls with little likenesses of men, and a flared metal piece above, covered in 3D etchings of the town.

I immediately noticed the music. First, "Love Walked In", followed by "Jeepers Creepers". At one point the DJ bellowed "Radio Swing Worldwide! Hits from the 30s and 40s! Listeners in over 100 countries!" but even his overly chipper voice just made me glad that there was more of the same coming up. And I wasn't disappointed, as next came a rendition by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters (I believe) of "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" which I loved and had never heard before.


I was so perfectly content in this place.

actually *gulp* leave Olomouc?

Well, I did it, but I didn't like it. I left Olomouc. Yesterday afternoon. I waited until the last train that would get me to Banská Štiavnica (in Slovakia) at a reasonable hour. I waited until the last reasonable minute to leave the hostel and head towards the tram that would take me to train station. I had bad timing, and had to wait 10 minutes for the next tram, every one of which I used gazing longingly towards the hostel (which I knew had available beds that night) and waging an internal war. But I forced myself to get on the tram. Then the train. Then another train, and another one. And it was beautiful out the windows, I listened to some great podcasts and looked at the scenery and chatted with a nice guy who I had met at the hostel and happened to be going my direction for a while. But it wasn't nearly as pleasant as other train rides have been. Not even a juicy apple could sweeten my mood. Nope, there was nothing for it. I would have to go back, I decided. Leaving just felt wrong, no two way about it. So I booked a couple more nights, and after I romp around the high and low Tatras for a bit I will return! The feeling of relief is quite tangible. Now I can really enjoy my next train ride.

I really wonder at this, because I had no trouble at all leaving San Francisco. I think it's because, financial considerations aside, it will be leaps and bounds easier to move there than to a city none of my friends or family have ever heard of in Czech Republic. There is nothing in the way of San Francisco, no chance it won't happen for logistical reasons (again, we're ignoring money matters for the moment). But moving to Europe is another story - while I know I will make it happen, it simultaneously seems so much more likely to not happen. What if leaving is for good? Or what if I end up waiting 3, 4, 5 years to come back?

Anyways, I know I'll have to leave Olomouc again, and it will most likely be very difficult again, but there are still other places to go and things to be seen, and the whole town isn't going to grow legs and walk away any time soon.

What did the tomato say to the hot dog?

Part I: Ketchup with you later!

So this blogging thing isn't going quite how I thought it would. I feel a bit like I'm playing catch-up all the time. So, no more of that. There's no need for me to write a whole post about every single place I go.

Right now I'm in Olomouc, Czech Republic. I came here from Kraków kind of randomly. The friend I was traveling with decided to head home early and skip Prague, so on our last day he was figuring out his flight and I was browsing the wall of hostel pamphlets, looking for a fun place to stay in Prague. One caught my eye because of the name - Poet's Corner Hostel. It was in Czech Republic, which was the right direction, and I really liked the name. So, why not? I booked a few nights and headed here on Friday. After 24 hours, I extended my booking. And today, my last day, I don't want to leave.


Part II: A Sunday Kind of Love

You know that person - everyone knew one, maybe in high school - who is constantly fickle in love, enamored with someon new every week? I'm like that. Only with cities. And languages. Everywhere I go, I say "oh yeah, I could live here." I fell madly in love with Portugal and Portuguese, Italian, Vienna and (amazingly) German, Ljubljana and ALL the Slavic languages, Budapest and Hungarian (the difficulty of learning Hungarian just makes it more appealing). The problem is that I fall in love with these places, decide I want to live there and learn the language, but fail to fall out of love with any of them.

I considered this to be both a good and bad thing - can't have it all, but making at least one work is more likely. So I figured I could find a job in my field after grad school and, depending where one was available, live somewhere in Europe for a couple years. Perfect.

But then I came to Olomouc. Have you heard the song Sunday Kind of Love? It goes like this (hear Etta James singing it, if at all possible):

"I want a Sunday kind of love
A love to last past Saturday night
And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight
And I want a Sunday kind of love"

Olomouc is my Sunday. I don't know how exactly it's going to happen yet, but I am doggedly determined to live here.

Part III: Scavenger Hunt

I can't explain to you why Olomouc is so special to me. I don't suppose very many other people would have the reaction I did, but it really is a nice place to visit by anybody's standards, and deserves a detour if one is going to Prague or another famous city in the environs.

The hostel I stayed at is the only one in the city. Called Poet's Corner, it is geared towards individuals who would rather read a book in one of the many very comfortable chairs than stumble in at 5AM and vomit on one of them. And they have been quite successful in attracting those calmer types of people. I can very confidently say that it is the best hostel I have ever stayed in. Very clean, cozy, full of interesting and considerate guests, and amazing staff. Their book exchange library is the best I've encountered, and they have several large books of staff-compiled information on places to eat and drink, things to see and do, daytrips to take, cycling routes to consider etc. They also have a local scavenger hunt. 9 things around the historic center that, if you can find and identify them, will earn you a free night. Which of course means it's very difficult. I found 2. But, in the searching, I noticed many lovely things I would otherwise have missed. The staff are (I cannot overstate this) absolutley incredible, really nice and interesting people who often say "I'm going out for a drink after the last check-in arrives, would anyone like to join?" This is how I managed to "go out" for a few relaxed drinks every single night I stayed, and get to know some pretty incredible individuals. If you are ever heading towards the Czech Republic, you should definitely pay this place a visit.

Beyond the wonderful hostel, Olomouc is a great place. It's a university town, 25% of the population is students, and there's a very charming and laid-back historic center surrounded by equally fascinating and even LESS touristy bits. There are a lot of gorgeous parks (or maybe few but large and meandering?), one of which runs along the old city walls and feels a bit wild and unkept (a bit, mind you, but enough to make it really delightful).

There are quite a lot of churches and towers and fountains and monuments and statues and lovely things like that - and they're all free, which is nice. One fountain in patricular, Arion fountain in the main square, is absolutely enchanting. I literally could not take enough photos of it. I also wound up with dozens of pictures of street art, of which there are many great examples in Olomouc.

The cafes (and food in general) are delicious, and several microbreweries produce some very tasty beers. A fairly extensive selection of teahouses, where one can sit on comfy cushions on the floor and drink tea or smoke hookah for hours, provide an excellent place to relax with friends or read a book.

There are several museums, which are free on Sundays and Wednesdays, and the Modern Art Museum is quite nice, with frequently rotating exhibits. I went to see the František Skála exhibit they had, and was just blown away. This guy is super creative, I couldn't believe the kind of materials he worked with, and I really enjoyed it all.


This is kind of frustrating because I can't adequately describe how great this place is - I think you're going to have to trust me on this one.


Part IV: Sponteneity Revealed

It dawned on me that going to Olomouc was the first really spontaneous thing I've done on this trip. I guess I'm kind of growing into my title in more ways than one. I guess when I thought of it, it was more that the feeling of wanderlust had spontaneously hit me, sort of out of the blue. But now I'm actually being more spontaneous in my travels, which, I am discovering, just makes everything better.
Thanks to some of the marvelous people I met, I found out about two towns (perhaps one could even call them villages) in Slovakia, where I am going next. It's fairly liberating to just decide one morning you're going to another country and be there that night.


Part V: Wait, didn't you go to Poland?

Why yes, I did! And, interestingly enough, it was the one city I've been so far that I had absolutely no desire to live in. I did like it, however, very much. There were a lot of beautiful things to look at and delicious food to eat. But the gem of Krakow, in my opinion, was the people watching. It was, far and away, the best I've ever experienced. Poland and Ukraine are co-hosting the EuroCup games (semi-finals coming up!) and there was a lot of general revelry surrounding the games, though none were actually played in Krakow. The huge main square was the highlight of my experience - all the restaurants ringing it have large outdoor seating areas, so it was very pleasant to just pick one with a good view, get a beer, and watch the people go by for an hour or two. Another highlight was St. Francis church, which features quite a lot of art from a particular Polish art movement called Moda Polska (apparently the local answer to art deco?). I really enjoyed the stained glass windows, and the entire interior was just beautiful. It was also blissfully empty and cool on a sweltering day, so it was doubly enjoyable to sit and soak in the surroundings for a while.

Anatomical Amazement

One of the things I've been doing on this trip is learning a bit about photography. I had never before taken a class or anything like that - all I could do was point a little digital camera (or cell phone) at something and push a button and voila! There you have a photograph!

But with the knowledge that I would be alone for most of my trip and there would be no one there to snap shots of me holding up the tower of Pisa (yes, I confess to such levels of cheesiness, but really, you kind of have to do it) I decided to focus on taking beautiful pictures of non-human subjects. And for that, I reasoned, I would need a better camera.

So I've been running around with an intro-level dSLR in my purse, trying to grow into it and make the most of it, and having a grand old time in the process.

A side effect of my new hobby is a heightened appreciation of photography in general. Now that I've tried to do it, I get how much work and knowledge goes into getting some of those great shots I've looked at in the past and thought "that's nice". Note that I'm not professing some sort of great technical or artistic understanding of photography here, just that by trying to do it myself I appreciate it so much more.

Another result of trying to take better photos is an appreciation of human anatomy. I can look at something incredibly beautiful that just takes my breath away, but when I take a photo it just won't look the way I see it. I took dozens and dozens of photos with varying settings trying to capture the slanting sunlight through the trees in the evening that was illuminating (almost to the point of making them sparkle) hundreds of tiny flies. Now, I have seen things like that presented on film before. I know it's possible to capture it adequately with a camera. But my relatively sophisticated (for a complete amateur like me) lens etc. was still having trouble with it.

It may sound like I'm complaining about the failings of my camera here - I assure you I'm not. I fully know it's my inability to use it properly that leads to these difficulties. What I really want to point out is how effing amazing it is what we can see, and how quickly we see it. Our eyes and our brains are so perfectly evolved to convert the world around us to images, essentially changing settings automatically so we can see in different amounts and types of light. This, to me, is incredible.

So, I conclude, to have a broader and deeper appreciation of the world both around and (sometimes) within you, you have to try new things! Or, as Ms. Frizzle says, "take chances, get messy, make mistakes!"

Unexpected adventures

Being in transit is an interesting sensation. It's not quite like anything else - you've left where you're coming from but you've yet to get where you're going.

Yesterday morning I left Budapest, intending to spend 10 hours on trains getting to Krakow, just in time to eat some dinner and go to sleep. But that's not how things worked out. The first train I got on managed to get 20 minutes behind schedule, causing me to miss my next train. I was hustled by some railway employees into another train, taking me via 4 transfers and 7 hours to the destination of the train I had missed (which was not Krakow, by the way, but another transfer station).
At one transfer point there was an hour between trains, so we took the opportunity to ask at the information booth if there was a faster way to Krakow. Turns out there was - arriving at 5am the next day. At this point we were faced with a choice. Spend the night changing trains and waiting for hours in dark stations? Or take our chances finding a bed in an unknown border town and getting to Krakow later in the morning, potentially wasting half a day? Well, we decided to power through the night. Sleep a bit on the last train, which is a good 4 hours, then catch a few more hours at the hostel before starting the day.

I decided this would be an adventure. And it kind of was. We were on several old-school, local trains, looking at gorgeous landscapes and picturesque little towns, not to mention the perfect sunset that flooded the car with perfectly orange, glowing light that made everyone and everything look breathtakingly beautiful. Sitting in the train, watching the sun sink lower, feeling the breeze through the windows, finally refreshing and cool after a hot day - that was just perfect. And it didn't matter at all to me that we should have been in Krakow hours earlier.

We reached the stop from which we had to catch the train to Krakow (at 1am) and decided to while away a few of the waiting hours by getting dinner. As we exited the train, it hit me that I only had Hungarian money, and I had no idea what kind of money I needed. What country were we in? I knew we had passed for a long time through the Czech Republic - but had we made it to Poland? Turns out we had. It also turns out it's less disorienting than one might expect to not know which country you're in.
We walked around looking for food, and decided to sit outside at a place where a EuroCup game was showing (Portugal vs Netherlands, Portugal was up when we left), and it turned out to be a Thai restaurant - not what I would have expected my first meal in Poland to be, but it was delicious nonetheless.

Unfortunately the train car was quite full and the seats uncomfortable, but I slept anyways. And I don't regret it a all, because walking to the hostel from the train station at 5am was a lovely experience I otherwise wouldn't otherwise have had.
The streets were essentially deserted, except by the occasional shopkeeper spraying down the sidewalk or the few youths still out from the night before. And the pigeons, of course. Upon entering the main market square we were greeted by the most beautiful sight - the square was deserted and still in shadow, but St. Mary's church on the edge was bathed in rosy-colored morning light, and hundreds of swallows wheeled about in the air around the tower. It was so terrifically beautiful, I couldn't believe I was actually seeing it.

After a few hours of sleep in a real bed we were ready to start the day, and it was a marvelous end to our train adventure.

Cafés and other lovely things

So I have a thing for coffee and the places that serve it - cafés. Not to mention pastries. And it turns out that a lot of the cities I'm visiting have a thriving café culture. Vienna was chock full of them, and I enjoyed my fair share. Budapest was another great café city.

The first was Café Callas, which we visited right before seeing Snow White at the opera house. It was right next door, and I like to think it was name for Maria Callas, a wonderful singer. But I have no real idea. The interior was beautiful - Art Nouveau, apparently.

If what I've seen of this style is a good indicator, I like it very much. It reminds me a bit of steam-punk style, but decidedly more elegant. The decor was the main attraction of this café, but the pastry was delicious as well. We ordered a hazelnut cake

and the classic Viennese (yes, wrong city, but ok) Sacher Torte.

They were both quite nice, although the coffee I ordered out of curiosity was far to sweet to be a good pairing. Observe:

You're looking at equal parts espresso and honey, with heaps of whipped cream on top. Delicious? Certainly. Dessert worthy on its own? Absolutely.

Next up was the New York Café. Before I describe this place to you, let me say that I love words, and finding new adjectives to adequately describe things. I like to use the kinds of words you don't hear every day for the kind of things you don't see every day. But in this case, I am forced to abandon any attempt at eloquence and just say this: it was super fancy. The bathrooms smelled like strawberries. That's how Fancy this place was. It's touted as the most beautiful café in the world, and I can't argue.

I got a Hungarian pastry sampler, which was beyond amazing - although I'm not sure what it all was. The two cakes on the right were my favorites.

My friend got a nutty cake of some kind, which was the most delicious of all - not to mention beautiful.

But, this was not the kind of café where you sit and soak in the comfortable, living-room atmosphere. This was the kind of place where you buy something so you can take pictures without them kicking you out.

Spinoza, the next place we went, had more of a living-room feel. There were cute little tables with yellow cloths on them, a tiny second floor that hung over the small main room, and a pleasant piano player squeeze between the tables, bar and door. Vintage advertisements and old photos of the neighborhood and people. It was the kind of place I would frequent, were I a local. And the chestnut cream dessert was delightful, especially on a hot day.

Last but not least, Céntral Kávéház, which had the best pastries by far, and also a nice, slightly grand but not overwhelming interior. It was here that i finally tried Dobos Torte, the quintessential Budapest pastry, and it was absolutely fantastic. Layers of cake and chocolate, topped with burnt caramel. We also tried flódni here, a delicious and traditionally Jewish dessert featuring apple and raisins between layers of pastry.

All this decadence seemed very apropos, simply because Budapest is such a gorgeous city. I doesn't take fancy gilded interiors for you to appreciate that beauty.

BudaPESHT

This morning I woke up in Budapest. It was a lovely morning, with sun beaming in through the window for the first time in days, the fresh smell of early-day air wafting by my face. What a great way to wake up. I spent an hour or two reading in bed. I love being here for a whole week - there's no pressure to get up and GO every day just so I can see and do all I want to. Of course, this is made even easier by the fact that most of what I want to do is stroll around, people watch, gaze appreciatively at elegantly adorned architecture, and eat pastry by the river.

I met up with my friend in Slovenia about a week ago, and we have gone to Lake Bled, Bratislava, and now Budapest together. While I enjoy the company, I have also discovered that I quite like traveling alone. Yesterday we took the free walking tour of the city (only a small part, to be fair, but an interesting tour nonetheless). Because it was *free*, it was stuffed with people like us - 20 somethings, college students and backpackers, traveling on a budget and from all over the world. While in a way these are "my people" - the kind of people I would want to be friends with, those with adventurous outlooks who use their own two legs to get around just because they can - I nevertheless found myself wishing I were alone.

It's terribly liberating, to wander the streets by oneself, pausing to look at anything you want, skipping by the things that don't interest you. I stop to take a lot of pictures as well, when the mood strikes, and I don't have to tell myself to "wait up" while I take 20 shots of a nearby doorway. When I was younger I didn't think I would ever enjoy travelling alone. I thought it would be lonely and boring. But I'm delighted to have proved myself wrong. It's good to know I am content with my own company, as I firmly believe this an excellent skill to have.

Being alone for a while, I discovered something about myself I never would have ventured to guess in the past. I have a good sense of direction. It's quite incredible, I'm still a bit shocked at the discovery, nevertheless it's true! It may not be so innately wired that it was apparent my whole life, but I've realized that all I need to do is pay attention, and voila! I know where I am and where I'm going and how to get there.


Anyways, it has also been fun having a travelling companion. Last night we went to the Opera house to see the only thing playing during our stay - a ballet version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was absolutely adorable. I can't say the dancers were the most refined I had ever seen, but it didn't matter at all. A large percentage of the audience was small children and their parents, and the night was really about them. They filled the lobby and hallways before the performance, little girls tugging on their stockings, classmates smiling and waving when they saw each other, particularly tiny tots sitting in their parents' laps.

I imagine the interior of the Opera House would stun any small child, because it sure blew me away. It was opulent and stately, with red velvet seats and oodles of gold embellishments around the delicately painted wall and ceiling panels, all illuminated by an imposing chandelier (of which I had a spectacular view, being on the very top balcony). But the refined surroundings were soon forgotten as soon as the curtains lifted to the sounds of jaunty music and the sight of seven marching dwarfs on the stage. The stage set was wonderful, the costumes delightful, and the dancers able to convey exactly which dwarf they were meant to be. I spent quite some time in the beginning mentally listing names and counting on my fingers until I was satisfied I had remembered them all: Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, and Dopey.
It didn't take long for the children to learn the tune that signaled a dwarf march across the set, and they began to clap along every time it played. There was a very young boy sitting behind me on his father's lap - occasionally, he would start to clap his little hands at random points through the performance, and his father would hold them together and tell him "not yet!"

On Tuesday we went to the Széchenyi thermal baths in City park - it was a fun experience, though not what I was expecting. The mineral water bubbles up in abundance from beneath the city, a vivid blue that advertises its supposed healing and restorative properties. I just thought it was a lot of fun. There were over a dozen pools inside the building, varying in temperature from 20 to 38°C. That's about 100°F at the hottest, and it turns out that's not that hot. But certainly warm enough to be an enjoyable soaking spot. The appropriate order of actions went completely over my head, and I just hopped around from pool to pool to sauna to sauna back to pool. I never went in a cold one, but I know you're supposed to. The saunas were fascinating to me. There was an aromatherapy room. There was a room where the lights changed color (red, yellow, green and blue). There was a sauna so hot that I couldn't stay in it because my feet were bare on the tile floors and felt like they would catch fire. Then, in addition to all that, there was the outdoor section. One large pool that was more like a regular swimming pool - cool temperature, with people doing laps etc. It was flanked by two smaller, warmer pools. They were surrounded by fountains and little waterfalls where people would stand to get a mild head or neck massage. Large (but not too forceful) jets dotted the bottom of the pool on the sides - I imitated the locals and spent some time hovering over one. It crossed my mind that a horse may feel a similar sensation when being rubbed down. Gentle, soothing and pleasant. But then I discovered the real fun - two concentric C-shaped walls in the center of the pool surrounded a benched, jacuzzi-like relaxation area with bubbles coming up from the seat on the inside, and a strong circular current between the two walls. It was like a very small, round, lazy river, but faster and with jets studding the side of the wall. I nearly lost my swimsuit several times before I figured out I just had to keep a hold of it, and then it was by far the best part of my thermal-bath experience. It was great fun, but also relaxing, as the more powerful jets hit all the right places on my back, and I found myself laughing out loud in the crowds of geriatric locals and young tourists circling with me.

I have been to several museums here as well - the House of Terror, which chronicles Budapest's history of Nazi and Communist occupation, was a sobering experience, while the museum of Fine Arts had an excellent photography exhibit following the art from 1894 to 1929 and providing a fascinating history lesson.

But the streets of the city remain the main attraction for me. The buildings tell the history of the city, if you look for it. The beautiful St. Stephen's basilica stands next to an ugly communist-era building, and bullet holes (from WWII or the revolution? no one can say) still riddle facades in the Jewish quarter. And now, the signs of rebuilding and revitalization prevail. Not on the main drags, where everything already looks perfect and tourist-ready. But in the side streets, the back ways, where no one goes unless they live there, you can see the disheveled buildings that are literally falling apart, the construction working to replace them, the incredibly loud high-pressure water guns used to clean the facades of blackened buildings and workers facing the seemingly impossible task of cleaning massive brick exteriors with hand-held sandpaper. The guide of the walking tour referenced Hungary's desire to show its Greatness and Might! which had often gotten it into trouble... but I see only good things in Budapest's future.

Cold Slovenian waters

After my day in Ljubljana I met a friend at the bus station, and we continued together to Lake Bled, an incredibly picturesque vacation spot in northwestern Slovenia.

Absolutely a resort town, this was not a place to absorb local culture, rather a relaxing detour with beautiful views, clear, cold water to swim in, and sun to bask in.

By the strangest coincidence, another friend of mine was in Bled at the same time for a philosophy conference. I met this friend in Ecuador, then a year later he came to my school to pursue his masters in philosophy, and now I run I to him in Slovenia! Things like this keep happening, and it has convinced me that the world is indeed a small place in many respects. Several years ago I ran into a High School acquaintance in a restaurant in Tokyo. A year after that I met a family in Mongolia that was from LA (as am I) and the two daughters attended the same college I did. One of them even lived a few blocks away from me.

Bled was a positively enchanting town, and we spent two days there. The grass was gloriously soft to lie in, under the sun and beside the lake. An obliging wall next to the castle on the hill provided us with incredible views (and another sunbathing spot). The brand-new Penzion we stayed in smelled of freshly made pine furniture, and the sound of crickets lulled me to sleep at night.

Positively oozing charm

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, and also, without a doubt, the most charming place I have ever seen in my entire life. I spent only one day there, but could have easily stayed longer just soaking in the ambiance of the city and eating basil-lemon ice cream.

I made a delightful discovery while visiting this quaint place. In the city, few figures are as beloved as the architect Plečnik, whose work can be seen everywhere, as he was fortunate enough to be favored after a large earthquake destroyed most of the structures.

Visiting the home of a famous architect I know nothing about is not something I would normally do. But I was urged (by my very handy guidebook) to dispel the initial sense of being underwhelmed when seeing the house from the outside, and to really pay attention to the details during the tour. So I did. I waited for about 20 minutes for it to start, enjoying the beautiful garden and somewhat stately but still friendly ivy-covered walls. I took a lot of photos. It turns out I was the only person on the tour. My guide was a very kind, very knowledgeable Slovenian. She asked where I was from and when I told her LA she was very excited. The LA Kings were one game away from winning the Stanley Cup, and they have a Slovenian player, who would be the first ever to win that prize, and she was quite excited.

Her enthusiasm extended throughout the tour - she spoke about Mr. Plečnik, to quote Rick Steves, with a bit of reverence. There was a bust portrait of him, done by a student, in the entryway. Plečnik declared that it was perfect. "And believe me, if he said something was perfect, it was perfect," she assured me. She spoke not just of his work, but his family, his life, his personal habits. Many of his unrealized plans were displayed in his home, giving me a personal insight into his character. The dreams of architects, I think, are often quite grand, and Plečnik was no exception.

I left the house with my own feelings of awe and even closeness to this somber, brilliant man. Every time I saw a column after that it brought his name to my mind, along with the smell of coffee and cigarette smoke, his two great weaknesses. I am completely shooting in the dark on this, but I got the impression that he may have inspired Frank Lloyd Wright - or perhaps the two simply had similar tastes and philosophies to begin with.
In any case, I enjoyed the tour of his home very much, and it certainly added to my enjoyment while walking around the city.

I experienced in Vienna, and continue to affirm, that walking is the best way to get to know a place. If one isn't in a hurry, it not only helps establish a firm sense of direction, it really augments the enjoyment of the little details that help give a city its flavor. Things like the color of the buildings, the window displays, and the people walking with you.

People watching is a favorite pastime of mine. I find people fascinating, strangers especially so. There's something very unique about observing someone who you don't know, seeing them for a moment with no preset opinions about them or knowledge of their background. To me, that invites a simple appreciation of them in that one moment. I often find myself wanting to photograph people on the street, but doing so unobtrusively has proved quite the challenge thanks to the large size of my camera. But, photos or no, the enjoyment is there, and Ljubljana is an excellent place for that type of entertainment.

Wien (Vienna)

I left Vienna this morning, and what a sad parting it was. I loved every minute in that city, despite sore feet and pouring rain.

Have you heard the song "Vienna waits for you?" It sounds so cheesy, but that is how I feel about it. Let me explain.
This is a city full to bursting with "culture", in the form of music, shows, art - the former seat of Hapsburg royalty, the city just oozes with it all. I went to see the Lipezzaner stallions in action at the Hofburg Palace on my first day, and it gave me such an impression of pomp and finery and correctness. An aloof sort of elegance. But as I experienced more of the city, I realized that it's not aloof at all - in fact, everything is made purposely very accessible, to everyone. This is when I decided that Vienna does indeed wait for you. Patiently, quietly welcoming. Not calling, not insistent - just waiting. And when you come, there is a wealth of art and beauty at your fingertips.

The cafés I encountered in the city were lovely - the sort of places where you have to try really hard to leave because they let you stay as long as you want and you have to make them bring you the bill. I had the most wonderful dessert (pictured below) with a light sort of chocolate mousse and merengue on top. It was heavenly, and my mmming and sighs of contentment drew some strange looks from the locals. But I didn't care, everyone and their brother should know how delicious this thing was!

The thing I loved most in the city was the Naschmarkt - love of my life, oh Vienna, I would live here just for this market! It houses a plethora of ethnic restaurants and shops, produce stands, and tiny stores with very specific wares. My favorite was a store just for vinegar. I don't know if it was infused or flavored some other way, but there was tomato vinegar, lemongrass vinegar, plum vinegar - you name it. The smell coming from this store almost knocked me off my feet, it was amazing. I tried to take a picture, but it doesn't do it any kind of justice.

Also pictured here: manicured gardens of the Schönbrunn palace, strange and rare citrus from said garden, a view from the train (going from Milan to Vienna), and a very bright and busy window display by Swarovski, featuring a lot of sparkling skulls, which I just thought was a bit odd.