What's this in Celsius?

Loving London, partly because it is fabulously and unexpectedly warm out! It's been 75 and sunny this whole time and it's supposed to remain fairly the same our whole trip. Take that, Los Angeles! Let's not even mention Boston. On Friday, AJ and I rendez-vous'ed at Nan's apartment in London and just spent the afternoon walking around. We stopped into Marks and Spencer to look at bras and got a little distracted.

It's Ascot season. My friend The Spartan had me bet one pound on a horse race today. I chose a horse named Fliegendehollander (get it?) and ended up winning four pounds. On Saturday, we woke up early (10 am for us) and had a heaping big breakfast of beans and toast, after which, we went to meet up with The Spartan. He and his friends took us to a pub in Richmond and then on to a Rugby game between England and the Barbarians at Twickenham Stadium.The Army did a little flag dance before the game started, which was really strange.

And the rest of the day I won't detail since it is so soaked in beverages. But the evening ended with all in high spirits. Sunday we relaxed, and Monday is a new day.

Salzburgers

I took the most roundabout way to get here. I flew from Amsterdam to London Heathrow, where I had a very nice pint of Cider, then from there to Zurich, and then from Zurich i flew on a 20-person little toy plane to Salzburg. I was one of only 3 women on the flight, the other two being a businesswoman and the flight attendant. The plane was a dual propeller plane

meaning we didn't fly very high, affording me an amazing view of Austria as the sun was setting.

Salzburg smells like horse shit. Really. It's everywhere, on every street, in front of every church and plaza. Despite that, it's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. I was here once when I was 15 with the Harvard-Westlake Chamber Singers, and I remember having a great time, and it did not dissapoint. The city is overlooked by a giant castle built into a mountain, one of many that surrounds it.

I stayed at my voice teacher Sara Arneson's apartment with her goddaughter, as she and her husband George were on their annual teaching/concert tour of Japan. I was lent a bike (thank god, I could not have negotiated the crazy bus system) and let loose for the day, which was great. I went to the beautiful Mozarteum, the music conservatory here, and sat in on some lessons with Martha Sharp and her dog Hannah.Then, I went exploring on my bike to some of the places I remembered, like the Dom, the big church where we sang when I was here before. On my way there, I discovered another little church with a beautiful graveyard.Then I went exploring down the back roads into the countryside, which was the way that Sara's goddaughter had showed me to take home.
I found this door in the mountain
and this house on the river
and this pretty river that extended for most of my ride through the suburbs back to Sara's apartmentAnd the mountain! There's a lot of snow on it and apparently you can take a 20 euro tram to the top and have a coffee. Which seems extravagant, but ok.Then I went on a bike ride through the forest.
That night, Meredith (sara's goddaughter) took me a traditional Austrian restaurant for dinner where I had a strange salad with giant hunks of fried goat cheese and then a "Fiaker Goulash", or a farmer's style stew which came with giant hunks of beef in a rich sauce with something that looked EXACTLY like a matzo ball in the midle, covered by a sunny-side-up egg and a half of a hot dog cut to look like the legs of an octopus. Yummy, but gave me a really bad stomachache. And then, this morning, I got on the plane, and flew out on such a beautiful day. This is the view from the tarmac. Ill.

Grote Markt

Last night we took a little romp around town and went to Grote Markt, a part of the city with a few bars surrounding a little Piazza (for lack of a Dutch word). While a lot of people drive, it seems just as many people bike here and everyone rides the same big black cruisers (I only saw two road bikes my whole trip) and a lot of them have little seats right behind the handlebars for babies, which is so funny, they look like they're riding a chariot. Our bike ride to Grote Markt was a little perilous as we only had two bikes for three people, so Laura "dinked" Caroline on her bike

and I rode the other bike on my own, trying to remember how to pedal backwards to stop.

Mostly on this trip, we took the tram around town, which has little signs at every stop telling you when the train is coming! ARE YOU WATCHING MBTA, LOOK HOW IT'S DONE RIGHT!Amazing.
This morning Caroline took me to a traditional Dutch breakfast of Pancakes. These are not your momma's pancakes, though, don't be fooled. They're as big as a crepe and a little thicker, but not as thick as an American pancake. Into this, goes anything you could ever possibly think of, though it goes directly into the batter and is served flat, not folded up. Caroline told me she once got the Child's Pancake with a Surprise (that's the full name on the menu) and it came with ice cream and strawberries on top. Personally, I'm a big fan of pork, so I got Bacon in mine. When I ordered the waiter said "Good job! This is very traditional, you ordered the right thing! We will call you "Dutchie" now!" Thanks? Aside from my weird new nickname, the breakfast was such a treat! I was informed I had to put cane syrup on it to achieve the proper sweet:salty ratio and it was truly delicious.

NO PHOTO!

Pictures of our Mexican feast last night.

Yummy guacamole!

Today, Caroline, her rommate Laura, and I went into town to visit the Conservatory where they go to school (Caroline is a singer, Laura plays the recorder, both in Historical Performance. Yes, you can get a degree in playing the Recorder). The building their school is in is based on a piece by Schoenberg. It has five floors representing the five staves and then small portions of each floor jut out to look like musical notes. In theory: awesome, in practice: not so much.
The trams that we've been taking everywhere are clean and fast and in parts of the city they're elevated on beautifully designed tracks.
In the school, there's a statue of Schoenberg (the mascot of their school, I guess) which looks EXACTLY like Han Solo when he's put into Carbon Freeze. The guards yelled at me for taking a photo, but it had to be done.The city has been pretty gray and rainy since last night, but it's small and quaint and everyone has been very friendly to us, except our waitress at the Chinese place where we had lunch today. When I asked her to break our 10 euros into two 5's she yelled "NO!" and walked away.

Caroline's little apartment has a lovely balcony they share with the Thai Prostitutes next door. A family with little children lives on the other side and we currently have their baby monitor on the table in the living room as their parents are out to dinner. The architecture isn't all that exciting, but every once in a while, something nice shows itself.

Tonight we are going out in the city center with Caroline's Danish boyfriend Simon and his friends from the Hotel School where he studies. Fun awaits!

OOO OOO OOO

I arrived this afternoon in Amsterdam to heralds of "Thank you, Ms. Kalinoovski, have a nice day." The Dutch people seem to be able to correctly pronounce the 'w' in my name as a 'v', and yet are mysteriously adding an 'o'.

I took the train to The Hague to meet my friend Caroline Bruker.

And once there went to her really cute apartment whereupon i discovered that the shower is in the living room, and the toilet is in a closet.
"This is very typically Dutch," said Caroline. The door closes so close to the toilet, you may as well just leave it open.
She and her roommates and her boyfriend and I cooked a delicious dinner of.....burritos. I come all the way to the Hague on a glorious adventure and what do I make? Guacamole. Hoping to encounter new culinary frontiers, I'm set to mashing up avocados and squeezing limes. Maybe I should have just gone to L.A. and finally eaten all of the Tacos Por Favor I've been craving.
Our plans to go out on the town were foiled by an incredible thunderstorm, which of course merited a good romp through the empty streets in bathing suits, since it's so warm outside.
Apparently you can get ticketed for lack of pants in public. So the adventure was short-lived.

Thou hast Reached Thine First Destination

I've arrived in London for just one day before I head back to the airport to go to Amsterdam tomorrow, Monday. After a harrowing moment with a malfunctioning ATM, I made it onto the train from Gatwick to Blackfriar's station, which no less than 3 people told me was open, then 4 told me was closed. Stressful, to say the least.

The only straight answer I got was from a girl working at London Bridge station who, when I asked what was the mother f*&%*#g deal with Blackfriar's being closed, cheerfully quipped "Oh no, it's just the Underground station that's closed! The train station is still working!" It seems that the entire transportation industry is confused and I feel I may have been lucky enough to have found the only live human who knew the answer.

I'm now in my best friend AJ's Grandmother's little studio flat and finally get to have a cup of tea.And a nap.

First Leg of Many

I'm sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight to London Gatwick and smelling something delicious. I think a burrito. Which will turn out to be hideously disappointing, I'm sure, but I might just partake. If I let my hunger go unrequited any longer, I'm going to gnaw my own wrist off.
The short flight from Boston was on a tiny plane which had little signs everywhere saying that the assembly of the plane was finished in Brazil, which was more than a little troubling. As I realized just how small the plane was, visions swam before me of carefree Brazilian mechanics haphazardly bolting together this tin can someone had the gall to call a plane. A hundred Rosies riveting with joints in their mouths and an all-important soccer game going on in the background.
This vision abruptly disappeared as we hurtled into the sky and made such sharp turns that the windows felt almost parallel to the ground thousands of feet below. As usual, my body went into panic mode, i.e. a light coma, until we hit the ground. And I do mean hit.