東京 に ようこそ

The good news is that I had a direct flight to Narita. Unfortunately, there wasn't a direct connection to my hotel today ... so I took the Narita Express train to Tokyo eki, and wandered around with luggage to transfer to another JR train Shimbashi station, only to wander around looking for a monorail to get to my hotel. I'm sure there was a better way, which might have included taking a taxi, but at least it kept me awake for the journey.

I had a little time this afternoon to wander around the Ginza shopping district. One interesting tidbit - I ran into a Krispy Kreme shop in a basement of a mall. I was kind of surprised at the long queue, but evidently it's popular. Only after I left the mall via a different exit did I realize the extent of the popularity. There were hundreds of people, and the end of the queue said "1:30"!


More later -- ちょっと眠いですから

Avignon

After a lull in connectivity, we finally managed to secure "weefee" in our hotel in Avignon. We've had a lovely few days here, using this as a base to do plenty of exploring and olive oil acquisition. (You wouldn't expect us to bring home normal stuff, would you?) Tomorrow, we drive back to Barcelona, which we expect to take ~4 hours, plus a stop in Figures for the Dali museum.

Nice K-bab

We planned a full day: up and out early to get to the daily market in downtown Nice. We were famished, and saw rows of fresh flowers, vegetables, soaps, herbs, cured olives, sun dried tomatoes, cheeses, tasty bread. I sampled and bought some basil-cured olives (yum) and sun dried tomatoes, and we bought some foccacia for breakfast. Marah wasn’t terribly thrilled with this so early, so we had some tasty muesli with yogurt and hot drinks for breakfast, and headed on a hike up the hill to the Chagall museum.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been a great fan of Marc Chagall, but the museum was quite nice. (Yes, the day was filled with awful, obvious puns.) The garden outside has some olive trees that were fairly old, and an interesting variant of thyme – a very un-delicate plant, almost rough like typical rosemary bushes. Inside, there were a number of biblical murals – some however reminded me very much of the classic 1970s hagadot that my parents (still) use.

After the Chagall museum we hiked up to the top of the hill to some Roman ruins, a park, and the Matisse museum. Matisse spent the last ~50 years of his life here in Nice, and while most of the work here was from the latter part of his life, the museum does a good job demonstrating the progression of his style.

In the afternoon after our museums, we headed back down the hill towards our car. Marah was a bit tired halfway down, so we stopped at a park bench where she lay down to take a short nap, and I got to finish one of the New Yorkers that we brought. We found a bar in the old town to try some Socca, the local chickpea flour-based crepe. (I thought it was pretty tasty, especially with a dab of added pepper.) And to cap off the day, we went for a long stroll along the promenade by the ocean. Marah described it as very Miami Beach – expensive hotels, wide walkway, and beautiful colored ocean….though one of my favorite parts was watching the planes swing just a few hundred feed overhead as they turned to land in the Nice airport. After walking several miles by the beach, we stopped to sit and read as the sun went down. I started reading the food issue of the New Yorker, though Calvin Trillian’s exploits in Singaporean street hawker cuisine (or perhaps the wind picking up as the sun set) made us ready to head back towards the restaurants for dinner. We had a lovely meal at Royal Kebab (the “K-bab” of Nice, folks) with kebabs, tasty aubergine dip, etc…and then called it a day.

Road Trip!

We drove from Barcelona to Carcassonne via Montserrat and Girona on Friday, and Carcassonne to Nice – really, Villefranche-sur-Mer on Saturday.

The drive between Barcelona and Montserrat is “30 minutes” plus slow time zig-zagging up the last hill to the monastery. Well, it took us more like three hours. In fact, it may have been even more than that. It was awful. We had general directions from several guidebooks, but not turn-by-turn directions, and Spain is not as well-marked as France. So, we went in circles – big blipping circles. We asked for directions three – no, wait, FOUR – times: the gas station, another gas station (where when I walked in, I said (in Spanish): “I think we’re lost. We’re trying to get to Montserrat,” and the manager-type gentleman said, “no, you’re right. Go straight, then left, then right, and you’re there.” Ha. HAHAHA. A road-construction worker, almost asked one of the three road-side hookers (who qualified for social security), and a truck driver who was stuck
in a backup along side us. Not sure exactly what happened to get us there, except that I’d given up and Jonathan said, well, let’s just try this. And lo and behold. Note to future travelers: get explicit directions before taking the “short drive to Montserrat.” We did manage to make it in time for the 10-minute “mini-mass” where the boys’ choir sings. We grabbed a pretty good lunch, and headed north.

I was very interested in stopping in Girona, and we managed to have a nice, short trip. I enjoyed the Jewish Museum there very much – and hope that on our way south, or on another trip, we might be able to spend more time walking around this beautiful mountain town with incredible history.

Eventually, we were back on our way toward France – a friend had said it was just 2-3 hours from Barcelona to Carcassonne; she didn’t take the “scenic route.” Getting a sense of the quality of life in the car on Friday? Yeah, not good. We (I, okay, me, my idea) thought it would be nice to take the A-whatever part way, and then drive along what was, according to the map, pretty, almost equally fast highways that would be more scenic. Well, I don’t even know how long that took. It was awful. No, wait. The first two hours on the pretty route were great. Before the sun set, there were beautiful vistas – vineyards, crops, farms, and gorgeous mountains. But then it was narrow, windy, windy (I mean both spellings) and dark. Whimper. LONG drive. We arrived around 8:45 – putting new meaning to “we’ll keep the light on for you” – and managed to scurry up to the fortified village in time to find few if any restaurants open, or appealing. That said, just as we give up, Jonathan stops at a menu, we ask if they’ll seat us, they agree, and we’re in. And, highlight of the evening, it was the restaurant we’d planned to go to had we arrived on time… four hours earlier.

All this sets the stage for our drive to Nice. We took all the A-whatevers. I have never “pagaed” so much for tolls. I think we paid more than $30 – a lot more – but it was well worth it. In spite of occasional rain, we made great time. So much so, that we managed to arrive to the “greater Nice area” by early afternoon and made a great stop in St. Paul du Vence, which has come to be known as where Marc Chagall is buried. His grave is in a Christian cemetery – and was fairly hard to find… what caught my eye was a very simple sepulcher with scores of small stones on it. The headstone is virtually covered by a rosemary plant. St. Paul a lovely mountain town and the site of a museum called the Fondation Meaght, which houses an exceptional collection of modern art and sculpture. Having spent the entire morning in the car, the hike to the collection was nice, and walking through the very swanky art gallery-filled main-drag was a pleasant change.

From St. Paul, it was a short 20-minute drive to Nice itself, and the directions to our hotel in Villefranche-sur-Mer took us along side the swanky shores of Nice. Even in the off-season, as apparently this is, the boardwalk and street in the mid-afternoon were both packed. Our little hotel – very, very simple – is located across the street from the port of Villefranche, which has highly entertaining views of the huge cruise ships which pull into the port – not to dock, just to moor. I think that’s what I mean. The captives remain on the boat.

And look – we match. Totally unplanned.

"Light Rain"

We were up at 4 this morning to catch a flight to Valencia -- really, we were catching a flight to see the Calatrava complex of museums and return-- and we did. But I think we weighed more on the return flight. No, the food wasn't that good. It rained that much. Rain was falling, and just as we would say, "well, that's the worst of it," it pours... harder. Buckets. Sheets. Cats, dogs, mice, foxes, elephants. The skies opened up... and rain just fell. My favorite moment was when I realized it was raining onto my hood, down my jacket, and straight down my pants. Remember the blue color that ran onto my bag last week? Well, now it's on the inside edge of my raincoat, too... and my legs. I am a smurf. I am blue.

The folks in Valencia didn't think anything of the rain. In the Calatrava museum, I pointed out -- rather panicked -- a huge puddle on the floor. I realized the guard couldn't care less. Then we realized why -- every building leaked. There were puddles throughout the museum (though I do think I pointed out the largest one). There were puddles through the metro station. There were puddles in the airport. The escalators dripped. And no one seemed one bit bothered. Custodial people just went around mopping. All day.

Rough life - working and eating in Barcelona

Life's rough - I've been working at MAX here in Barcelona. In fact, I presented my session today to a fairly packed room. I think it went pretty well: the response during and after was upbeat, and the few people who filled out the comments forms were overwhelmingly positive.

For dinner tonight we headed over to Inopia, based upon a suggestion from a recent Mark Bittman piece in the NYT. Evidently it's run by Alberto Adrià, so for several reasons this is the closest we'll get to El Bulli on this trip.

We asked our waiter to select some tapas that he thought we'd enjoy based upon our brief constraints: no seafood (I know, I know, when in Barcelona...), and no meat from "above the neck". (Some things not to be done twice--here an attempt not to repeat my experience inadvertently ordering lamb brains in Madrid in 2005.) Anyway, the waiter did a wonderful job - some olives; croquettes; fried bread-covered meat things with tasty pimiento sauce; deep fried eggplant with a "honey" - closer to molasses glaze; lamb and pork brochettes; and for dessert, today's special: chilled figs with a yogurt sauce and orange zest. Quite good.

BCN1

We arrived in Barcelona last night. Our hotel is part of the conference center where Adobe Max is -- I don't quite understand how old the area is, but certainly the convention center area is fairly new, and way off to east of the typical tourist areas.

While I never like waking up with a sinus headache (I believe my exact words were, whispering, "oh my god, I feel like I have a hangover"), I am glad when it happens in a place I can walk only a few minutes and pass several pharmacies who are more than happy to help. I was also delighted to explain my symptoms in spanish, and (better yet!) be understood. Two pills down, 10 to go, but at least I can move my head now. (I should have thought of the KXO diagnosis method last night -- especially irritable? achy? stuffy nose? watch out for a sinus infection.)

Pill #1 + latte + a hot bath = just enough push to get me out the door with the laundry in search of a lavanderia. Of course, this being predominantly a business area, there isn't much in the way of self-service laundry. So, I made my way to one of the addresses I'd found -- schlepping a loaded duffle on the metro -- only to find nothing even resembling a laundry mat on the block. Sigh. Not to be outdone, I asked at the next best option (the local cobbler) who said (all this is in Spanish, remember): "well, I'm not sure... let me think. I don't know. But.. maybe... well... go there and there and cross and maybe I think on the left." Thank you... Anyway, did walk a block or two and found a grocery store (hooray) on one side of the street, and self-service laundry machines on the other. Success! I tossed the stuff in (not my jeans, of course, because I realized yesterday that the blue stuff on the green bag is the color from my jeans RUBBING ONTO THE LEATHER!!!! VERY annoyed. Some did come off. Not all... will be remedied upon return to CA.

Anyway, I say, "see you in thirty minutes" and make my way to The Palau de la Música Catalana where I hope to acquire tickets to the Requiem performance we tried to buy tickets for in the states. I'm moving along, me and my map, happy to be in Barcelona -- scenery, people, happy clam. Somehow, I overshoot and walk about twice as far as I was supposed to, missing the Palau entirely, sweating bullets because it's 70+ degrees and I'm hightailing it in khaki pants. As the mail man for directions (he has no idea) find a hotel and the desk guy sets me straight -- "20 mintutes" he says. He's never walked with me. 7 minutes later I'm in line (dripping!) and secure two tickets for 10/28, our last night on the trip together. Hooray!

Opted to take the metro back to the lavanderia -- I was only 45 minutes later than I said I'd be -- tossed the washer contents into the dryer and went to the market for some juice. Returned to the dryer never having warmed up (20 minutes of spinning), so, since the operator had left for siesta, I figured the best thing to do was schlep the laundry back to the hotel. Wet laundry... much heavier than dry laundry. Got back to the hotel and am now sitting in, well, a large drying facility, with clothing hung from, draped over, or hooked on every shelf, ledge, or rod in the room. ... I hope something dries by morning.

Dachau

Being at Dachau felt, to me, surreal. While we were both upset to be there -- inside a concentration camp, inside "bunkers" and replicas of the buildings where prisoners "lived", walking along the "street" where some interactions between prisoners were allowed -- I found being in the bunker -- a building that was a prison within the prison, really-- to be the most upsetting. I didn't realize for a while that I had tears running down my face. That said, I didn't find the "museum" exhibitions at the camp as upsetting -- or as informative -- as exhibitions I've seen elsewhere and in the states, including the Holocaust Museums in New York and DC. It was hard to be there, but I am glad that we went.

Aventures in the Alps

On Saturday morning we picked up our rental car . As I'm certain Jonathan will want to give plenty of detail, suffice it to say I really liked our charming C Class, which we named Clara - we did, of course, have to call her something when we thanked her for giving us directions.

Favorite moment in preparing for this short trip:
M: "I wonder what I should wear..."
J: "It'll be warm. It's south of here."
M: "It's south, but it's in the MOUNTAINS."
J: "Oh.... right."
I got away with an undershirt, a shirt, a pull over, a wool cardigan, a wrap, gloves, and a hat. Didn't need it all, but glad to have had it. It was probably about as cold as it was on Thursday morning in Munich, where, in spite of jeans and three layers one of which was the wool cardigan, I was glad to have gloves to stay warm! Anyway...

While I'm told the purpose of renting the car was to drive to Schloss Neuschwanstein, I believe the desire to go there had a lot to do with driving on the autobahn. Again, details to J -- check back later. We visited both castles in located in Schwangau: Schloss Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, though Neuschwanstein was a more impressive castle and a better tour -- more furnishings; more beautiful castle and siting; more details about Ludwig, the castle, the furnishings, the location, etc. throughout the tour.

Nice house

Friday I spent at two museums. First, I headed toward the second address I'd found for the Jewish Museum in Munich (first address was a destination for Thursday -- couldn't find the museum). While the museum wasn't there, either, I did find a sign, pointing me toward St.-Jakobs-Platz, where the museum is a cube -- much like the Jewish Museum in Berlin - except the ground floor of this one is entirely glass, with quotes and comments on the walls, including "isn't there one just like that in Berlin?" Indeed. The museum extends to the basement as well as two levels above the glass box, though these are recessed and not obviously seen from the street. There were three exhibitions; the permanent exhibition is about Munich's Jewish history and community.

After another stop at the market, I made my way to the very modest Residenz, the largest downtown palace in Germany where more than 130 rooms are open for visitors. (May I say that after about room 100, one starts to wonder if one will ever be allowed to leave the building.) Having been built and expanded upon by several members of the Wittelsbach family, the building now includes architecture and decor representing the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo periods. While some of the castle is in fact original, even particular furnishings in the particular rooms -- including wall coverings -- much is not, but does date to the period (or, even, to another part of the castle). The self-guided tour frequently reminds the listener that it is this way because "it was destroyed in The Second World War." That got tiresome, quickly.

Did someone say Zabar's?

While Jonathan was enjoying BMWland, I made my way around the old center of Munich (between naps). While I'd hoped to get to some museums, I found walking around for a couple hours (and napping) an excellent way to spend the day.

Having read about it, I was delighted when I stumbled over Zabar's Uber East. That is, Dallmayer, a food purveyor "since 1700." (Yeah, okay, a smidge older than Zabar's.) It was a great pitstop the early afternoon -- with nooks devoted to specific products -- pastries, breads, meats, produce, fish, tea, coffee, lots and lots of lox being sliced before my very eyes (note to self for next year), and some tasty pistachio cookies for sampling :).

The other major stop of my walking tour today was Munich's Viktualienmarkt, the two-hundred year old food market in the old city center, with hundreds of stalls devoted to everything from meat and cheese to honey (yes, a store devoted to honey) and fresh fruit juice. I enjoyed a couple bretzel rolls, fresh from the oven (better crust-to-inside ratio than a regular bretzel) along with some chevre (another stall) and a tall glass of fresh grapefruit juice (yet another stall). An excellent lunch.

See, feel, hear, smell, taste BMW.

I spent most of my morning in some meetings for work with some folks from BMW. Interesting opportunities. After that, I returned to our Munich office to catch up on some work for several hours before returning back to BMW to check out their museum.

The museum is in a temporary tent currently as the main building is under renovation. Workers are also finishing up construction on the BMW Welt, a large building devoted to the BMW brand experience. It will have BMW food stations, the full model line, and a bunch of other stuff. It looks like a pretty cool building ... alas I won't be in town when it opens next Saturday. Oh well - pencil it in for my next trip to Munich: visit the full museum, take a plant tour, and visit BMW Welt to be inculcated to the ways of the yuppie.

On the Road Again..

Between two flights, I've seen more movies in the last 48 hours than I have in several months: Waitress, Because I Said So, and part of the Simpsons movie.

We landed in Frankfurt -- I slept for just a couple hours on the plane -- and are doing our best to adjust to the nine-hour time difference. Our modus operandi for our first day adjusting to the time difference is to do as much [sleep-] walking as possible to help us stay awake. Today's destination was Römerberg, the heart of what used to be the medieval quarter, and the German Architecture Museum. About the former, the NYT writes, "the half-timbered houses are picture-perfect, and well they might be, since they were meticulously rebuilt after being flattened in World War II." It was, indeed, picture-perfect. We then mozied to the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, which was not all we'd hoped for -- doesn't bode well when the museum is in a down right boring building. We had some Thai/Japanese/Vietnamese (yes, all-in-one) food for lunch near, but not at, Klein Market, back near Römerberg.

In line with our assorted passport control shenanigans of the day (see J's posts for clarity), we also managed to take the wrong train as we were attempting to return to the airport. Not a problem -- we got off, and headed back to the prior stop when we realized it. And then, between stations, the train came to halt. There was police activity and we weren't moving. That made for a few moments of "what if we miss our flight [that's in six hours]?" The train resumed movement, we boarded the correct S-Bahn, and returned to the airport, to more of the passport control dance. We did manage to return to the lounge, and collect our luggage and... I took a 2+ hour nap. At least I feel human now.

I'm not sure whether we're "in" the EU or not at the moment- all the in-and-out of passport control (and an official two line strike through one of our stamps) - but we're off shortly to Munich.

Willkommen nach Deutschland [Repeat]

Really, welcome to Germany again. We had many hours in Frankfurt before our flight to Munich, so we opted to walk around the older part of the city and visit the Deutsches Architekturmuseum. We had a bunch of carryon luggage we didn't want to deal with (laptop, change of clothing, ...) so we decided to leave them in the Lufthansa Senator lounge where we first went after we landed. It's upstairs in the B-pier--safe, free, convenient. Well, turns out it wasn't so convenient: when we came back to the airport we had to go through passport control again so we could leave the EU to retrieve our bags! So, as I write this, I guess we're technically back "in transit", and will soon enter Germany for the second time today.

Update: When we passed through passport control again, the immigration office came up with a decent - and presumably legal - solution. He took a pencil and made two small lines through the corner of the "departing EU" stamp. Perhaps this is the international equivalent of missing the coin bucket at the tollbooth, honking and driving forward blindly?

Willkommen nach Deutschland

A short blog while camping out on the carpeted floor in the Frankfurt airport. On Monday Marah and I flew on a United flight SFO-JFK, slept a bit at her parents, had a quick lunch and then headed out for our Lufthansa EWR-FRA flight.

The flight to New York was really productive for me - plugged my laptop in and threw together a first draft of my slides for my talk in Tokyo later this month, and caught up on a bunch of email and reading. And at the risk of sounding like a total snob, it finally answered my age-old question: "Is there really a difference between flying First Class and Business Class on the United p.s. flights?" In short, no. The seats are a little bit better -- they're the same as the Singapore Airlines SpaceBed seats. The food was almost the same as what Marah was served in Business, and the new "Charlie Trotter" menus aren't very good. OK, enough travel snobbery for now. Well, almost. The 747 flight to Frankfurt was pretty much the usual...though we were seated at the nose of the plane, and while it's generally pretty quiet up there, Marah almost jumped at the loud sound of the landing gear retracting after takeoff.

OK, off to shower and spend the day in Frankfurt. Looks like it will be a dreary day here.

Drivin' along with bales of hay...

The photo doesn't quite capture it -- the straw storm coming off the back of the pickup truck (left lane) as we headed toward SLO... Sadly, we couldn't capture the aroma as we passed fields of onions. Driving through salad country was fun, and of course from Hearst Castle we got plenty of design ideas. I absolutely plan to floor a future home in gold leaf. Good grief.

Countdown

We're packed not just for our big trip, but also for what was to be The Trip in October -- we're off tomorrow to San Luis Obispo to attend Robbie and Leslee's wedding. I expect the highlight of our southbound drive to be our stop at Hearst Castle tomorrow afternoon. This is the first time I've driven south of Monterey, so it should be rather entertaining... or if you hear cries of "how much longer??" you'll know who it is...