Time To Start Planning Again...

The last week in July kicks off a great annual tradition in Iowa -- Ragbrai. This is an acronym for Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It goes from the Missouri River on the west, and arrives at the Mississippi River on the East seven days later. This year, I'M RIDING IT!

This is a monster undertaking for me, and I'm very excited about it. This year the route is 444 miles long, and will include ten thousand other riders. Fortunately I will have some company -- Wade has probably done this ride as many times as not in his lifetime, and Dave is an amazing cyclist too. The route this year passes within a few miles of Dad's house, and within a few miles of my aunt and uncle's house, which will make the week even more exciting.

Last spring I bought a great bike in anticipation of this event, and I kicked off my preparation in earnest two weeks ago. Fortunately we live only a mile from the city's best bike path, and in the next week or two I hope to start riding the distance between work and home (occasionally of course). According to the Ragbrai web site, I need to put in about 600 miles in preparation to be ready for the ride. Only 550 more to go! Dave thoughtfully got me a bike computer for our anniversary this week, so I'll be sure to come up with some charts and graphs on my progress. : )

My show is back, my show is back!

My new favorite show is The Office. If you haven't seen it, I couldn't recommend it more. It's a sitcom about an office of co-workers that is hilarious, and every once in a while the laughter is a little dark and uncomfortable. To me it beats anything else on TV, and I have been counting the minutes until the next episode arrives each week. My favorite character, obviously, is Jim Halpert. He's #1 on my celebrity list, beating out all the Brad Pitts of the world.

I've also been renting dvds of Sex and the City. I never watched it when it was on HBO, for some reason the women kind of bugged me. But they have won me over, and the men on the show just couldn't be more wonderful to watch! John Corbett is terrific, I loved him in My Big Fat Greek Wedding too.

But my favorite -- my FAVORITE -- was on last summer. It was a goofy little reality show, a la American Idol, but I couldn't resist it. It's called So You Think You Can Dance, and it's a dance competition that includes everything from Tango to Hip Hop. This show makes Dancing With the Stars look like a beginner's class. For eight year olds.

Not only would I watch this show religiously, I would insist on having the home theater, and I would watch it IN REAL TIME, not being able to wait to watch on delay and skip the commercials. I was a fan. So coincidentally I was thinking of this show a couple days ago, wondering if it would ever see the light of day again (or if I could buy it on dvd), when I went to the webpage and found out the season premiere is this Thursday!! I'll caution you that the first couple episodes are likely to be auditions, which is pretty entertaining although the quality of dance is not as high as it will get. But tune in. It's really fun, and it will make you want to learn how...

PRAGUE

The overnight train to Prague was pretty fun, I have to say. It was a nice luxury getting our own compartment, it would have been much tougher with a room full of other people, or sitting upright! We had bunkbeds with surprisingly soft linens, space for our luggage and even a tiny sink. The steward asked us which language we would prefer before giving us the details of the trip. It was great.

We arrived in Prague at 7am, which is not usually my favorite time of day, but in this case it was ideal. We carted our luggage about 2 miles to our hotel, dropped it off and headed to the Charles Bridge just a couple blocks away. It was one of the most significant landmarks of our trip but it was surprisingly quiet, so we took our time looking at each of the statues, and enjoying the views.

Eventually we crossed the bridge and started hiking up a large hill toward St. Vitus Cathedral. On the way we had breakfast, the most noteworthy meal in our visit to Czech Republic. I was delighted with my nutella and banana crepes, with pecans and a big pile of fresh raspberries!

We climbed the rest of the way to the castle hill, and the cathedral. It's one of the most spectacular examples of architecture I've ever seen, I was completely gobsmacked. The photos do it no justice. It was still fairly early, so we were able to see everything to our hearts' content before admiring the view over Prague, and heading back down.

As we crossed back over the Charles Bridge, we paid a small fee to climb a very old tower at one end, and had another good view of the city -- in all four directions. This is where I took the photo above.

We went back to the hotel for our first nap of the day, but not our last! Then we went to lunch, through the Old Town center, and to the Jewish Quarter. It didn't take long, and I was thankful because I was beginning to feel exhausted of my fellow tourists. It seems that Prague is a popular tourist destination for Europeans, and has expanded incredibly since Dave visited 10 years ago. Everywhere we went there was a tour guide waving a closed umbrella in the air, and a crowd of twenty following behind them, taking every shot their overworked little digital cameras could muster. As an inadvertent result of digital photography, everyone takes ten times as many photos, so everyone is accidentally stepping into each other's shot, and no one is really LOOKING at where they are! I was so exasperated that my camera was put away for most of my visit.

Anyway, we went back to the hotel for another catnap, then headed next door to an English pub -- Dave had suffered long enough without a ball game. A restaurant on the same block provided dinner. Finally we went back to the Charles Bridge for one last stroll while the sun set. Now the bridge was filled with artists and performers (and tourists taking pictures). It was fantastic.

On our way back to the hotel we witnessed a moment of comedy. The street and sidewalk were filled with pedestrians, and just in front of us a worker was rolling a wheelbarrow down the sidewalk. It was only a matter of time before he had to contend with a beggar who had set up shop. And instead of moving around him, he rolled right over the hat with money in it! Of course the beggar started screaming at him, and the worker just kept on moving, screaming back. We couldn't help but grin about it!

Prague was just beautiful to look at, the sights were great, and I'm sure there were lots of exciting things we missed. But with all our travel and all those (other) crazy tourists, it was the perfect last day of our trip. The next morning we grabbed a quick bite before heading to the airport, spent time in all the duty free shops in Prague -- and Heathrow -- before arriving home at 6pm the same day. Amazing, it was all just like clockwork. : )

BRATISLAVA AND KRAKOW

On Tuesday May 2, Dave and I passed through four different countries by train. We left Budapest early in the morning, and rode two hours to Bratislava, Slovakia. This is where half of Dave's heritage begins, so we made a special stop to explore the town and have some lunch. It was a nice stroll through a historic district, with a great town square and theater house. Our favorite highlight, though, was lunch.

We ate at a place called Korzo, a little off the beaten tourist path. Dave had cabbage soup, and I had fish soup, likely the most outstanding soups either of us have ever had, perfectly complimented by fresh bagettes and our drinks of choice. Dave had a local specialty for a main course, a type of heavy pasta dumpling with cheese and bits of bacon. Mine was a vegetable struedel. Awesome. We also spent some time in the lovely St. Martin's Cathedral before heading back through town to the train station.

On a brief sidenote, let me observe that the train travel was such a pleasure. We had a combination of four trains that day, and each of them had particular charm and conveniences. It was lovely to watch the countryside go by, and the ride was smooth and relaxing. Apart from coming within 10 seconds of missing our last connection of course. And accidentally sitting on the smoking car, I could have lived without that. And one station had some deranged old woman that stood literally six inches from my face staring at me. But overall, very nice.

On the train I read about Auschwitz in our guidebook, which is only about 50 miles outside of Krakow. We elected not to visit this time, but it was very moving to read about it in terms of physically being there, and it was emotional for me to contemplate it as part of the history outside my window. I really do intend to go back someday.

We arrived in Krakow late in the evening. After a lunatic cab ride for 5 minutes that nearly caused a drunk pedestrian serious injury, we were set up in our hotel and back down to the street. Although our hotel was just adequate, we were a half block off the main city square, so our first hour in the neighborhood was fantastic. The area of the city square is constantly filled with pedestrians, cafes, shops and clubs, and everyone seemed our age or younger. It was incredibly lively. We finished the evening by watching Se7en in Polish.

Wednesday morning we toured the "Royal Way Walk," a path that kings would traverse upon coronation or funeral. It's a reasonably short walk from a very old city gate and watchtower, through the main square, and to Wawel Castle at the other end of town. Unbelievably we ran into another holiday parade -- this time Constitution Day, which yielded some kicky horses, so we kept moving. We saw the inside of the Wawel Cathedral, which was just gorgeous.

The highlight of Poland for me was the food. (Did you expect anything else?) That afternoon I started a tasting spree of pierogis that would include five different types: mushroom and sauerkraut, tart cherry with sour cream, meat, plum, and potato with cheese. The mushroom were my favorite, cherry was Dave's.

Soon enough it was cone thirty, just like Budapest everyone in sight was walking around with ice cream. I believe we had a nap in there somewhere, back to the pierogis, some more strolling around the shops and cafes, and dinner at a pizza and kabob stand. Did I mention the food was good?

The next day we took a walk to the Jewish Quarter (which I found unremarkable), and had lunch that included an appetizer of pickled herring, a favorite of mine courtesy of my father. We rested for an hour in the "Planty;" interestingly, the town used to be surrounded by a moat, and it's been filled in to make a park that encircles the city. While Dave snoozed on the park bench, I watched an old man feed the pidgeons, and it was one of those great little details that softens your heart.

We had a drink on the square, and went back to our hotel restaurant for a snack. Ironically one of my favorite dishes in Eastern Europe was a plate of French cheeses, I never knew they could be so... euphoric! It was more cheese than a responsible person should eat in a year, but we finished it all, including the unique and tasty rose jam they were served with. Then we headed back to the train station for our next adventure, an overnight train to Prague...

BUDAPEST

We're finally home, rested, and with photos in hand! (Click here to see the entire set.) It was a marvelous trip, and yet I feel marvelous to be back in the states again. Tragically for Dave, he is leaving Saturday for a week long business trip to China and Taiwan. These will be his seventh and eighth countries this year. Yikes.

Anyway, the trip. We departed on a Friday night, and the air travel was much nicer than I remembered from my experience six years ago. We flew British Airways. My only complaint was that they don't award frequent flier miles for all travel, only "full priced tickets." What is THAT about?

But they had free drinks, great movies, big comfortable seats, good pie, and little kits that included eye masks and socks, of all things. My favorite detail was that the headrests had little arms that folded down, so you could lean your head against them to sleep. Genius! I watched bits of Narnia, The Producers, and TransAmerica before falling asleep, and was able to sleep for about 5 hours. My knees were positively killing me when I woke up, it's just not natural to sit for so long in one place. I was also entertained briefly by my book and some sudoku puzzles.

Same story on the way back, by the way, except I didn't sleep, watched all of King Kong, The Matador, and half of Match Point. And listened to the screams of a toddler that truly gave the impression of serious physical abuse.

We arrived in Budapest in early evening and were delighted to find that it was a simple matter to navigate the airport and get a car to the hotel. Our hotel was the nicest of the trip, high ceilings, a balcony, lovely bathroom, everything you could want. Including a cool little wall-mounted magnifying mirror, that I loved despite hitting my head on it a couple times. One of our great strokes of luck was staying at a hotel on the Andrassy, which is a big beautiful thoroughfare, and we made extensive use of it every day. We kept it simple and dined in the hotel restaurant -- borsch soup, carrot soup, veal medallions, and a veal burrito-type wrap, all very tasty (although it pretty much shut down my interest in meat for the trip). We finished the night with a stroll down the street to Hero's Square, a string of monuments of significant figures in Hungarian history, all captured in a brightly lit colonnade. In contrast to the countless tourists we were to encounter on our trip, we shared the square with a few teenage skateboarders.

The following morning, we embarked on our biggest sight-seeing day of the trip. I estimate we walked about 14 miles, and saw pretty much every sight in the center of the city. I won't bore you with random churches and street names (although we did see a church with the relic of someone's stump of an arm, which we found kind of a funny claim to fame). Sufficed to say that the highlights for me were the Opera House, the Chain Bridge (and the Danube of course), views of the Parliament building, and another historic and fun strolling street, the Vaci Ucta. Since it was a Sunday, we actually got to walk down the middle of the chain bridge and admire it from within. It culminates at the Four Seasons, which is a great looking building at a perfect location, rich bastards.

One of the interesting things about Eastern Europe was that everyone on the street is in a perpetual state of eating an ice cream cone. Everyone. After spying the first few dozen cones, we stopped for gelato, and of course it was magnificent. We had some happy hour snacks at the hotel, and finished with a light dinner at a place on Adrassy called Premier, where I had my favorite dish in Hungary -- cold fruit soup. It was a delicious puree of berries, with a spice that tasted like cloves to me, and some tiny cherries thrown in for good measure. Fantastic.

The next day I awoke to -- of all crazy things -- a marching band. Turns out it was Hungary's version of Labor Day, which seems to be celebrated mostly by passing out balloons. We took the subway back down to the Vaci Ucta to visit a historic and very cool pastry shop called Girbeaud, then had lunch at the first McDonalds to open in Eastern Europe. Then we took the subway to City Park to experience the Szechenyi Baths.

For me, this was the highlight of the trip. After a slightly unclear process of paying for entry and changing in sort of open air locker rooms, we took a brief dip in an indoor bath, and then headed outside. It was an overcast day, drizzling and chilly. It didn't take much convincing for me to hustle to the nearest pool and join the locals. The buildings were enormous and banana yellow, and the pools were also giant, a perfect temperature, and lots of people speaking every language under the sun -- except English. It was so relaxing to listen to the murmur, unwind, and people watch. (What attracts older portly men to the speedo? No answer was in evidence.) It was high entertainment in hot water, what more could a person ever want?

For dinner we went to Franz Liszt square, and had a terrific dinner at a trendy place called Menza. This square has on display one of the most clever details I've ever seen -- there are lots of outdoor cafes, and every café provides a nicely folded microfleece blanket over the back of every chair. Every café has it's own color of blanket, and we noticed lots of people wrapping up when the air had a chill. Isn't that smart?

One more snooze at the hotel, and we were off to the train station...