Bolzano, Italy

Okay everyone, almost all caught up. We are still lazing around in Milan, but we did get some cool shots of the the duomo this morning, probably a short post about that to come.

We took the train from Munich to Bolzano late in the morning, grabbing a croissant and a cup of coffee while we were trying to get tickets from a strangely inefficient German ticket system. For lunch, we ended up eating about 4 crackers each. By the time we got into our hotel, we were starving, but sadly had missed the italian lunch time by about an hour. Nothing much was open except for gelato and coffee shops. We ended up finding a pizza place that was open a little early and were quite excited.This masterpiece was the Tirol Pizza at a super cute little pizzeria in town. It's toppings reflected the dual German/Italian culture of this area - Speck and wurst. It was delicious since a) we were starving b) it tasted very much like a bacon and hot dog pizza, in the best way possible. c) we'd been starving ourselves of italian food for about a month prior to the trip and were going through serious withdrawal from tomatoes and cheese.
We walked around through the Piazza Erbe, a little street filled up with a produce market along the sidewalk and shops and restaurants along the edges. Everything from flowers to the makings of a magical trail mix of every possible dried fruit and nut to flowers and fresh veggies was available. I'd never seen a blooming artichoke before - this one was probably about 8 inches across. We wandered around for a little bit (sans camera, sadly) and checked out the wide park along the river on the edge of the old town, had a glass of wine or two, and went to bed with big plans for the morning.

First priority of the day was to go see Ötzi the Ice Man at the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology. Click the link to read about him if you haven't ever seen the show on the Discovery channel or National Geographic, and if you ever go to Bolzano definitely check out this museum. The display was really detailed and interesting, and they have other mummies from all over the world there ranging from Egypt to South America to Asia. And the whole thing only takes about an hour to go through, which is good for people like us with short museum attention spans.

After the museum, we went back to the market from some trail mix, then fixed ourselves a nice little picnic and took a cable car up into the mountains.

Up, and up, and up. With some very warm German tourists. It was warm. That's all I'm saying.
But the view was totally worth it and it was only E3.50 each round trip!

You could see a little twisty road winding up and up the mountain, through the farms and vinyards, every time you thought it was at the end, you'd go up a little higher and there would be yet another house or farm nestled into the mountain side.

When we were finally at the top (about 10 - 15 minutes) we walked another 25 minutes or so along one of the hiking trails and found a good spot to eat our feast of pasta salad, salami, bresaola, and cheese - and wine, of course. We ate until we were stuffed and couldn't take the bees anymore and then finished our wine walking back to ride back down the mountain and sitting in a little park near the middle of town.

Munich, Germany (August 22-25)

I was able to pirate a wi-fi connection in Milan so we're inside and catching up for an afternoon instead of sweltering in the heat that has led practically every native Milanese to leave for the month of August.

After Dublin we went to Munich. The original plan was to go for Oktoberfest, but once I did some quick checks I realized it would take a significant part of our budget to find lodging alone without factoring in the beer. After surveying some other options we decided to go back in August before heading down to Italy. I had been once before, but it was in November and it struck me as a town that might be entirely different in the summer.

We arrived late at night and went to the Augustiner beer hall for our first German brews.



Unlike the Irish beers, these seemed to have an inebriating effect, although it might have been the fact that they are a full liter. I'm not sure if Ali is laughing here because she is surprised by the massive size or if she drank enough to find one of my jokes funny.

We got in late so that was all we managed to accomplish for the night.

The next day we woke up and walked down for the obligatory viewing of the glockenspiel. It was glockenspiel-like.


We also stopped by the Residenz palace/museum. It was an interesting, albeit long, tour.

We went back to the hotel and took out the two bikes the hotel had available for free. Getting free bikes was nice. Getting uncomfortable bikes that made me sore for the next week was unfortunate. I may or may not have whined eventually (alot. but still would not switch with me. mine was quite comfy. -AH)

We stopped off at the beer garden in the Old Botanical Garden for our lunch of official Bavarian food.

Ali got the Schnitzl. It was a lot of schnitzl but it was quite good.



I got the weiss-wurst, traditional German sausage which I learned after I ordered is never to be eaten after lunch. Fortunately it was before noon (or at least still during lunch). Hooray for accidental etiqutte. Don't worry, I made up for it by asking a German guy at Hofbrauhaus how much his new BMW cost (The look on that poor guy's face was priceless. He had absolutely no idea of what to say. AH)



We rode the bikes to the Pinakothek (not even going to look up the spelling) museums which are fortunately only 1 euro on Sundays. It was even more fortunate because I do not spend enough time in museums (either classical or modern art) to make it worth much more than that. They were very cool museums both architecturally and content-wise, but I'm saving up my museum time for Florence and Rome.

Next we rode to the English Gardens. This was one area I remember thinking would be cool in the summertime. Last time I was here we went on a bike tour that went through it and they simply pointed out where stuff would be if it wasn't all closed.

We went by the increasingly famous river surfers. It's very cool to see.



Next we rode by the Chinese Beer Garden. Because it was a Sunday it was extremely packed with people jammed in drinking liters of beer. We rode the rest of the way through the park passed a softball game and naked sunbathers to the Paulaner beer garden on a little lake. We weren't in the mood for beer at this point, but we still walked around to see it. It also was packed with traditional German band playing.



After the long day I was pretty pooped. We went to get pho (only so much German food is necessary for one day. After that we hit the hay early.

The next morning we woke up with a sort of a plan. We walked down to the Marienplatz again and Ali got a pretzel. She also used it to find a shady place to beat the heat.



Next we went to the church with the big towers, Am Dom, and took the stairs/elevator to the top (86 steps, 1 elevator - AH).



We got some very cool 360 degree views of Munich including the Residenz and garden that we had visited the day before.



Next we walked back through the Hofgarten to the English Garden. Despite being Monday, parts of the park were even busier than the day before. Since it was hot (bad day to wear pants), some of the Muncheners were enjoying the river in the park despite the "Baden Verboten" sign that even I understood.

This guy was putting on a tightrope show.



And other people were using this miniwaterfall as a defacto water slide (the original Schlitterbahn?)



At this point Ali was extremely jealous and wanted to jump in. She claims she almost intentionally accidentally fell in. But we didn't have appropriate attire and the river would have swept us about 2 miles down from where we were.

Instead we settled for beers at the Paulaner beer garden we had seen the day before. It was significantly less busy as you can see below.



At this point I was wiped out, although mostly just hot and sweaty because I decided to wear pants (hence the lack of pictures of us). I decided that we should take public transportation back to save time and energy so I could get back and shower. Unfortunately, the city map with the park was confusing and I took a slight wrong turn.

Sadly that wrong turn put us in the tunnel of doom. Although it looks innocuous, it had the largest spiders ever crawling from the ceiling. I was convinced one of them was going to eat us whole.



After getting through the tunnel, I decided we weren't looking for a residential area of Munich that had no indications of public transportation (I took a turn with the map and realized we had been looking for a BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER not a TUNNEL UNDER A HIGHWAY - AH). So we had to sprint back through the tunnel. Eventually we found our way back. And usually things do have a silver lining as we walked through what appeared to be a very cool neighborhood worth walking through during our next visit. Eventually we made it back to the hotel, although I think we walked as long looking for public transportation as if I had just decided to walk straight back to the hotel. Live and learn (mostly learn to not wear pants).

That night we went to a beerhall/restaurant by Am Dom and had delicious bratwurst (and great mustard) and finished up at Hofbrauhaus which I found an obligatory destination although it was pretty quite because it was late on a Monday night.

Next we were off to Bolzano. More soon.

Dublin, Ireland, Part II

Due to internet reasons the last post had to be cut short and we have fallen about a week behind. The next couple of places we stay at have free internet (as opposed to 17 euros for 24 hours), so we will spend time there catching up on the blog (instead of going out and enjoying Lake Como and Venice.

So our last full day in Dublin we had to take care of the #1 tourist attraction in Ireland (or perhaps the world), the Guinness Brewery.

We downloaded a walking tour podcast from the Guinness website and used it as our guide to get to the brewery. We learned some interesting things about Arthur Guinness who is apparently the greatest man that has ever lived.

We took the obligatory photographs.


And some less obligatory and kind of strange looking photographs. You probably knew that barley is one of the main ingredients of beer, but you probably didn't know that taking a picture with it makes somebody look like a weirdo.


After about 4 floors of Guinness information, you realize you know all you need to and can take a trip to the Gravity Bar to sample the product (if you haven't done enough of that in the previous few days). It's a very cool bar with a great view of Dublin and surroundings. You can see the ocean on one side and lush green hills on the other.


Somebody was kind enough to take a picture of the two of us.


All in all it's a fun tour. On a slightly related note, we both found Guinness in general delicious, but not very effective in decreasing sobriety. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.

Since then we have been to Munich, Bolzano, and our now sweltering in Milan (heat seems to be a common theme for us). 90% of the city has left Milan. We understand why.

Temporarily Out of Reach

We've encountered a bit of an internet black hole in the past few places we've been, so our goal of updating the blog regularly has been difficult to meet. Obviously we are now about a week behind. We are currently in Bolzano, Italy. Once we get to a hotel that has internet we will update the blog, our photos, and the map.

Dublin

Just a taste! We are in Munich with very limited Internet (currently
mooching free wifi off a burger king)

This is our first pint of Guinness in Dublin - wait for the full post
to see why it was so sweet.

Dublin, Ireland

This is what we looked like when we arrived in Dublin. AT 4:30 AM. Dublin, we discovered, is a city that likes to sleep in. It also frequently rains. We found our way to the hotel and dropped off our bags and went out into the early morning city in search of coffee and something to do. Neither of us slept much on the plane, but we were excited to be there.








About 2 hours later we found the first place in the city that was open and serving coffee. This improved my mood drastically. We were wearing shorts and tee shirts and no one was around anyway to give us funny looks. After holing up in a cafe and eating a crepe for breakfast it started drizzling. Then raining. Then pouring. By the time if finally let up we were getting funny looks all over from the people heading to work at 8:30 or 9. This was because it had gotten quite cold. We braved the rain, made it back to the hotel and crashed in the lobby. After a few hours of wishing we were in bed and staring at the hotel clerks, our room was ready and we went upstairs and passed out for a bit. Spang arrived, crashed for a bit, then we all headed out for a beer.

Our first Dublin Guinness!! Can you see the Shamrock in it?

Wonderful.

The next day, as Spang was recovering from his evening, we walked around the city and checked out Dublin Castle. Later in the day we all walked down to the River Liffey.

Boston Mass

Our last stop in the states was in Boston. It was an interesting place to be because while we both went to college there, we had never been there together. It was cool to see how different our perceptions of the city were (more specifically, that I had never lived in Boston. I was however much more knowledgeable about the finer points of the Allston/Brighton area).

We arrived on Saturday night and went to Boston Beer Works for dinner and then to some Fenway bars (see the map for more). The following morning we woke up and went to Moogy's so I could have an excuse to eat a cheese steak with onion rings for breakfast (Boston was not the healthiest eating place for us).

After breakfast on Sunday we took a walk down Newbury Sreet to the public gardens where we got a very official swan boat picture.
It should also be noted that it was about 85 degrees with 90% humidity. We had to fake it to smile there. If you zoom in you can see sweat.

On Monday we took a trip to the Sam Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain. Our friend Cait recently started giving tours there. She did a great job even though we were trying to make her laugh.
The tour included free tastings of 3 different Sam Adams beers and you got to keep the glasses
Ali looks so dubious here because it is not yet noon on a Monday and we are drinking. again.

Oh well. After a thorough lesson on how to taste beer, we got down to it and sampled the Boston Lager, Sam Summer, and the Boston draught exclusive, Brick Red, a delicious Irish Red style ale only available on tap in Boston bars.
It was a great tour/tasting. I even agreed to make the $2 donation.

For the rest of the trip we tried to see as much as possible while finding ways to beat the heat. This meant "seeing things" such as air-conditioned bars and malls. Ali did get her honey mustard from Crossroads though.

On Tuesday evening we left Boston for Dublin and a 5:15 a.m. arrival. More to come from there.

Breakfast at Moogy's

You can't see it in this picture but Nick and Sarah are killing everyone

Boston Boys

Lone Star

Yeah, he found it. Still hasn't solved the riddle yet.

Austin, TX

Birthday bloody marys at South Congress Cafe

New Braunfels, Texas

Ali and I arrived in San Antonio after a smooth flight. We were picked up at the airport for a quick drive to New Braunfels. We were dropped off at Shelley's (Ali's sister) office and went back to her place.

Ali had been intrigued by the ever-present Sonic's on our drive. Sonic advertises during ever single commercial break in San Diego, yet somehow the closest one is about 90 miles away. It never seemed worth driving 90 miles for some random combination of fruit juice and soda. But now there were some within easy driving distance. So before we got down to business we made a Sonic run. I had been jonesing for the Frito Chili Cheese Wrap (seen below) for years, but I froze up when we actually got there and didn't order one. Instead, we ordered a Cranberry LimeAde. It was happy hour...for fruit juice. Grand total $1.02.


Next we headed to Shelley's place. The Comal River runs right behind it. When it's been over 100 degrees for about a month straight, you gotta do what you can to beat the heat. Shelley gets to come toss a tube in the river right behind her house and lounge all afternoon. This was a more secluded part of the river so we were the only ones lounging around, but other parts of the river were packed with tubers enjoying beverages.


We cooked blue cheese burgers and Shelley's neighbor brought over spicy venison sausage. It was delicious.

On Thursday we went to Schlitterbahn, America's favorite waterpark. We got in early to ride the Master Blaster (uphill tube ride) among others. We also manned (and womanned) up to ride the SkyCoaster. Basically you wear vests, get strapped onto a wire, and elevated to 180 feet at which point you pull a rip cord and get dropped into a free fall. Being held in only by a vest directly above concrete does not sit well with my fear of falling from high places, but it was a rush. Sadly no pictures of either the water park (water) or SkyCoaster (did not want to drop camera). Here's the general idea though:


On Thursday night Ali's friend Tara and her parents were nice enough to let us join them for a birthday dinner. It was very generous of them and they made us feel very welcome.

We have another day-plus in Texas. We are heading into Austin today for Tara's birthday and will probably explore the finer points of the New Braunfels nightlife tonight. Then off to Boston.

(Side Note: I'm trying to embed specific parts of our larger map, but can't figure out how it works. I try to zoom in and get a link to embed that part of the map, but can't seem to figure out how to swing it. If anybody is technically skilled enough to either 1) let me know how to do it, or 2) let me know that it can't be done and I will need to start a specific map for each city, any help is appreciated.)

Bon Voyage

After a week of moving, cleaning up the old house, getting our affairs in order, cleaning up the Point Loma house (thanks for letting us crash!) and packing, we are all ready to go.

So here is our final temporary itinerary:

• We leave San Diego tomorrow (Wednesday morning)
• August 12-15: New Braunfels, Texas where we will visit Shelley and Tara, spend a day at Schlitterbahn, and go on the SkyCoaster. Currently expected to be 105 degrees F with approximately the same humidity percentage.
• August 15-18: Boston, Mass to visit friends and go to places we miss from college (these include Moogy's, Roggie Happy Hour, Crossroads, and Oiishi. You can probably guess who picked what.
• August 19-22: Dublin, Ireland. We land at 5:30 a.m. If anybody knows of any early morning breakfast places that provide cots, it might be necessary. Spang will be joining us.
• August 22-25: München (Munich), Germany. We couldn't stomach paying for a few nights of Oktoberfest lodging so we decided to go before Italy and at least see it. Last time I was there I decided it seemed like a good place to be in the summer when the weather was warmer for biking around the city to the open outdoor beer gardens.
• August 25-30: Some combination of Bolzano, Verona, and Milan, Italy. We are still deciding how many nights to stay in each place and looking for accommodation. It is opera season in Verona so all the hotels are either booked or expensive. Any suggestions are welcome.
• August 30-September 1: Varenna, Lake Como, Italy. Apparently famous people live here. I just want to see it because it is in my favorite movie of all time: Oceans 12.
• September 1-4: Venice. Trying to see it before it sinks. It will also be the International Film Festival and the Bienniale Art Festival. Hopefully they are showing something artsy with subtitles.
• September 4-17: Anywhere we want. We have an apartment rented in Rome on the 17th, but nothing scheduled in between. We will definitely be going to Florence and Siena, but most everything else is up in the air. Bologna is likely. Pisa is a day trip. Lucca? Cinque Terre? Asisi? Perugia? Any suggestions either for overnight stays or day trips are welcomed.
• September 17-24: Rome. We have an apartment in Trastevere. We wanted to get a little bit more into the lifestyle.
  

After that, it's wide open. Right now we are tentatively planning to go to Paris, potentially with stops in Nice, Avignon, and wherever else along the way. But we might also go to Spain and get back to Paris later. Since the plans after Rome aren't solid, if anybody is going to be anywhere close, we can make a redirection. We like each other, but it might get lonely out there just the two of us for 3 months.

Finally, we will be updating our google map as we go along. You can see the big one below, but we will also post a more detailed view of some of the places we go.


View Boondoggle 2009 in a larger map

Post-Bar, Pre-Trip

The bar was done on July 30. Since then, things have been fairly hectic.

We had a post-party that night that involved Cass St. Bar & Grill followed by the Fox. (Un?)fortunately, there are no pictures from our cameras to relive the night.

The next day we tied a bunch of rafts together with a makeshift anchor and floated in Mission Bay for a few hours. Again, due to the water, no pictures.

Finally, we went up to Bruin Woods for 3 nights to get a quick mini-vacation. Lots of floating by the pool was involved.

The last few days have been spent saying our goodbyes and moving out of our old place. Jim and Marcos from in front of the In n Out were kind enough to help us move all of our big items in a U-Haul. I will never move again.

Things should finally get interesting soon. We will actually start using our own cameras so we can have pictures in posts instead of just boring words.

We leave Wednesday morning. We'll post one last itinerary and pre-departure post.