Acclimating: Part 3

Last week, I ate sushi on the tube at 10:30 pm and didn't care what other passengers thought. I sat in the car I knew would be closest to the exit at my home station. And I called it a station, not a stop, without thinking about it.

Londoner Level 2: Unlocked.

(This was Level 1.)

Don't forget to vote for me in the LATAM Explorer Contest!

Latin America: Looking back to plan ahead

I did something big and exciting today!

From the outside, it looked like I sat on my couch for four hours. But on the screen, over the internets, I threw my hat in the ring to be a blogger for LATAM Airlines. The prize includes flights to South America plus a monthly stipend, for up to 12 weeks! I do need your vote though, so click on that link!

To be honest, I had resolved to leave South America on my mental back burner until our lives moved us back to the Western Hemisphere. Flights would be cheaper and I could focus on conquering -- er, traveling around -- Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, wherever the discount flights can get me while we're here. But this crazy opportunity stirred up all of my nostalgia and wanderlust like a brisk breeze through a pile of autumn leaves.

I loved (loved LOVED) Ecuador, for so many reasons. It was my first big trip traveling completamente sola, everyone I met was welcoming and kind, and I grew a lot as a young person. Plus the vistas were breathtaking, the city was historic, the dancing easy and free, and the friends were genuine. So, even if I had hated Ecuador, I would always have had a soft spot for it.

But now, I'm looking forward: what's next? Where to go?

I can't help but salivate at the possibility of going to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). I have been fascinated with the island and those statues ever since I heard the Easter Island song by Throat Culture on Prairie Home Companion in fourth grade. I learned more about it at the Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo in December, since the guy responsible for Kon-Tiki also spent a lot of time researching, excavating and re-staging theories on Rapa Nui.

And I want to go to Buenos Aires. For no reason other than I hear about it so often as the Paris of South America. And it turns out they have a relatively extensive network of bike lanes. And I could take a tango class and try the steak. I hear it's a specialty.

And I want to see Machu Picchu. Because Machu Picchu.

And I want to find all the teeniest tiniest places in between. Where are the Kansas Cities of South America? And which way is the beach? And how high is that mountain? And what time does the art museum close? And where can I find a bike rental shop? Or a really good cafe?

All those things. I want to know all those things.

And let's be real, three months will probably just leave me wanting more. But I'll want to get back to snuggle that guy I married (who is Amazing and Supportive and absolutely on board with this) and I'll probably want to wear something different after all that time, too.

So here's hoping. And don't forget to vote!

Three tours you should take in Munich

Munich is a beautiful and welcoming city. If you're only in Munich for a couple of days, there are still great ways to see the city. Here are three walks you should take to appreciate the city, its history and of course — the beer!

1. Sandemans "Free" walking tour

For a complete overview of Munich's history, and a walking tour of the city center, Sandemans is the way to go. While it is technically free, the tour guides will ask for tips at the end. It's pay-what-you-can, so if you are a poor college student this is a budget way to learn about Munich. What I enjoy about Sandemans tours is each guide puts his or her personality into a tour, so it's a little different every time. And, it starts in Marienplatz just in time for you to hear the famous, poorly tuned glockenspiel. Something you really only need to hear once in your life.

2. Any tour of Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

While it's a heavy subject, I think it is hugely important for anyone to tour Dachau. The immensity of World War II sets in when you can see first-hand what conditions were like during the Holocaust. We once again went with Sandemans (tour supply was short over Christmas), but there are several highly-recommended guides on Trip Advisor who lead smaller groups. I do recommend you go with a guide instead of walking the grounds and reading the placards. My husband has done both and felt he had a much more meaningful experience with an expert than he did on his own. Good guides also have answers to your obscure questions.

3. Build-your-own Beer Tour

Ok, this is cheating a little bit :) But it's so easy to find beer in Munich! Start at the iconic Hofbraeuhaus (the atmosphere is electric!), but then make it your mission to never drink there again. Try the Jodlerwirt, Augustiner, anything on this map, or turn to Yelp if you're really stuck. And if tours are just how you like to travel, the Internet has you covered there, too. Check out these bar crawls (but don't blame me if you're "bro"ed out by the end of the night).

Prost!

An ode to dirty dishes

(Not my kitchen.)

I'm sure it could be worse
I don't mean to complain
But the dishes in the sink
are frankly just a bane.

They're always there, just staring back
From where they're perched beside.
The sink is stacked, nowhere to pack
another bowl inside.

I realize this is trivial
(In the grand scheme of my day)
But they taunt me, unequivocal,
"No prob, we're here to stay!"

What's the use of washing up?
I know they'll just be more!
The forks, the spoons, the bloody cups,
about to spill down to the floor.

I bought more flatware at IKEA.
Thinking, "Surely! This will help.
Instead of washing every day,
I'll have extra on the shelf."

Thwarted! I've decided,
That word describes my troubles.
More dishes mean a brief reprieve,
But in the end it's double.

Another podcast streaming,
— careful not to drop the phone! —
Moth, Radio Lab, and Serial,
At least I'm not alone.

The foods that stick to dishes
should be ranked from gross to bleak.
Turns out yolk dried on the side
Could soak easily for a week.

The sponge has gone from white to gray
The water's quite opaque.
The soap has gummed right over
I'd squeeze harder, but my hands ache.

Neither can I claim
A machine would do the trick.
Before the move, stacked pots and pans
Mostly likely made guests sick.

The irony in all of this
is obvious for some:
If I'd washed them before writing this,
I'd already be done!

London has a Roman Amphitheater: a tour of Guildhall Art Gallery

The more I complete off of this 101 Free Things to do in London list, the more glad I am to have found it. There are so many things to do in London once you cross off all the popular sights! And better yet, I'm realizing how easy it would be to tailor a trip to any set of interests. Get off the beaten path!

I hadn't heard of the Guildhall Art Gallery, despite its rather royal ties (the Queen has her own bathroom off the main hall) and ancient history hidden in the basement. It showed up twice on the 101 List: my challenges (which I chose to accept) were to see a Rossetti painting and the ancient Roman amphitheater.

I happened to visit on a Saturday, when the gallery offers a few free introductory tours of the space. Suuuuuper handy as I wouldn't have realized the Rossetti painting is within ten steps of top of the main hall staircase. The guide also told the group why the painting is significant, and pointed out mistakes and factoids about it. I always feel I gain a lot from a tour, and the fact that it's free is a nice bonus.

Anyway, here's the Rossetti that I would have otherwise missed!

We also saw a property deed signed by Shakespeare, as well as one of the original copies of his complete printed works. 

Finally, the tour ended in the middle of what was once the Roman amphitheater in the city of Londinium, circa 70 A.D. I had no idea this even existed (and I'm a geek about ancient history)! The foundations of the main walls are still there, but the structure had long been demolished and covered by a couple thousand years of dirt and new buildings.

The story goes, when the city of London started excavations to rebuild to gallery in the early 90s, archaeologists realized they were literally in the center of the amphitheater, which they'd been trying to find for decades. So, because of its historical significance, the gallery had to completely scratch the original blueprints, and figure out a way to build around the ancient structure. So, in essence, there is a one-story slice of ancient earth preserved between the new floors of the Guildhall Art Gallery. They carved around it, even preserving the gravel and dirt! You can walk where gladiators and emperors entered the archway, and see how the Romans engineered underground water pumps to keep the ground from getting too swampy. Crazy!

A final neat touch is in the square out front of the gallery: the black stone line in this photo traces the outline of the original amphitheater. An homage to the structure and the history. I love stuff like that.

Also, this painting of Clytemnestra is intense! She just murdered Agamemnon and looks like she's ready to jump off the canvas to give stitches to snitches, so don't tell her I told you!

"Best cure for a headache? Decapitation." 

There's a fish in my phone booth: Lumiere London 2016

First of all, it was really weird to write "2016" in that headline.

We've greeted the New Year rather slothly: three weeks of house guests, holidays, meeting new family and travelling meant we were excited to sit and binge-watch Parks and Recreation for several nights in a row. I didn't document that part, but trust me — it has been one big, poofy snuggle-fest.

As for new year's resolutions: I don't have one. BUT, I am trying to practice being present when I'm out wandering. It's such a temptation to take photos of eeeeeverything that I've found myself not actually looking at my surroundings; not being present. So, new rule: try to only take ten (good) photos. Then, put the camera/phone away and look at the world with my eyeballs. Todo el mundo is taking photos anyway. I'm happy to take a few of my own to share, but the internets will also be full of much better, higher-quality photos than I could take (case-in-point via Secret London). So my prerogative has become to let them do that, and let me-self enjoy the scene.

Also, wtf, "prerogative" has two Rs?? Since when?!

Last night we finally found some motivation: Lumiere London, a light festival around popular central London locations. I'm not totally sure why it's happening, other than to add some light into the dark and cold winter nights. (It's finally feeling cold here — nearing freezing temps — though still not as cold as the Midwest winters we're used to.)

We wandered over to Grosvenor Square, Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus to check it out. The experience was neat, just because the major carriageways (er, streets) were shut down from traffic, and pedestrians flooded in to see the displays. Some of the displays were ingenious — I loved the fishy phone booth and the fishy lanterns... maybe I just like watching fish? — and some were kinda meh. There are still a few displays over by King's Cross that we haven't seen, so watch this post for updates maybe.

And, if you know him — or even if you don't — wish a happy birthday to the dude pictured below, in front of the elephant posterior! It's his birthday today, and I like him a lot.

Grosvenor Square:

Oxford Street/Regent Street:

Piccadilly Street:

The Museum of London explains the history of London for those of us who aren't that in to history

Alternate title: "The Museum of London: a museum so nice I've been there twice (in the last week!)."

As prompted by this article of 101 Free Things to Do in London, I stopped by the Museum of London last week and was thoroughly impressed by how in-depth its displays are. I couldn't wait to get back.

That day I only had about an hour to spend perusing, and I made it through half of the first floor, which is roughly through to the Bronze and Iron ages (right around the turn of BC to AD, even though no one knew that at the time). The Romans hadn't even invaded yet!

These are axe handles, but to me the look like bike seats. So naturally, I took a photo.

And as a special treat (or perhaps a daily occurrence? It was there again today!) there was a table staffed by volunteer experts. I held an oil-pot that was 2,000 years old! It was made 2,000 years ago, sat in the ground for 1,980 years, and then it somehow found itself in my grubby little hand. Too. cool. (They also had a copper ring, complete with ring finger bone, on display. I did *not* hold that.)

Today I found myself in the area again, and with a lot more time on my hands. Starting where I left off, I meandered my way through history. I'm admittedly terrible with dates and history, but this museum really worked for me. I could easily follow where I was in time, and since the location didn't change I found myself filling in several gaps in my mental timeline of world and European history.

For example, I learned...

• after the Roman occupation the area around London (Londinium) was abandoned and fell into ruin. 
• The plague killed one in five people in London, and the remaining people tried to fend off germs with "nice smells" like lavender, since they thought the disease was carried by "bad smells."
• There was a British civil war. 
• The country ousted the monarchy for ten years in the late 1500s. Then they brought it back. 
• The fire of 1666 was devastating. And huge. And burned for five days. Can you even imagine?!
• Also, WWI and WWII were Much Bigger Deals in the UK. The longer I'm here, and travelling within Europe, the more I'm sure that will really set in. 

Along with the history, there are several interactive displays, making the museum excellent for families with kids. You can literally touch, listen, watch, even smell certain parts of history. (The smell is just the lavender, nothing gross!) The movies are good lengths, and don't require very much concentration to follow (one is just clips from the 1920s-40s with music and captions). There are also mini scavenger hunts and some computer games with kid-friendly narrators. 

As I learn more about London, I bet I'll find myself returning to different rooms at the Museum of London, because each room has so much information to take in. Wandering through took at least three hours (for me, that was over two visits), and after a while I wasn't reading much, just scanning headlines and skimming paragraphs that piqued my interest. 

It definitely helped me appreciate more of the history of my adopted city, and I'd recommend it for adults and kids alike! 

Big, plastic boards with items to find around the prehistoric exhibit.

Looped video on the wall in the first exhibit:

Computers with more information:

Comic book-esque history of the Romans in London:

Recreation of housing in the 800s (fully explorable)

"The first map of London"

This cascade of TV screens alternated between synchronized video / text

Platform 9 3/4

I found this article with 101 free things to do in London, and I'm going to check off two each week I'm in town. Ambitious? Maybe! Too ambitious? Also a maybe! But after one whole week I am still on track. Yesterday I visited the Museum of London (proper post later), and today was...

Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter at King's Cross Station! 

Because we're nerdy like that :)

They have prop scarfs for each Hogwarts house (I chose Ravenclaw, though I'll admit I'm not actually sure which house I'd be) and two very enthusiastic, probably-getting-paid-minimum-wage staff members to help you stage photos that look like you're running or jumping through to the platform. You can see one of them throwing Britton's scarf in the last photo. It's all free! You can, of course, buy your "professional" photo at the gift shop located just steps away for the low-low price of £9.50 (currently $13.75). Thanks but no thanks, FREE is just fine with me!

Wouldn't mind running into Neville these days, either. Mmmmmmm...