A Long Goodbye (Part 2)

This next part is going to be less detailed, more for excess of stories and lack of time than anything else. Like my earlier post about Munich, I’m going to do a bullet point list of things. If I forget anything, I’m certain someone else has taken pictures, or written it down. We’ve got a lot of excess to sort through, that’s for sure.

• After our recovery period post-London, we went to Salzburg in Austria. It’s another old European city like Prague that escaped most of the major destruction of WWII, and so it’s still colorful and winding and gilded. In Salzburg, they seemed to love four things. 1) Good food, like the excellent beer house we ate at. 2) Fine coffee; it was impossible to go a block without seeing at least two cafes. 3) Gourmet chocolate: We stopped at a store that had samples on conveyer belts, and a fountain for sampling their thick hot chocolate. 4) Classical music, because it was after all the birthplace of Mozart. As I love all four of those things, the city and I got along well.
• Also in Salzburg, we toured our first real castle. We’d seen a number of palaces and small castles in Germany and England, but this was an actual keep. Positioned on a mountain over the river running into the city, it was a fortress of towers and slitted windows where archers could rain down arrows. There was even a torture chamber, and if you looked out the windows you could see manacles set in the stone where they hung unfortunates. The castle had never been conquered by an invading army, and I could see why.
• I will desperately miss being able to travel places on trains. Being able to grab breakfast at the train station and then hop onto a train for Austria or the Czech Republic, settling down into our seats and kicking off our shoes rather than having to focus on a long draining drive, that was fantastic. The same can be said for the city trains and underground systems, which were wonderfully easy to navigate in Munich and London.
• It can’t be said enough how absolutely wonderful our landlords were. They treated us with every possible kindness, inviting us to the waterpark with them and even taking us out for Greek on our last night here. I never expected them to take much interest in us, but instead they went above and beyond, caring not only about our comfort but also about our general enjoyment of our trip. If we come back here in the future, I only hope we can stop by again.
• There are some small things that it’s going to be hard to lose, too. Fresh baked bread every morning from the bakery that is literally a five minute walk down the road. Beer that’s cheaper than soda. The small Italian restaurant across from our closest train station that served us up amazing pizza and drinks while we waited for our taxis.

All that said, I can’t wait to come home. These five weeks away have been wonderful, but apart from running out of money, I’m also starting to feel the edge of homesickness. It will be nice to come home to friends and family, to my own bed and space. Being able to understand everyone again will come as a nice plus too. Nonetheless, even as I leave I’m already planning my next trip back. For the World Cup, at the very least. Even in a month, we only scratched the barest hint of the surface of what just Germany has to offer, let alone the countries that we only skimmed or even missed altogether. For now, though, I get to say goodbye.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland. Du bist wunderbar.

A Long Goodbye (Part 1)

So it’s our last night in Germany, our very last night. I shouldn’t even be up, considering we’re heading into the airport at 6am. But I’ve always had trouble sleeping before trips, so I decided to take a moment to write up this last miscellaneous collection of details for posterity. Some of it is stuff that I should have written up before, other things are general to our entire time here, and there’s also a small write up of our last few days. I want to remember as many details as possible, so sorry in advance for the hodgepodge style.

One thing I neglected to write about for far too long was the German victory over Greece in the EuroCup. This was before we even went to Prague, but I hadn’t taken any pictures (we were all drinking and occupied) and when we got home everyone was exhausted. Obviously, Germany didn’t win the cup itself, but that night they were riding high. We watched the match in a small Italian restaurant that Mike knew from a previous trip, drinking beers and eating pizza. The match itself was an easy win, Germany stomped Greece fairly hard, but every goal meant shouting that was echoed in the restaurant and out on the streets. And afterward, we went out onto Leopoldstraße, the long street that led past the University to the Old Gate, and it shut down.

All traffic had been cordoned off, and people poured into it from all directions. Bars had set up outdoor stalls and were pouring liters of beer across straight lines of cups, handing still dripping drinks out in droves. That night, ‘Deutschland!’ or even just ”Schlaaaaand!’ meant everything. It was an exclamation, a question of support, a resounding answer given. We joined a massive conga line, Jen danced on the roof of a bus stop, and we all ‘took a knee’ at least three times for the role call of player names that ended in everyone leaping to their feet and cheering. The radlers and Jägermeister were knocked back, and I stopped counting how many high fives and hugs we gave.

At the end of the night, we staggered back to the train station, Jen on my hip. Mike even managed, in the station, to defuse a fight between a German and Russian boy. On the train, we crowded in with people covered in white, red, black, and gold, and we sang songs until we got out of the city.

After the museum, we returned to Piccadilly, and walked into the Criterion. There, I had probably the best birthday dinner of my life. Duck leg confit with young broccoli stems and carrot puree, and then a gooseberry tart with raspberry sorbet. The service was old fashioned but not pretentious, absolutely excellent even though were three sweaty twenty-somethings in jeans.

The best of it, however, was the history and the company. I sat in the same building where ACD conceived Sherlock Holmes, where Dr. Watson met Mike Stamford, where Oscar Wilde held court and HG Wells hosted the first dinner of the Royal Academy of Sciences. We discussed the character of cities and life plans and whether or not adventure stories were literature, and it was like we were joining in some grand tradition that I’d only imagined before.

After dinner, we walked Regent’s Park, then had coffee on Baker Street before going back to our hostel. When we woke up the next morning, it was raining in London, and I was already planning my next trip back. Thanks so much to Mike and Jen, for being there with me!

And let thy feet

millenniums hence

be set in midst of knowledge

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, on the floor of the British Museum

Oh god, the British Museum. It was an astonishing building, and full of more than I could ever imagine. We saw the Rosetta Stone and pieces of the Parthenon, even Assyrian and Mexican relics. My favourite of the Mexican relics was one I was unfortunately not allowed to photograph, a mask made in the image of one of their gods. Its base was a human skull, and the mask was a mosaic of tiny turquoise tiles. The eyes were two discs of dark, polished obsidian.

It was there, in the museum, that I realized again how little time we had, how much there still was to the city. If we could give this two hours and barely see one floor, who could even tell what all we were missing about London?

Last of the fan stuff. Jen and I at Platform 9 and 3/4, of course.

More fandom crackery with me and Jen. Speedy’s Cafe in London and the now famous door of BBC’s modern day Sherlock.

The old University of London, down near Euston Square Station.

Alright, this photo has a special story that made me smile. In Holmes and Watson’s study, the guide would take a picture of the guests sitting in the chairs and trying on the deerstalker or Watson’s hat. Most of the guests sat on the left, and I was about to do the same, when I noticed that the violin and the chemistry set were on the other side. I switched quickly, and the attendant laughed. She said “You’re the only one to sit in the right chair yet today. The rest of them are already sitting down and I don’t have the heart to tell them.”

The Museum itself wasn’t so much a museum as it was a shrine to the stories, painstakingly crafted and lovingly maintained. I took far too many pictures here, so I’m going to post some of my favourites and leave it at that, since not everyone shares my insanity.

• ‘VR’ done in bullet pocks on the walls.
• Watson’s case notes.
• The bust of Sherlock Holmes
• Holmes’ bedroom. They had his disguise makeup kit, his deerstalker and magnifying glass, and even the Moroccan inlaid case that held his cocaine on the mantlepiece.
•  Letters to Sherlock Holmes. Even today, he gets loads of letters addressed to him every year, and they have a few displayed.
• Holmes’ Violin
• Moriarty, that most feared archnemisis, done as a wax figure

Baker Street Tube Station, and 221B. 

• It’s hard to tell, but the profile of Sherlock on the station wall is made up of tiny repeats of the same image in miniature, and so was the border all the way through the station.
• Not that it surprises anyone, but I was barely keeping my excitement in check at this point. We ducked into the Sherlock Holmes gift shop to buy our tickets for the museum, and it was a wonder I didn’t lose all my money at once. Some of it was absolutely amazing. Though I doubt that Holmes would have appreciated plushie versions of himself, somehow. I snagged myself a metal Baker Street sign and a few of their business cards, which are printed to look like Sherlock’s.
• After grabbing tickets, we waited in line with a bunch of other people. A man dressed as a police inspector guarded the door to the museum proper. At least three of the people in front of us had on deerstalkers.
• {Please full view photos, they’re big.}