[travel] Strange propaganda :-)

It's weird to be in a totally strange country and be sudenly confronted a giant and confusing poster depicting the destruction of the main landmark from your hometown.




Since I've been living in a cave, pop-culture-wise, it took me a couple of minutes to figure it out, but my first guess was right.

Taken by me in Riga, Latvia.

[travel] Fake vs real Art Nouveau.

Riga (Latvia) is supposedly famous for its Art Nouveau district. When I got there to see it, I was depressed to find a whole lot of prefab gaudy doohickies attached to older buildings. According to a guy in my hostel, that's exactly what happened. A local businessman ordered a bunch of premade highlights out of a French Art Nouveau “modernize your building with these easy adornments” catalog. So the whole thing looks lame, ovverdone, and tacky.

Yes, but isn't that the point? No, here's how to do gaudy properly: I found this lovely building in Budapest. The difference is that the building was designed from the ground up to be Art Nouveau and it was actually conceived of as a harmonious whole.

Riga's Art Nouveau quarter:




The awesome building in Budapest:





It seems like any new form of architecture that catches on is simplified and standardized because it's suddenly in high demand and mediocre architects need a way of turning out large numbers of such buildings in short order.

[travel] Leaving Eastern Europe...

After a couple of weeks in Eastern Europe, I'm departing by night train to Zurich.

Here's my super-quick review of everything:

Riga (Latvia) – There's not too much to see here monument-wise, but the city is bustling, and the country's story of standing up to the USSR is inspiring. The biggest surprise -- the prevailing fashion among women here involves dressing like either supermodels or backup dancers in a pop music video... and that's during the day. This doesn't correspond to backward gender roles; they have had a female prime minister. Also, despite the general mediocrity of the cuisine I experienced, they have the second-best supermarket I have ever seen – Stockmann's. This place has everything, including tropical fruit I last saw in Vietnam (for 1/20 the price).

Vilnius (Lithuania) – It's a lovable old town that's much more chill than Riga. There also isn't too much here of note, but the people are nice and it's a pleasant place to relax. There's a small and untouristy bohemian culture in an eastern suburb.

Warsaw (Poland) – This city was thoroughly devastated during World War II. Its enormous Jewish poulation was wiped out, and over 200,000 residents died during a failed uprising against the Nazis in 1944. It has since been rebuilt to a good deal of splendor, and is now a fairly interesting place to visit.

Krakow (Poland) – Krakow itself is a fascinating, though touristy, place with a compact old town. It boasts the best hostel I've ever stayed at (Greg and Tom's). Around Krakow are a lot of things of note, including Auschwitz and the Weilizca(sp?) Salt Mine.

Budapest (Hungary) – Budapest is quite large and there's a lot to see, but I didn't find the city overall to be particularly inspiring.

Prague (Czech Republic) – Prague has been the highlight of my Eastern Europe tour. It's full of beautiful buildings, it has impressive monments and museums, and it's rich with history. However, most importantly, it's continuing to grow and evolve. There's a huge music and arts scene here and a strong sense of national cultural pride. The residents want Prague to rival the great cities of Western Europe. Yes, beers are still $1.

Note that Prague is also jampacked with tourists, so do yourself a favor and don't go in midsummer.

[travel] The Switzerland-Italy phase shift

Phase shifting.

When I was 18 and spending a summer running around Europe, I enjoyed the shock value of taking night trains between Switzerland and Italy so much that I did so several times. The stereotypes of Switzerland and Italy are cultural polar opposites in just about every way – clean/dirty, organized/disorganized, reserved/gregarious, low corruption / high corruption, secretive / wide open, uptight/laidback. It's a social transition, though there are certainly visual elements to it.

This time, I did the train ride during the day. The scenery was absolutely stunning, as the Swiss more or less constantly had to either use bridges or tunnels for a good 200km of the route. I sat, patiently waiting to slide across the Swiss/Italian continuum. It ended up being somewhat discontinuous. At Lugano, a city that at least from the train rivaled Santorini in natural beauty, a gaggle of Italian speakers entered the train and it was instantly livened up, much to the chagrin of the curmudgeonly British vacationers across from me. (They're going to Florence. Good luck with that.)

So a few days later I went back to check out this little transition point. For you bay area folk, Lugano is like an Italian version of Sausalito, run efficiently by the Swiss, and with much more mountainous terrain. (For the rest of you, Sausalito is a pricey but cute and chill seaside town across the bridge from San Francisco) It's balmy enough that palm trees can grow naturally here, lending the plae a vaguely tropical feel. It's quite possibly the best of both worlds... Italian food and liveliness with Swiss beauty and efficiency.

[travel] PSA. The world is round. I have verified it.

In Zurich I finally intersected my path from my post-Freshman-year trip to Europe. This is exciting because I have finally managed to verify firsthand that the world is in fact round. I've now traveled to the same location by going east from the US as well as by going west.

There have been various other things I've felt the need to verify firsthand:
- The atomic bomb (saw the damaged buildings in Hiroshima)
- The Holocaust (saw the remains of Auschwitz)
- The destruction of the world trade center (was in NYC in 2002)

Swiss Chocolate vs Mr Snob.

I went to to the most famous chocolate shop in Zurich. The small chocolate truffles were excelleent, though no better than you could get at Cocoabella. In addition, their selection was much smaller than Cocoabella. Finally, they had very few bars on offer, and I was sad to see they were selling Lindt there. Lindt is decent, but there are far better brands. I did find a large gourmet supermarket with a better selection, but so far the best chocolate I've had is called Cafe Tasse, which I've found in Riga and nowhere else. It's a Belgian brand. (cue digression on Swiss-Belgian chocolate rivalry and much chocolate-eating)