It took me awhile, but I finally set foot on Canadian soil for the first time and knocked back a Guinness in Toronto.

Damon and I were in Buffalo, New York for our friend Keith’s wedding, and the three of us (along with new friends John and Steve) spent an afternoon taking photographs on the American side of Niagara Falls. (Okay, the four of them were taking photographs, and I was posing with parrots.) Given that I could clearly see Canada from where I was standing, and that Toronto was a mere 90 minutes away, I just had to hop over the border and cross Canada off my list.

For those of you who are unaware, Niagara Falls is the border between Canada and the United States. There is a healthy amount of debate over which country’s side is best. I now have an answer: the American side is far prettier, but only when viewed from the Canadian side. (The opposite view — looking at Canada from America — is basically a long row of very tall hotels.)

While not related to Toronto, I am obligated to mention that the most amazing buffalo wings ever can be had at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, which — perhaps not coincidentally — is where buffalo wings were first invented. Prior to this trip I thought I didn’t care for wings. I was wrong. It was like they injected butter into the chicken … plain delicious. (NOTE: The Anchor Bar at the airport, despite having the same name, does NOT serve good wings. Go to the real, stand-alone Anchor Bar in downtown Buffalo.)

If you’re in Buffalo for the wings already, you should also try Beef on Weck, a local specialty sandwich that is surprisingly delicious and, more importantly, that I have never seen anywhere else.

The drive from Buffalo to Toronto was uneventful and crossing the border into Canada took about five minutes (on a Sunday afternoon). The line from Canada into America, however, looked really, really long.

Seattle is known for its very pretty Space Needle and I knew Toronto had a CN Tower that was supposed to be even better. I was disappointed to realize the CN Tower looks like an Egg McMuffin on a skewer. Sorry, Canadians.

Seattle’s Space Needle:

Toronto’s CN Tower:

Damon felt I didn’t give the CN Tower a fair shake and convinced me to ride to the top. After paying $30 and waiting on four different lines for a total of nearly an hour, we got in the elevator to the top and looked down. Yawn. The only entertaining part was watching a woman with a fear of heights freak out about the glass floor.

Once it got dark, the CN Tower lit up and became passably more attractive. Still, I do not recommend visiting it.

I typically avoid tourist attractions and planned itineraries in favor of wandering a city and feeling its vibe. Canada didn’t feel any different to me from the U.S. (although Toronto didn’t quite feel like any other city I’ve been in, with the possible exception of Minneapolis), and the only differences (currency aside) I noticed were that the “Walk” sign symbol appears to be doing jumping jacks instead of walking, and only being able to buy beer at The Beer Store is hugely, hugely lame.

We spent the rest of the day wandering Toronto and Damon took a lot of pretty photos while I shivered in the cold. Unfortunately we got there too late (and on a Sunday, to boot) to see much … Kensington Market was basically closed (although we found some really great tapas at Waterfalls and I tried mango lhasi for the first time, which is OM NOM NOM) and so was the Eaton Center by the time we walked there.

Sadly, this was the most boring Guinness to-date. I picked out Fionn MacCool’s as my Irish pub of choice because I liked their website and they were behind my hotel. They were supposed to be open until 11pm, but when we arrived at 9:30 they were closing up. Lame. Cold and tired, we walked back to the Hilton and discovered the hotel bar, Tundra, had Guinness on tap… so we ordered a couple pints and then crashed for the night. The next morning we drove back to Buffalo (this time customs took 20 minutes) and hopped a flight back to Seattle.

Guinness in Toronto

Me Having a Guinness in Toronto

As always, thanks to Damon for photographing the trip. Make sure to check out all his photos from Toronto.

I had never been on a boat before, so we hopped a ferry from Tallinn, Estonia to Helsinki, Finland to spend an afternoon before flying from Helsinki back to Herzogenaurach, Germany. The ride was very comfortable and the view wasn’t too bad, either.

View from Tallinn to Helsinki Ferry

Once we disembarked, we wandered the residential neighborhood a little bit in search of a place to eat. Not finding much, we walked in the opposite direction and found a big street fair right on the waterfront where I bought some gifts and we ate reindeer.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Hotdog

Torikeidas: Home of Edible Reindeer

The Molly Malone’s in Estonia happened to have a sister bar in Helsinki, so we slowly wandered our way through the city and made our way towards it. We happened to pass an English-language bookstore, and stopped in to find some new reading material for the upcoming flight from Germany back to Seattle. I ended up getting Don Quixote, but I was amused to find a Sweet Valley High book:

Sweet Valley High

Aside from the fact the city generally smelled like sewage (others claim it does not usually smell this way, so maybe we were there on sewer-cleaning day), walking around was very pleasant. There were lots to see, including choreographed dance performances and dancing boogers:

Dancing Children

Dancing Booger

The weather was excellent, which didn’t hurt. We finally walked to Molly Malone’s and slid into a booth for a couple of cold pints of Guinness. Yum!

Molly Malone's in Helsinki

Guinness at Molly Malone's in Helsinki

Me at Molly Malone's

At the end of the afternoon, we hopped in a cab and headed for the airport, which had a significant amount of shopping and, more importantly, a Moomin!

Damon with a Moomin

All in all, Helsinki was a fun afternoon.

As always, thanks to Damon for photographing the trip. Make sure to check out all his photos from Helsinki.

We hopped off the bus from Riga and meandered to our hotel. Despite it being later in the day, there was a lot going on outside … Tallinn is a young and bustling city. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations, but it quickly became one of my favorite cities in the world.

Unlike the pouring rain in Latvia, the weather was gorgeous in Estonia. In fact, it was warm enough for a ponytail, but I didn’t have any hair elastics, so Damon improvised with a shower cap:

MacGuyver Ponytail

Estonia is a very walkable city, with a big cobblestone square full of restaurants and pubs — including Molly Malone’s, where we watched the 2008 Eurocup Finals and had a few Guinnesses. It was Germany v Spain, and while I expected a mix of fans from both sides (given that we were in Estonia), we were practically the only two people in the entire packed pub that wanted Germany to win. (Germany lost. Guess we didn’t want it badly enough.)

Guinness at Molly Malone's

Me Having a Guinness in Estonia

City Square

Molly Malone's

Every major city has a sex museum, and I usually avoided them, but we decided to check out the Erootika Museum (if only because Erootika is very fun to say). It was a sex museum. Nothing I hadn’t seen or heard of before

Brochure for Erootika Museum

Ticket for Erootika Museum

Me at the Erootika Museum

Despite it being a walkable city, it’s not necessarily a safe-to-walk city, as I learned when I nearly fell through a sidewalk grate into a deep hole. Watch your step.

Estonian Texas Honky Tonk

Estonian Hot Wings

Hoochi Mama

Estonia in its current form has only been a country since 1994, and it’s definitely odd to see a sign that says “Estonia’s Oldest Pub, Est. 1994.” Despite its painful past, Estonia has an amazing vibe … it’s strong and vital and seems, from my not-very-educated perspective, to be doing a strong job of respecting its past while embracing its future.

In the morning we hopped a boat over to Helsinki to complete our whirlwind weekend tour.

As always, thanks to Damon for photographing the trip. Make sure to check out all his photos from Tallinn.

Damon and I had one weekend left in Europe, so we tried to plot out how many countries we could realistically visit in three days. The itinerary we decided on was to fly to Latvia for a day, take a bus to Estonia, and finally take a ferry to Finland, where we’d catch a flight back to Germany and then fly back to the United States. This was actually the perfect amount of time to sample each of the three countries and I’d strongly recommend it to anyone else looking to cram a lot into a single weekend.

The first thing that struck me about Riga was the airport restrooms. I’m not sure if this is a Baltic thing or a Latvia thing, but there were only a handful of bathrooms and each one had a single sink and toilet (unisex). The airport was small but hardly the smallest I’ve ever flown into, so this intrigued me.

We hopped a taxi (our driver spoke perfect English and was very friendly) to our hotel, which was really freaking cool. The room was gorgeous and colorful, and I even enjoyed climbing the five flights of stone stairs to the room. The restaurant in the basement (where they served the complimentary breakfast) was like a cozy cave … I’m a chasmophiliac (someone who loves small, enclosed spaces) so this was right up my alley.

It was also next to a sorbet shop called John Lemon:

John Lemon's

Riga is a great city to roam around. There are many cobblestone pedestrian walkways and plenty of random streets to explore. It rained the whole time we were there, but we’re from Seattle, so that was nothing new. In fact, my favorite part was walking along the water with the rain beating down.

Riga Bridge in the Rain

Rainbow in the Rain

Riga After the Rain

We asked the hotel desk if they could recommend a place to eat that *they* liked — aka that was for locals and not for tourists. They suggested Lido, which is basically a Latvia version of Hometown Buffet, but with a traditionally-dressed staff. I have no idea what most of the food was, but I put various things on my plate, ate them, and did not die.

Damon managed a quick shot of his plate before a HUGE security guard rushed over and boomed, “DON’T PHOTO” which only resulted in our wanting to take more pictures by hiding the camera under a napkin. (Really, no photos in a buffet restaurant?)

Buffet Food at Lido

Secret Shot of Lido

There was no shortage of places to have a Guinness, but I picked Paddy Whelan’s. As you can see, we were sopping wet, but no matter — another Guinness in another country achieved!

Damon and Me Having a Guinness at Paddy Whelan's

Sopping Wet Guinness

The next morning we walked to the transit station and hopped a wifi-enabled bus to Tallinn, Estonia for the second segment of our journey.

As always, thanks to Damon for photographing the trip. Make sure to check out all his photos from Riga.

Finding a Guinness in Poland proved to be the greatest challenge thus far.

We rented a car in Germany for the weekend and had only two days to hit both Czech Republic and Poland, so we chose a Polish town closer to the Czech border, Jelenia Gora.

We didn’t ask it to, but our Garmin (navigation system) chose an absolutely gorgeous route through the Polish countryside and through a number of small towns that stood as grim reminders of what Eastern Europe has suffered. The drive was both breathtaking and sobering — and I say that as a left-brained person who usually can’t be bothered to look out the window. However, had it taken us that route during the winter, there is no way we could have made it, so proceed with extreme caution should you find yourself trusting a Garmin in rural Poland in the winter.

Just as in Prague, the Garmin got us to our destination city flawlessly, but seemed to find the absolute craziest route within Jelenia Gora to our actual destination, Palac Paulinum.

Palac Paulinum Aerial View

Palac Paulinum is a restored palace nestled in the woods, but not an unreasonable distance to walk to/from city center. The grounds were expansive, and the staff very friendly. Oddly, there were hardly any guests, so we practically had the palace to ourselves. (There are worse things.)

After unsuccessfully trying to ask the concierge how to exchange our Euro for Polish zloty (she didn’t know what “ATM” or “Geldautomat” [German for ATM] was, and my miming using an ATM with my debit card didn’t help), we meandered into town for dinner and hoped there would be a magical money exchanging stand somewhere. We actually saw one such stand, but they had just closed and tried helpfully to communicate (in Polish) how to get to another one. Lo and behold, once we turned onto the next street, there was an ATM about every ten feet. With English translations! Score.

There were plenty of shops and a few sundresses in the windows that I wanted to buy, except all the stores were open from 10am-1pm on Saturdays and closed on Sundays, so it was not to be. (Memo to Jelenia Gora: you could enjoy more financial success if your stores were open when people were out of work and could shop in them!) Nevertheless, this seems to be a common theme throughout Europe where Sundays are reserved as family days and families spend time together taking walks or relaxing at the local Eis Cafe (ice cream shop).

Google informed us that Belfast Irish Pub was in Jelenia Gora, so we headed there expecting the usual young Irish ex-pat and Guinness on tap. Fail. The pub was about ten square feet, with two patrons and a lone, local bartendress. Our request for a Guinness was met with confusion, and she asked the other people in the bar if they spoke English. We’re pretty sure she was mocking us as she looked at the other two patrons with a confused expression on her face and said “hallo, Guinnenski?”. Giggling ensued from both the bartendress and the patrons.

One guy did speak a little (“klein”) German, although at that point we were really confused because “Guinness” never needed a translation before. No one there seemed to have any idea what a Guinness was, so we left in search of dinner and figured we’d find a Guinness at one of the many beer gardens in the square.

Fail again. Plenty of beer, nary a Guinness in sight.

We sat down for dinner at the Retro Restaurant and enjoyed a salmon and halibut, respectively, entree heaping with colorful salad and french fries, and a beer — for 55 zloty ($25 USD) total. Crazily cheap and delicious. Our very nice waitress spoke no English but fluent German, so we we navigated the meal just fine. I asked her if there was any Guinness anywhere, and she laughed (clearly recognizing what Guinness was) and said no.

Retro Restaurant Receipt

Hmmm.

We wandered back to the palace (stopping at every bar to check for Guinness, just in case) and ordered some pinot noir and a cheese platter to drown our Guinness sorrows. We then settled in for some Family Guy courtesy of Hulu (what else do you do in a Polish palace?) and promptly fell asleep within 30 seconds, at 8pm, wine and cheese untouched. Waking up hungry only to stare at a beautiful but dried-out cheese platter you can no longer eat safely may be a first-world sorrow, but it is a sorrow nonetheless.

In the morning we set about Googling Irish pubs in Poland to see if we could make a detour. We found one, about 90 minutes (one way) out of the way, but given that it was 8am, the prospect of hanging around the (by then boring) palace until it was late enough for this Irish pub to conceivably be open wasn’t very appealing. We also had a six-hour drive back to Germany ahead of us and wanted to stop in Dresden on the way, which would be more difficult if we started wandering Poland in the opposite direction in search of an Irish pub that conceivably didn’t serve Guinness (its population was a good 10,000 less than the already-small Jelenia Gora) and even more conceivably didn’t exist.

I started to accept the fact that a Guinness in Poland was not to be and headed to breakfast, where we were the only two guests. The view from the patio was spectacular, but breakfast was limited to bad coffee, cornflakes (note: the Polish apparently drink cream, not milk, with their cereal), and a tomato/cucumber/mozzarella salad that was actually tomato/zucchini/mozzarella salad.

The brochure for the palace highlighted a salt cave, so we wandered the grounds in search of a little spelunking. Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find it, so we asked at reception. She asked us to return in fifteen minutes because the cave was “on-off.” (??) Intrigued by a cave with a power switch, we Googled “salt cave” and learned it’s a popular Eastern European spa experience where you sit in a room and breathe salty air. The English translations assured us that spending 45 minutes a day in a salt cave (which charges by the minute) would cure every disease known to man, including neurosis.

Eager to cure our neuroses, we returned and followed her down some stairs, through the sauna, and to a door which opened onto … a three-by-six room with two lawn chairs and some positively garish blue and red lights glued onto a wall of salt.

After we stopped laughing, we plunked down to breathe some salty air (which was really piped in from who-knows-where) for a bit. Sad to discover I was still neurotic, we snapped some photos and wandered, still laughing, back to our room and then headed back to Germany.

After we’d been driving for awhile, we passed a supermarket and ran inside to see if they sold Guinness. (Perhaps Guinness had once offended Jelenia Gora?) They had an entire beer aisle, and Miller Genuine Draft, but no Guinness.

Now we were obsessed. If we drove by what even looked like a bar, we slowed to look for Guinness signs. As we approached the German border, we had pretty much given up hope, and decided to buy a Guinness in Germany near the border and drive back to Poland to drink it. (This is not cheating, because many countries do not have any sort of Guinness distribution, so if I’m to meet my goal, I have to bring my own. Still, it’s more fun if you get the Guinness in the country where possible, since the adventure of finding one is the whole point.)

Immediately before the highway onramp that would take us into Germany, we passed the Polish equivalent of what appeared to be Home Depot and Wal-Mart, called Carrefour. Willing to give it one last try, we went in and discovered it was actually a mall with, among other things, a grocery store.

There were security guards (or police? We couldn’t tell.) patrolling every inch of the place, and they wouldn’t let Damon go into the grocery area with his backpack.

I went in to take a peek, figuring they didn’t sell beer at all. I walked past a limited-access aisle full of hard alcohol, hoping that the beer wasn’t similarly off-limits as I wasn’t quite sure how to gain entry.

Luckily, the next aisle was freely accessible, full of beer, and most importantly, HAD GUINNESS!

The receipt for my Polish Guinness!

I walked to the line, beaming, bought my Guinness, and took a photo in the parking lot:

Eastern Europe has a strict 0.0 alcohol limit for drivers, and we weren’t quite sure what the policy on passengers and alcohol. It seemed bad form to drink beer in the mall parking lot, so we found a back road on a farm where I enjoyed my Guinness out of sight.

The moral of this story: if at first you don’t find Guinness, try, try again!

As always, thanks to Damon for photographing the trip. Make sure to check out all his photos from Jelenia Gora.

Since we were already in Germany, we decided to rent a car and knock Czech Republic and Poland off the list.

Eastern European countries have a high rate of vehicle theft, so you cannot rent a German car in Germany if you are going to countries on the prohibited list (like, say, Czech Republic or Poland). We ended up with an Opel Zafira minivan which we discovered all too late had no air conditioning. Whoops. (More on that during the drive back from Poland.) By American standards it was still a nice, new car, although since I didn’t do any of the driving (haven’t learned to drive stick yet) I can’t speak as to how it handled.

Before driving in Czech Republic you need to buy a sticker (which you can get at any convenience store near the border):

The fine for not buying this was huge.

We also rented a Garmin nuvi (navigation system), which we were told had strong coverage of Eastern Europe (moreso than other brands). It took us to Prague with no problem — that is, until we were inside the city and making our way to the hotel, at which point it had us drive down pedestrian streets (double-whoops) and then suggested we turn left into a wall (a direction which we ignored, unlike some people). The location of the hotel may have had some part in confusing the GPS as it was 50m from the Charles Bridge and situated right in the middle of the tourist district, where the streets are frequently overrun by wandering pedestrians. In the end we parked and decided to walk the last bit of the route to avoid killing any innocent Czechs.

Speaking of driving… if you thought you pay a lot for gas, when was the last time your gas receipt had four digits before the decimal place?

Gas = lots of money

We spent Friday night at the U Zlatého Stromu, which is quite literally at one end of the Charles Bridge.

(Does this chain look familiar?)

U Zlateho Stromu Room Card

The snazzy hotel bathroom

Couldn’t have asked for a better location. The view from the room was fantastic, if you didn’t mind leaning out the window for it:

(I cannot recommend booking hotels through Hotel Reservation Service enough. Awesome picks, every time, every country.)

The man at reception was very nice and spoke English well. (Hey, I’m busy learning German, so my capacity for Czech vocabulary is limited.) We chatted a bit about his feelings on globalization and Czech Republic’s impending adoption of the Euro. (Czech currently uses the koruna; at the time of this visit, 1 koruna = $0.06 USD.) He thought it was a positive step because if larger countries like Germany were adopting the Euro, it must be a better choice. (Selfishly, I prefer pre-Euro European countries because their currencies tend to fare better against the declining U.S. dollar.)

The hotel has a popular bar (there was loud partying outside our window until at least 4am, even though nothing else on the street was open much past midnight) and a 24/7 restaurant (the only one around from what we could tell during our 1am wandering). Somehow between 4am and 7am the restaurant transformed from a crazy party to a demure, formal dining room which served a delicious complimentary breakfast that included ample warm croissants (my second-favorite food, after Guinness), fresh fruit, and a brimming cheese platter, not to mention poached eggs and bacon. Om nom.

During our Garmin-inspired “tour” of the nearby area the night before, we saw a Guinness sign in front of a bar, so we headed there for a lunchtime drink. After sitting down and ordering our beer, we realized that the place, O’ Che’s, was a socialist bar named after Che Guevera. I couldn’t be less of a socialist if I tried, so drinking my Czech Guinness at O’Che’s was especially amusing. (We didn’t try the food, but they did have free wi-fi, which scores points.)

Would Che approve of being on a business card?

Prague was once the up-and-coming Eastern European city, until it was eclipsed by Budapest, which is prime to be eclipsed by [Split? Vilnius?]. (If the initial transition at all interests you, I can’t recommend reading Prague by Arthur K. Phillips highly enough.) I expected it to be more expensive than it was, but we were struggling somewhat to spend our last 500 koruna. We ended up purchasing two matted photographs and a cute WC sign from vendors on the Charles Bridge for around 100 koruna apiece.

We wandered for an hour, had some ice cream, and then headed off to end our Saturday in Poland.

(Many thanks to Damon for photographing the trip!)

On my way back to the States from visiting Damon in Germany, I accompanied him to Amsterdam for a conference. While I’ve flown through Schiphol a few times now, I’d never been in the city itself.

We stayed at Hotel Movenpick, which was nice enough and definitely centrally-located. However, it was snowing hard for most of our trip, and given my extreme hatred of snow, I did not do much venturing out into Amsterdam until the snow cleared.

Someone on Twitter suggested an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam, which turned out not to exist. However, we found a great tapas place instead that almost made up for our expensive cab ride to the non-existent Indonesian place.

Receipt for Tapas at La Mancha

Most of the Amsterdam trip was spent hanging out with Damon’s co-workers, but we did do a little wandering on our own and found a Guinness at Cafe Reijnders — mostly by accident.

Guinness at Cafe Reijnders in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is not a good fit for me. First, I don’t do drugs, and I was moderately concerned that I would order a coffee and wind up with more than a coffee. (I avoided coffee altogether, just in case!) I did not go to the sex museum because it felt too touristy, and I did explore the Red Light District, but the government has seriously cracked down on it and it was therefore tiny and lame. There were more couture boutiques than hookers.

However, Cirque du Soleil was in town, and I had never seen a performance before, so a group of us went. The show was fabulous and I had a great time. Afterwards, Google Local pointed me towards an Indonesian restaurant that was still open, Puri Mas, and we had an excellent and filling dinner.

Receipt from Puri Mas

The following morning I hopped a train to the airport and flew back to Seattle, one more Guinness down!

I’ve wanted to visit Vienna for years, so one weekend while I was in Germany, Damon and I rented a car and drove down.

The drive over was entertaining in and of itself, as we drove past giant chairs and a car with a NOM license plate.

A Huge Red Chair

See the License Plate?

In Germany and Austria, it’s the law that all cars must have snow tires. We assumed — in retrospect, naively — that our rental car came with snow tires, too. When did we realize this wasn’t the case? When we were stuck on a hill in the middle of nowhere in Austria in a blizzard.

There was a house and a small tavern nearby, but no one spoke English at either location and our primitive German wasn’t quite enough to convey “no snow tires.” The guys at the pub seemed to think we were just wimpy drivers who couldn’t drive with snow tires.

Did I mention we also had no cell reception (not that we had anyone to call)? However, we could Twitter, which made sitting in the car on the side of a pitch black road slightly more bearable.

Luckily, a very kind woman in a minivan drove past us, turned around and came back, and asked if we needed help. She spoke a little English and we spoke a little German, so we gave her the address of our hostel and she offered to drive us. YES. This woman was seriously awesome, as it was a treacherous drive down a very snowy and slippery hill at night. Worse, it turns out our hostel is next to a huge and very expensive hotel with a similar name, so this lady assumed we were going to the ritzy one — and still offered to drive us. (We eventually explained we were at the cheap hostel and she cracked up.)

The hostel had rock hard beds (ouch) but a gorgeous view:

View from the Hostel

Tired and hungry after nearly freezing to death on the side of the road, we went to a restaurant right down the road from the hostel, which had delicious (and beautifully presented!) schnitzel.

My Schnitzel

Damon's Schnitzel

Receipt for Colorful Schnitzel

The next morning we hopped a bus into downtown Vienna and began exploring. Feeling random, we saw a sign for the Vienna Zoo and decided to go. I had never been to a zoo before, and it was very sad to see the cramped giraffes and one particular orangutan who just sat by glass making a very, very sad face.

Ticket for Vienna Zoo

Vienna Card (for discounts)

Cramped Giraffe

Sad Orangutan

However, unlike how I imagine other zoos are, many of the wild animals were roaming freely amongst the visitors … there were peacocks just hanging out on the walkways, and many other animals completely outside of cages.

Peacocks Out and About

Animals Without Cages

By the zoo there was one of those garden mazes that we (eventually) navigated successfully, along with a small musical park where you could step on various stones and they made noise. All in all, a good way to pass the time.

We Made It Out of the Labyrinth!

Two things I noticed about Vienna:

they are very dedicated to recycling:

Recycle, or a Booger Will Eat You!

and there is someone dressed like Mozart trying to sell you a ticket to a damned Mozart concert every 10 feet. I was not expecting that level of Mozart spam.

Also, while the city is easily walkable, Vienna has some very… interesting… intersections:

Vienna Intersection

Someone suggested Charlie P’s for a Guinness, and on our way there we happened to walk past the Freud Museum and decided to go in. It was definitely cool to see Freud’s office.

Ticket for the Freud Museum

Next to the Freud Museum there was a shop that sold crepes, which was closed… which meant that I really, really wanted crepes. Alas, we couldn’t find any in the neighborhood, so we settled for dinner and a Guinness at Charlie P’s. (If you ever go to Charlie P’s, visit the restroom. Holy cow is it huge and gorgeous. It’s also downstairs, revealing a ghost bar below.)

Kissing Guinness at Charlie P's

Guinness at Charlie P's

Downtown Vienna was bustling and had a healthy nightlife. I’m not a clubbing person, but I do like to see a city that stays up late. Vienna definitely doesn’t have an early bedtime.

We debated staying in Vienna for another night, but decided instead to stop in Salzburg on the drive back to Herzogenaurach. Since I already had a Guinness, I decided to try to satiate my crepes craving in Salzburg.

Once in Salzburg, we wandered and wandered, checking every menu, but couldn’t find a crepe anywhere. Finally, we reached a corner and decided to give up and head back. The second I turned the corner, I found myself facing the menu of an Italian/German/Indian restaurant (part of the Hotel Der Salzburger Hof that served crepes. WIN!

Hotel Der Salzburger Hof

The food here was great, especially the Hawaii schnitzel and the crepes!

Hawaii Schnitzel

Receipt for Hawaii Schnitzel

With both a Guinness and a strawberry crepe in Austria checked off my list, we headed back to Germany by way of Munich (to check out the BMW factory).

Ad for St.Patrick's Day at Wheeler's Pub

This post is rather pathetic, because I spent over two months in Herzogenaurach, Germany and had a ton of Guinness … but, much as I don’t take note of everything I do in Seattle, once I was there for awhile, it didn’t occur to me to write stuff down. So, if you are traveling to Germany and want some advice on things to do/see, please drop me a line. Maybe I’ll add to this post over time.

I didn’t plan it this way, but I was in Germany for St. Patrick’s Day, much like I was in Hungary for St. Patrick’s Day in 2005. Wheeler’s Pub in Erlangen (right by Herzogenaurach) was having a St. Patrick’s Day bash, so Damon and I headed there.

There was a live Irish band playing, big green hats, and ample Guinness. What more can a girl ask for? Guinness in Germany … check!

I was hanging out in Santa Cruz, California chatting with my friend Kristen (my co-blogger over at Ethiopian Eats) about her impending move to Japan when I decided to pop out there and check out her new digs.

Contrary to popular opinion, last-minute flights are not always exorbitant – I flew San Jose to Tokyo (Narita) round-trip for $650USD, buying my ticket at the airport just prior to departure. My little sister lives in Tokyo, so the plan was to visit her for a week, then hop the Shinkansen (high-speed bullet train) down to Osaka to see Kristen for another week. I exchanged $100USD for yen at the San Jose Airport just in case (which turned out to be an excellent idea).

I took three years of Japanese in elementary school, but somehow they never covered how to order alcoholic drinks. (Tip: I later learned that Guinness is [effectively] “Guinness-oo beer-oo” — easy enough!)

Tokyo

Japan is hereby the easiest country ever to find a Guinness, as I found a beer stand selling (warm) Guinness right next to baggage claim. Goal accomplished.

But if you want to read about the rest of my adventure (which includes lots more Guinness), keep going.

How to Get Around Narita

There are basic English translations to navigate the (huge, clean, white) airport, but getting *from* the airport *to* your destination is another matter entirely. My sister told me which bus to take, so I just repeated the name to an official-looking woman behind a counter that appeared transportation-related, handed her money, and she handed me a ticket and pointed outside. I matched the number on my ticket to the number of a bus that pulled up, and off I went. If you don’t have such a sister, there is a subway train connected to the airport – find that, and use the map to find your approximate destination. If at all possible, figure this out before you leave for Japan.

(Not) Speaking English

Do not expect that the Japanese will speak English. In my two weeks there, I had to use my (very, very rudimentary) Japanese or my hands. I prefer it this way – no Japanese person comes to America and finds *any* translations, after all – but if you’ve never traveled outside the country before, I suggest getting your feet wet in Europe (where at least you can recognize the alphabet and match it phonetically) and then heading to Asia.

How to Turn American Dollars into Yen

A sidenote: many restaurants and shops take credit cards, but almost no ATM machine will work with your American debit card. You need to go to a post office ATM machine, which are only open during regular business hours.

Look for this sign to find a post office:

How to Ride the Trains

You’ll need to get a (pre-paid) Suica card to ride the trains around Tokyo. They look like this:

To buy one, go to an automated ticketing machine (there are English translations) and buy one. You can add fare in denominations of 1,000 yen. (At some stations you can buy one from a human, but they probably won’t speak English. Say “Suica,” hand them some yen, and smile, and you might get one.) You’ll then wave your card at the turnstile to enter and leave the station. It will show you how much is left on the card when you swipe it, and you can add more at any automated machine.

Somehow, I messed this process up twice and had to jump over the turnstile because I couldn’t read the error message. Oops.

Sumo Wrestlers

On my second day I went to an all-day sumo wrestling match. Before attending, this sounded like the most boring thing in the entire world… but I actually had a really fun time. Each match is *so* short (like, one minute long) that it kept my attention. Plus, I could drink beer while I watched. Beer makes everything more interesting.

How (Not) to See Tokyo

Don’t pay for the Tokyo City View. You can’t really see much.

How to Defy Your Most Deeply-Held Beliefs All at Once

Prior to arriving in Japan I had been a vegan for well over a decade. How I was going to maintain a vegan diet once presented with a menu of incomprehensible squiggles was another matter entirely.

So, I took a deep breath and decided that, in the spirit of my adventuresome nature, I would simply point at an attractive squiggle and hope for the best.

Squiggle #1 was *drumroll* …. raw horse!

When I fall off the wagon, I fall off the wagon.

(Incidentally, raw horse tastes a lot like roast beef, one of the only meat memories I had from childhood.)

I honestly couldn’t recognize 90% of the things I ate for the remainder of my trip. Particularly the authentic Chinese food (not the take-out you get in America), which to my eyes (and stomach) was a bunch of small plates of chicken feet. It very well may have been.

Other Random Tokyo Highlights

* Strawberry crepes. OM NOM NOM. They’re available everywhere, and they’re delicious. I bet I ate 10 of them. (They usually sell them in carts on the street, and you can just point to the image of the one you want.)

* While Starbucks employees may not speak English, they have a full English menu on the counter, so you can point to your order. Convenient. (Shame me all you like for going to Starbucks in Tokyo, but it was right next to the place I was staying and I needed my caffeine.)

* My most enjoyable alcohol experience was at Whales of August (Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku, 28-13). It’s a very small, very dark martini bar where all the drinks are named after movies (i.e. Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs). The best part: the waiters are *serious* about their drink mixing. We kept ordering more drinks just to watch them shake them – it’s like they’re possessed by evil spirits. Awesome. Go there.

* Blood-Type Condoms

Osaka

I enjoyed Tokyo, but I really loved Osaka.

On my ride down to Osaka on the bullet train, I learned how to use the restroom (which are only holes in the floor) while wearing a skirt and moving at 130mph. I also decided I needed a new challenge since finding a Guinness had been ridiculously simple.

The new challenge: an egg salad sandwich.

Mission: Egg Salad

After checking in at the Ramada Hotel (“Ramada hotel-oo” – I’m beginning to think there’s some truth to the idea that I can just add “oo” on to the end of English words and make it around okay), I walked around the neighborhood and found a 7-11. Curious what a Japanese 7-11 was like (although I had never actually been to an American 7-11 to compare), I went in and was immediately in heaven – lots of onigiri (a stuffed rice ball – sort of a sushi Hot Pocket), inari, and mochi!

I should probably mention here that sushi rolls are not particularly popular or prevalent in Japan – at least nowhere I saw. The only rolls I came across were in Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, a tourist trap. Go figure.

They also have cups pre-filled with ice, so you just have to add your beverage. Clever.

On my way out of 7-11, I saw an egg salad sandwich in the fridge. Japan, you are just too easy.

Curry, Curry, Everywhere

Blowing my cultural stereotypes to smithereens, there are five curry places on every block and absolutely no sushi. Hrm.

This sucked because I really don’t like curry, and since all I could do was point at random squiggles, I ended up with pork, and I learned that I really dislike pork.

Deciding nothing could be worse than more pork curry, I went exploring and found the Best Thing Ever.

An Efficiency Consultant’s Wet Dream

A restaurant run via vending machine.

How it works: You go up to the vending machine, push the button(s) for the food you want (beer, too!), and insert enough coins to pay. It spits out a ticket. You hand the ticket to the cooks, who give you the food you ordered.

Why isn’t McDonald’s run like this?

It also meant I had a very filling meal of tofu udon with a large Sapporo for about 400 yen (about $4USD). Hard to beat that!

Osaka Castle

At one point I wandered to Osaka Castle (“Osaka-jo”). The castle itself didn’t interest me – I don’t care for military history – but the grounds were huge and gorgeous (I wanted so badly to curl up with a book and stretch out on the lawn), and there were CATS and you could PET THE CATS.

KITTEH!

Osaka and Alcohol

The most important part!

Pig & Whistle – Lots of Guinness, and lots of young Japanese girls hitting on much-older Western men. (UPDATE: Sadly, the Pig & Whistle closed in July of 2008. You missed it. You’ll never be able to go. What are you waiting for, again?)

(David & Me at Pig & Whistle)

The Blarneystone – Lots of Guinness, and lots of young Japanese girls hitting on much-older Western men.

Murphy’s – Lots of Guinness, and lots of young Japanese girls hitting on much-older Western men. (Noticing a pattern here? I did.) However, Murphy’s also had fun bartenders who really know their Irish dances. It was hard not to smile and clap along. My favorite.

Other Travels

The Japanese train system is extremely affordable and easy to navigate – I took day trips to Kyoto (where I visited the very pretty Higashi Honganji, a buddhist temple) and Sekigahara (where my sandal fell down a sewer grate and I had to trek back four hours with one shoe!). There are big, clear English translations of station names, and maps inside the train to figure out how many more stops until your stop. If you can handle Manhattan subways, you’ll have *no* problem in Japan.

(View from Sekigahara)