American Idol and similar vocal performance shows are all the rage back in the US, but I didn’t know until last month that they all have roots you can trace back to Europe. I first started to hear mentions of Eurovision during trivia quiz night at the pub, but I had no idea just how big it was until the competition aired last month. That’s when all the blog posts started- I follow a lot of blogs from other folks who live in Germany, and after the finals were aired, there were lots of wrap up posts.
I wasn’t going to write about this, because so many other people have, but then I started to read up on the history of the contest, and I started to listen to the music.
It started in 1956. After Europe started to rebuild itself following World War 2, the European Broadcasting Union based in Switzerland tried to come up with ways of bringing together their member nations. They came up with Eurovision, an experiment in live broadcasting of a music contest that was based on an existing music festival from Italy. I say experiment because a multinational live television broadcast in 1956 was kind of a big deal.
The first Eurovision was held in Lugano, Switzerland in May of 1956 and it included just seven countries- Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. 2012 was the 57th year of the Eurovision contest, and 42 nations competed.
The format is simple- each competing nation presents a live song, often with elaborate choreography, and the winner is decided by vote. The winning country typically hosts the following year’s competition.
Sometimes, the competition launches careers. ABBA won the contest for Sweden in 1974 with “Waterloo.” Celine Dion won the contest for Switzerland in 1988, so blame them for her continued presence.
Speaking of Celine Dion, the winner this year sounded a bit like her. Loreen, representing Sweden, performed “Euphoria.” With her jumpy choreography, it’s kind of like watching Celine Dion having seizures.
A few weeks ago, I took an overnight trip to Frankfurt to attend a Thomas Dolby concert. The concert was excellent, but my train rides into and out of Frankfurt left me with plenty of time to do a quick exploration around the core of the city.
This is the main Frankfurt Bahnhof. It’s enormous inside.
I wandered into this shopping mall at one point while looking for somewhere to eat. I think this is where M.C. Escher would have shopped if he lived in Frankfurt.
Römerberg is the old center of Frankfurt. There’s a big square with a few restaurants and a variety of amazing old buildings.
Another building in Römerberg.
I can see how he does it, but this guy at Römerberg did warrant a double-take and a closer look.
There is an observation deck from the Main Tower where you can get a pretty fantastic view of the surrounding city, including the Bahnhof below.
Another, shorter observation deck can be found along the Zeil, a major shopping street. This one is attached to a Galeria Kaufhof, with a great rooftop dining experience.
Before last month, whenever anyone mentioned Barcelona to me, this is what came to mind:
Last month, a long-time friend of mine and her husband were visiting Barcelona for a family birthday event last month. I love exploring new cities, but I always have more fun if I’m doing so with another person, so this was a great chance for me to see Barcelona while catching up with Christina. On the Tuesday of that week, headed over to the Munich Airport. From there, Lufthansa took me to Barcelona for a very reasonable fee. The flight time from Munich to Barcelona? About 90 minutes. Easy peasy.
Getting around in Barcelona is also pretty great. The Aerobus takes you from the airport to the city center. It runs every five minutes during most of the day. Once you’re in the city itself, the taxicabs are very affordable, and there’s an extensive underground Subway system. A four-day/unlimited rides pass was just over 20 Euros. You can also rent bikes, if that’s your thing. I got around for the entire trip using just public transportation and two or three cab rides.
A quick note about technology: Whenever I leave the borders of Germany, I lose the ability to use my phone for mapping and location stuff- roaming data is absurdly expensive, so I just turn it all off. On this trip, I managed to get around for the entire stay using just two apps regularly.
The first app is a simple Metro app that uses your GPS to figure out the nearest train station, and it plots a route using the subway. The second app was the TripAdvisor app. This one has a huge list of attractions, hotels, and restaurants, and it uses the GPS to locate you on a pre-loaded map- no roaming data required. It also combines the GPS with the phone’s compass to make a really nifty “Point Me There” feature. Without this feature, I would never have found my hotel, and I would have gotten lost over and over and over again.
I won’t bore my six and a half readers with the day by day travelogue styled post that I originally wanted to write. Instead, I’ll give you the highlights.
Gaudí, Gaudí, Gaudí!
Antoni Gaudí was an architect and certified crazy genius who was responsible for a slew of Barcelona’s most famous sites. I’m going to nutshell them here, because I could easily write pages and pages and pages about these structures.
La Sagrada Familia – This enormous church has been under nearly continuous construction since 1882, and it’s expected to be finished sometime around 2028 using Gaudí’s original plans. One side very ornately shows the Nativity and the life of Christ. I’m standing in front of that side of the building in the picture below. The other side is more austere and it shows the Passion, the death of Christ. The columns inside were designed to resemble trees and branches.
Parc Güell – This is what happens when you set Antoni Gaudí loose on a park and garden complex. I only saw a fraction of this park, because it’s enormously huge and I was on foot and kind of turned around.
La Padrera – An apartment building designed by Gaudí, this is now part museum and part office space. You can go up on the roof, tour the attic, and even visit a sample apartment.
Casa Batlló – This building has a skeletal, fish-scale appearance. This was originally designed as housing for rich Barcelona folk.
Not Gaudí, But Still Impressive And/Or Interesting.
Arc De Triomf – Built for 1888 Universal Exposition, this is your typical enormous stone gateway. Very eye-catching, don’t you think?
Placa Espanya – Placa Espanya holds several very impressive structures. First of all, this is where the Font Màgica (Magic Fountain) is located. Thursday through Sunday nights, after about 9pm, there’s a water show set to music. If you’ve ever seen dancing fountains at Disney or the Bellagio, then this is nothing new to you, but it’s still fun to watch. Also in the Placa Espanya are Venetian Towers, a scale replica of the originals from Venice which were a gift to Barcelona for the 1929 Universal Exposition.
Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) – Often referred to by travel writers as the most beautiful concert hall in the world, this amazing space seats about 2200 people, and during the day it’s illuminated entirely by natural light. The sculptures behind the main stage are the figures of 18 muses. Their lower bodies are depicted in mosaic, and their upper bodies protrude from the wall. Each muse is playing a different musical instrument. If you take the tour, you get a lot of background about the decorations, the lighting, and the acoustics, as well as a demonstration of the pipe organ.
Flamenco – While flamenco didn’t actually originate in Barcelona, it’s still a long-running tradition; there are several Flamenco shows in Barcelona. We went to a dinner and show off Las Ramblas at an establishment which has been there since 1970. Dinner was at 10:00 PM and the show began at 11:30 PM, so it was a pretty late night. They have earlier shows, though. The food was spectacular, and the show was amazing.
There was a lot more. There is so much more to do than what I’ve shown here. I was there for four days and took over 600 photographs. Many of those photographs are visible in my Barcelona Flickr gallery, including many more detailed pictures of La Sagrada Familia and everyplace else I went in the city.
If you do visit Barcelona, you should try the tapas. The food was excellent almost everywhere I went. I particularly enjoyed my meal at Cafe del la Princesa in the old gothic quarter (Barri Gotic) near El Born.
I’ll close out this post with a few more photographs of things that I thought were interesting.
During our visit, we took a guided tour of the city, and it was pointed out that people who are frustrated with the Euro-zone financial crisis have “redecorated” the facade of the city’s main stock exchange.
Wandering around the city, playful children and live street music were everywhere. In that order:
And lastly, the Barcelona airport has a rather interesting feature- from the gate, inside security, you can walk out onto a sun deck and get some ice cream while waiting for your flight. This is brilliant.
When I was planning my trip to Berlin last month, I had a conversation on Ye Olde Facebook with my friend Heather about restaurants in Germany. I offered a lot of advice regarding how the experience is different from dining in the US, and I realized (not for the first time) that I really ought to post about this. I’ve been meaning to write this one for a long while. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
When you arrive:
Most restaurants in Germany do not have a ‘please wait to be seated’ sign. When you arrive, you are expected to simply sit down at a table of your choosing, although you should avoid any tables that have a ‘Reserviert’ (Reserved) sign. When in doubt, you should ask the staff.
Placing Your Order:
In places accustomed to tourists, it’s not uncommon for a restaurant to have an English menu. Sometimes you’ll be handed the English menu as soon as they hear you speak.
Typically, your drink order is taken first, and then they come back a little while later to take your food order.
During the meal:
In the US, a glass of water is standard in most restaurants. Here, you shouldn’t expect a glass of water with your meal unless you ask for it. When you do ask for water, the waitress might ask you if you want it with or without gas. This is because carbonated water is very common and popular here. If, like me, you prefer not to have carbonation in your water, you can ask for ‘still’ water and it will be given to you “ohne Kohlensaure,” without carbonate.
Don’t expect ice in your drink in most restaurants, either. There are exceptions, but not many- even cola is typically served at room temperature here.
Some restaurants have longer tables where you might find yourself sitting with strangers- I’ve found myself in this situation a few times, and the preferred behavior is to politely ignore the other person. Sometimes you might find a talkative seatmate, but I haven’t found that to be the case.
When you’re finished:
The waiter will not bring you the check until you ask for it. It’s not uncommon for German folk to sit for quite some time after eating, have an espresso, and talk. More than one German traveler I’ve spoken to has expressed that the American habit of putting the check down while they’re still eating feels extremely rushed and rude. In Germany, nobody rushes you out the door.
Cash is king, especially when dining out. Credit cards are usually accepted in major places like hotels, but many restaurants won’t accept credit cards at all. American credit cards are especially problematic in Germany, because the banking systems are different here. If you don’t see credit card logos on the door of the restaurant, assume that you’ll need cash.
When the check is brought to the table, you will often be asked who is paying, if one person is paying, or if the check should be split. It is a common practice to split the check right there and then, and the waiter will give each person a subtotal based on what they ate.
You pay your check at the table, and the wait staff always carries a money pouch to handle the transaction. When the waitress brings you the check, she’ll give you a total. You say how much you’re paying- including the tip- when you hand over your money. For example, if I have a check of 23 euros and want to tip ten percent, I would hand them thirty and say “26 euros” (I usually round up), and they’d give me four back. Don’t leave your tip (Trinkgeld) on the table- that’s typically considered rude. If you want them to keep the entire amount you’ve handed over, you can say ‘stimmt so,’ or, in Bavaria, ‘passt so,’ and this is generally understood to mean keep the change.
Tipping is usually done at 10-15%. Any more and they’ll think you’re nuts. Absurdly generous, but nuts. In the US, people who wait tables have a tiny tiny wage and live or die by their tips, but here, they have a decent living regardless, so if you tip 10%, you’ll seem normal, not stingy.
That’s all the restaurant tips I have for the moment. I may revisit this post in the future.
It took me a while to really get used to Leberkäse, but now I think it’s delicious.
Leberkäse, literally translated to “liver cheese,” doesn’t always have any liver or cheese in it. It’s kind of like Bavarian meat loaf, and it’s delicious. Some people compare it to bologna. It typically consists of corned beef, pork, bacon, and onions, ground together and then baked like a loaf of bread until it has a crunchy brown crust.
One very common way to eat Leberkäse is to make a Leberkäsesemmel- you cut the Leberkäse while still hot in a slice roughly the thickness of a finger, and put it on a semmel (bread roll). Add some Bavarian sweet mustard, and sometimes sauerkraut, and enjoy.
There are a lot of variants on this food. I’ve eaten Pizza Leberkäse, and it really did taste like a pizza. Delicious! Some other popular variants include cheese or bits of paprika (bell pepper). Generally, though, it just looks like this:
This Leberkäse was eaten at the Weltenburger Klosterbrauerei. It was served with Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) and spicy mustard.
I’m going to be so overweight when I leave Germany. The food here is just too delicious.
It started in 1956. After Europe started to rebuild itself following World War 2, the European Broadcasting Union based in Switzerland tried to come up with ways of bringing together their member nations. They came up with Eurovision, an experiment in live broadcasting of a music contest that was based on an existing music festival from Italy. I say experiment because a multinational live television broadcast in 1956 was kind of a big deal.
Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV. 