Berlin-->Nice-->Barcelona-->Paris

Guten tag (again)!

I’m back in Berlin! Once again my blogging consistency has failed and it’s been three some weeks since I’ve posted. To catch you up, if you’re interested, this is what I’ve done so far.

Berlin, Germany

I spent three days in Berlin recovering from tonsillitis, waiting for my ears to pop from the airplane’s descent (took four very painful days of waiting), waiting for my bank to understand that I would be withdrawing money from strange places and waiting for a train to Nice, France. I tried to spend as little as possible and just walked around the city for the duration of my stay.

I met up with an old friend (from pre-school) who accompanied me to Nice and on to Barcelona. We visited the Holocaust Memorial, which was more striking and eerie that I had anticipated; snacked on some currywurst at a little indoor market waiting for the rain to pass; and visited Soluna Brot und Öl, to see if the New York Times really knew what they were talking about. We bought a two kilo loaf of Rundling bread and some raspberry-ginger jam and snacked on a picnic bench outside a nearby church (and for days after…the loaf lasted us about a week).

Nice, France

We finally boarded a night train from Berlin to Nice the following day to arrive in a torrential downpour. We planned to stay three nights at the Villa Saint Exupery Hostel up on the hill waiting in anticipation of Barcelona where we were going to meet Claire, yet another friend from grade school. We spent two days wandering the beach, harbors and markets, especially admiring the fake-snow covered conifers displayed at the ubiquitous Christmas markets.

Barcelona, Spain

We met Jacob, a student from Stanford who was traveling to Barcelona day ahead of us. With no set itinerary, we cancelled our last night in the Villa and followed Jacob to Barcelona a day early. Together we took a free walking tour around Las Ramblas, the main road through Barcelona, and otherwise just wandered the city taking in sights like Gaudi’s Sangrada Familia.

The next day when Jacob had left, we met up with Claire and spent the next five nights in Kabul hostel off of the Placa Reial. Experiencing the night life in Barcelona requires one to sleep half the day if not more, as things don’t really get started until 2am and last until 6am. We still managed to be awake in daylight hours to see the Barcelona Zoo, the magic fountain and catch a movie at the Verdi Cinema. And lots of paella, tapas and sangria were consumed in those five days.

Paris, France

Claire returned to the States from Barcelona on the 21st. We said our good-byes and Owen and I set off North. We went as far as Montpellier then parted ways, he back to Nice, I to Paris. I hadn’t anticipated visiting the bank-draining metropolis, but it had the cheapest flights out to Dublin, my next stop, so made a pit stop in the interim.

I stayed at a 20 Euro a night hostel, the cheapest I could find, for three nights. I spent the following two days leisurely (and cheaply) seeing the city. In an attempt to travel cheaply I ate mostly out of a grocery marts (with the exception of some compulsory éclairs and crepes), enjoying some Muenster, camembert and bries on bread.

My first site was the Notre Dame Cathedral. I had intended to find an English bookstore, but the metro stop I got off at was coincidentally kitty-corner to the magnanimous church. Shakespeare & Co., the bookstore I was trying to find, ended up being right across the street and rather than finding a guide book as I had hoped, I walked out with a new Chuck Palahniuk novel and read several chapters at a neighboring café with an espresso and crepe. I perused the Jardin du Luxumbourg, the Pantheon perimeter (it was 11 Euro to go inside) and wandered the streets en route to the Tour Eiffel.

That night I visited the Eiffel Tower. I showed up before sunset to see it in daylight. I found another café around the corner and read and consumed copious amounts of espresso until twilight when the lights turned on. I retired to my hostel with a round of brie, a loaf of bread and an orange for a quiet evening.
The next day I circled the Arc du Triomphe (9 Euro to see the center) and the Musee du Louvre exterior. I stopped at yet another café for an espresso and éclair and read. A friend had recommended that I scale the Eiffel Tower at night so I returned for another go. I spent sunset perusing a Christmas market across just across the Seine. I enjoyed some warm Christmas wine and a chocolate crepe in the waiting. At twilight I paid 3.50 Euro to scale the 800 some stairs to viewing level one and two. I waited for over an hour and was on my way down when the delightfully tacky twinkle show started. When it was all said and done I descended the tower, headed back to the hostel and enjoyed some Muenster and rye and prepared for my early morning flight.

Dublin is another story. I'll update soon (this time I promise!).

Epic Blog Fail

I’m writing this post (or at least the start of it) in a quiet morning lounge in Frankfurt, Germany’s airport. There’s complimentary tea and coffee, free newspapers and the people greet me in German because they can’t tell I’m foreign (!). If you’re not a Facebook enthusiast or haven’t been in direct contact with me, you’re probably wondering why I’m in Germany… Well, I’ll tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was traveling abroad in Mongolia. “Mongolia?!” They all said, “Where is that?!”

“It’s a rather large country above China and below Russia and I’m ecstatic to go,” I said. “And I’ll keep a blog of all my happenings so that you can learn a little about what (and where) Mongolia is.”

FAIL.

I think I quit after Khuvsgul. I hope that you all have been following Glimpse as my weekly deadline kept me posting. As for the incentive-less blog-spot, well check my last post date. In any case I told many of you that I would be traveling the Trans-Siberian Rail from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow, experiencing the frigid temperatures of December Russia and seeing the Urals. I was going to depart Moscow to Helsinki and travel the Euro-Rail wherever my heart desired this winter’s break. I planned to meet a dear friend in Barcelona for a week or so, but other than that I was itinerary-less. In fact I never bought a ticket home, date TBD.

So what happened to the Trans-Siberian you might ask? Talk to the Russian Embassy. I unfortunately never got a Russian visa before leaving the States, hearing through the wireless grapevine that I could easily obtain one in country. I had three months, no problem. I acquired my visa application form in the cold concrete building in UB and even found a Russian speaking friend who wanted to accompany me (at least to St. Petersburg).

As you might know, Russians can be sticklers about who they let in their precious borders. We needed an invitation. No problem, we thought. My friend knew a friend in Moscow that we could register with and avoid the invitation fees. Some conflict of interest or limited amount of time (one of the two) meant that she couldn’t invite us, but was pleased to offer a residency for registry. We went to the Mongolian Russian Embassy website, clicked the red-white-and-blue link to an “official invitation” site and paid 56USD each for a little slip of paper to arrive by fax. Yes!

Harry, the man we were corresponding with, didn’t fax but emailed a PDF copy of our invitation. “Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Harry.” We drop by a little photo studio in the back of a clothing store in downtown UB, have some horrid portraits taken and photoshopped to oblivion and head to the Embassy.

When we dropped by the Embassy last they said, since we were registered for over 90 days in Mongolia we could obtain a visa no problem. We show up with our appropriate documents and you guessed it, get denied.

“Do you have the original copy of your invitation?” the woman asks.
“Um, no. We used the promotional site on your website, to which the protocol is fax, although we got a PDF.”

“No, I’m sorry we need the original in order to get your visa. Oh and you’ll also need three weeks for processing.” Harry!! Peeved, running out of time and visa-less I immediately contacted Harry asking him if there was any way we could have the original copy shipped to us. ASAP.

Being in country for about two months at that point, I had discovered the reason we call it ‘snail mail.’ Mongolian mail is incredibly slow and rather unreliable and as far as the students and I were concerned a big basket of envelopes en route to the U.S. sit around until the basket is full and only then are they shipped to China and then to the U.S. Parcels have been averaging three weeks or more and at a $100 DHL charge, the short time constraint wasn’t worth the price. So we gave up. On to Plan B.

My dear friend would still be waiting for me Barcelona and tickets across the Pacific were far too over-priced. So on November 14th after much deliberation I booked a flight from Ulaanbaatar to Berlin. I would leave on December 8th from UB, fly to Beijing, take a red-eye to Frankfurt and arrive in Berlin at 8am on the 9th.
So here I am. In Frankfurt, ten minutes from boarding and less than two hours from setting foot on European soil for the first time. I’ve booked a hostel for a night in Berlin and then the continent is mine to explore. I’ll be in Barcelona on the 15th, as promised, but otherwise I am still itinerary-less. Since I failed at updating you on my Mongolian ventures, I’ll do my best to keep tabs on my Euro-trip.

Wish me luck, pray that my tonsillitis will go away and stay tuned. And if I’ve disappointed you in blogging, call me when I’m back in the States and I’ll make time to grab coffee and re-tell all my Mongolian stories in person.