"Drops of amber - the tears of mysterious Indian birds, Lamenting over the death of the hero Meleager..." - Sophocles, excerpt from "Antigone"







The final stop on our tour of Europe was Gdansk, my home town. It's a very charming little city, with a very nice old town lined with colourful stone houses. It's a port city, which means the connection to the sea is very much emphasized. The central meeting point is the fountain of Neptune.



Being on the coast of the Baltic Sea, it also boasts some beautiful beaches in the area. Though it was just a little bit too cold for swimming, the weather was great for lounging on the beach or taking a stroll down the pier.

Gdansk's most famous connection to the sea, though, is through its amber. Tonnes of the beautiful jewel wash ashore here each year, and for centuries the port was known as the starting point of the "Amber Road", the world's biggest amber trading route. We spent one morning looking for pieces of amber on the shore of one of the beaches, and Monika even found one! Granted, it was planted by me, and it was attached to a band of white gold, but when I handed it to her and asked her to marry me, she forgave me for tricking her.

"You think we all live in castles. And we do all live in castles. We've got a castle each. We're up to here with fucking castles. We just long for a bungalow..." - Eddie Izzard, describing Americans' views on Europe.



On Thursday we visited the medieval castle of Malbork (a.k.a. Marienburg), an hour's train ride south of Gdansk. Sick and tired of reading about all these castles on our blog? Here's a short version of the main ones we've seen on this trip:

Neuschwanstein - Built by a wistful king as a playground, meant to evoke romance and fantasy.

Prague - Used for centuries as a royal court, meant to evoke majesty and grandeur.

Malbork - Built by an order of Crusading medieval knights, meant to evoke power and strength.



For those interested in the long version, Malbork is essentially a military fortress built at the end of the 13th century. The focus on war shows, more so than at any of the other castles we visited. Towers, drawbridges, huge moats, and elaborate gatehouses dominate the architecture.

Paradoxically, in addition to being a seat of military violence, it was also a place of fervent religiosity. The knights were actually also monks, and the castle was fully equipped with a church, cloisters, and chapterhouse.



Of course, the castle was also a living space, with all the necessary amenities. This little demon on the right was meant to act as a signpost, to help the occupants find one such amenity. The halfmoon on which he sits betrays that it's a sign for a bathroom, and he tugs his little beard so that it points you in the right direction. The wings mean you better hurry, cause it's still a little ways down the hall.

After visiting the castle, we met up with my cousin Emilia who had driven over to meet us. We had dinner, as well as a good time catching up.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

Travelling across Europe, sleeping in student hostels along the way, you get to meet all sorts of people.

One such person, for simplicity's sake, we will refer to simply as Bert. We met Bert in our hostel in Prague, as we were making use of the free internet in the common space. He ran in from the kitchen with a panicked look, asking "Have you guys had any trouble with the pitcher... you know the hot water?"

This was followed by another one of those moments where confusion is mistaken for lack of understanding. Naturally, we had no idea what he was talking about. He followed up with "Wait... do you speak English?"

After I assured him we did, he beckoned us to follow him to the kitchen. Trailing him through the hall and then the door, the smell only hit me slowly. Once in the kitchen, the acrid smoke punched me square in the face.

"I don't know what went wrong," Bert was panicked again, "it worked yesterday." This was a blatant lie, what he had tried would never have worked in a million years.

First I made sure the hot plate was unplugged. At leaast he had had enough sense to unplug it when things started going really badly. Realizing we were out of immediate danger, I explained the problem to him. "Well, you see, this kettle is electric. So you don't need to heat it on a hot plate, you just turn it on on this platform here. And seeing as how it's plastic, when the hot plate heated up, it just melted to it."

The only thing left to do was to air out the kitchen and basically the whole floor. We opened all the windows and doors, and then once the mass of fused stove element / plastic kettle had cooled enough, we just carried it outside so it would stop stinking up the place.

Monika couldn't stay in the kitchen with us as we were clearing up the mess. The excuse was the fumes, but the real reason was her inability to control her laughter. Passersby had less inhibitions, and we heard them openly mocking the smoldering pile left at the curbside.

If you've been reading our blog, and you came across our entry entitled "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story", you may be questioning at this point the authenticity of this tale. So, just to assure you that we just couldn't make something like this up, we decided to document it with a bit of photojournalism as well:



A picture is worth a thousand words.

"The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons" - Edwin Powell Hubble





We spent last Thursday through Sunday in Prague. The place just seeps with culture, with its huge castle and expansive old town area that can keep you occupied for days on end. The old town hall is the site of an astronomical clock built in 1410, over a century before Copernicus even established that it was the Earth that orbits the Sun and not the other way around. Still, the medieval theory was enough to design a clock that would tell the hour, the position of the sun relative to the horizons (dawn and dusk), the position of the sun relative to the tropics (to tell the season), the phase of the moon, and tons of other information.



The city itself is a typical lively European hub. Filled as much with churches, cobblestones, and squares as with boisterous pubs and excited tourists. We took in not only all the sights, but also the sounds. Each evening, the city is flooded with classical music recitals in its wide variety of world-class concert halls. We caught a performance of the Prague Royal Orchestra, playing selected favourites spanning the baroque to the romantic, with the local hero Dvorak worked into the repertoire as well.

One of the main sights in the city is the huge castle, the world's largest ancient castle. It was first built over 1100 years ago, though it grew and changed as the centuries passed. Being so enormous, we managed to fill a whole day visiting it. Its central jewel is the St. Vitus Cathedral, one of Europe's beautiful examples of high-vaulted Gothic architecture.



As with any gothic church, one of the main highlights is the stained glass. The window by Alphonse Mucha was our favourite in the castle, and probably one of my favourites from all of Europe. Still, it gets beat by Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and by the works of Stanislaw Wyspianski in Krakow.

I think my favourite part of the castle, though, was a history exhibit they have spanning the development of the site from prehistory to modern times. Rooms in the exhibit are dedicated to major eras in the castle's history, and each is furnished with a large model that really helps you visualize how the building grew to its present state. When they started building it, an astronomical clock would be beyond the means of anyone on Earth. By the time they had finished, it was already a curiosity from ancient times.

"Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole..." - Crazy football fans



There are three things that Munich does very well. Beer. And football. And beer. We spent last Tuesday and Wednesday in the Bavarian city, soaking in the old buildings, the beer gardens, and the World Cup atmosphere.




The best beer we tried was at the Englischer Garden "Chinese Tower" Beer Garden. The Englischer Garden is a huge park where the locals come to have their beer, sausages, and schnitzel, tan in the nude, and go surfing on the river (go figure... I'm not making this up...). The beer only comes in one size. I don't think it's called Small.



One of the other highlights of Munich was joining in the Football madness. The 1972 Olympic Park has been temporarily transformed into a huge amphitheatre they call "Fan-fest Munchen", where they show all the games on a huge screen. We decided to head over for the Germany - Poland game. For some reason, a lot of Germans showed up. Apparently, people in Europe like cheering for their football teams. Who knew? Poland played better than in their first match against Ecquador, but Germany also played very well and really put the pressure on. The Polish had been very lucky, with a couple of German shots going right off the crossbar. In the end, though, the Germans ended it at 1-0 with a goal in the final minute of extra time, dashing Poland's hopes of advancing. Oh well, there's always 4 years from now...




The other big game while we were there was Tunisia - Saudi Arabia, which was actually taking place at the Munich stadium. We figured it was a pretty minor match and the city wouldn't be too loud, but man those crazy Tunisians! They had the whole city occupied and their excited chanting was infectious. We're not even that big football fans, but being present at a World Cup was awesome.