Trip to Northern Italy

Nils and I have a hard time turning down a travel opportunity. He had to go to a meeting in Venice, Italy with short notice, so naturally we thought, BIKE TOUR! He took a flight, and I took an 8 hour train with 2 bikes the same day. Several people helped me negotiate the stairs and train loading, and a nice frat boy on his graduation Europe tour asked me as politely as he could, "May I ask, why, Ma'm, are you traveling with two bikes?".  I looked at him and said, "Ma'm?". No I didn't, but I wanted to.

Arriving in Venice was magical. It is quaint and charming and smells like the sea. As I took my first steps into the city, a violinist was playing La Vie En Rose around the corner, flowers were dripping out of every window, and the facade of each building has this perfectly warn patina of burnt orange, deep rose, or creamy yellow. While Nils was in his meeting I just wandered all over, but seeing the Peggy Guggenheim collection was by far the best thing I did in Venice. She has a Klee I've never seen before but it made me freak out on the insides. I believe it was called Frau S or something like that. Picassos, Ernst, Chagall..and it is staffed by all these super stylish college students who all appear to be from NYU or Brown. 

Here are some pics of Venice and the Guggenheim collection at Peggy's Palazzo.

After two nights in Venice, Nils was finished with his meeting and we set off on bikes. Note: Don't ever try to ride a bike out of Venice, it was terrible and we had to ride on a scary highway. With that said, about 30 minutes outside of Venice it starts to be amazing. Day 1 we rode from Venice to Bassano Del Grappa.

Day 2 was my favorite day I've ever had on a bike. We rode from Bassano to Levico Terme, and found the best hotel (in our price range) that we could imagine.

Day 3, Levico Terme to Bolzano was NOT my favorite day, but I was with Nils so I was certain it would all work out in the end. What made it bad was that we climbed this insane hill (someone driving down laughed and said stuff to us in Italian which I'm sure was something like "You are totally f*cking nuts!"), rode through some pretty valleys, but then descended down a really fast highway with motor cycles whizzing by and buses getting a little cozy. Once we finally arrive to our hotel in Bolzano I was ready for a serious cocktail and a bath.

All in all it was a great trip. Scary, gorgeous, exhilarating, and fun. Here we are waiting for the train in Bolzano.

Cheers!

Bikes!

One of the things that has been different about me since I got married is I have less grease under my nails. The reason for this, is that Nils builds, cleans and fixes my bikes for me, and I just sit on the couch and drink wine and read the New Yorker on my kindle. If you asked me what the biggest difference about being married is on a personal level, this would be in my top 3.

So. Since our bikes have arrived I've had three amazing rides. Nils has had two but that is because he has been sick, which may have something to do with working really hard and staying up late building bikes but I digress.

We live near the Danube, and there is this funny island nearby called the Donauinsel. I'm attaching a map here for anyone who is actually interested enough to click on a link. If is long and skinny, and has some good paved riding trails. We can get to it from the Prater, which is the massive park I've talked about a few times already where I go jogging.

Ride number 1: We left from our house to go to Donauinsel, and came back through the Prater. In short, it was amazing. It took about 1 hour, and will probably be our short loop for a quick work out. Notable stops along the way include no less than 5 Biergartens, and several ice cream stands (hence the maniacal exercising).

Ride number 2: From our house, we went out the Danaukanal, a canal with bike paths going both ways that runs closer to the city than the Insel and goes towards the mountains. We road up through a hilly neighborhood (think North Berkeley) and then rode up and up this beautiful vineyard hillside (Kenwood-esque) and reached the top of this mountain. Coming down was super fun, it was my first long descent on cobbles. I think my hands are still numb. Here is Nils at the top looking down at the city.

Checkin' out the view.

Ride number 3: Mountain biking! I noticed these signs on ride number 2 that said "zur mountainbike strecke" and I was intrigued. They look like this:

zur mountainbike strecke=mountainbike route

So, Nils had to work this Sunday so I went out on my own to see where these intriguing signs lead. It turns out, from the city, you can ride to this amazing massive network of trails that are actually awesome. I road for about 2.5 hours and it was super fun and amazing. I cannot tell you how exciting it is to have mountain biking within reach of our apartment. This is where you will find me when I'm not glued to a SAS program.

Next week, I'll post about riding a stage of the Giro d'Italia from Venice. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be in the rain, but that only increases our tough quotient. See you then!

A week of gifts

Two and a half months after we put all of our earthly belongings in a crate and shipped it to Vienna, it arrived! On the very same day as Nils's 40th birthday! It felt like it was raining surprises. We woke up early and had breakfast and Nils opened his first gift of the day. 

I was pretty excited to give him these bike coffee mugs. They are from a ridiculously cute store down the street with all locally made arts and crafts.

I'm not sure if it is punctuality, but the work men here always show up earlier than you would expect. In no time the doorbell rang and 3 large men were carrying everything we had into our apartment. The nice man bringing in bike after bike remarked, "viele Fahrräder!"="Many bikes!".

After they left, we quickly opened up all the kitchen boxes and got to work unwrapping our wedding gifts that we haven't even used yet! I was carefully unwrapping our amazing gifts from our families and imagining all the great future dinner parties we could have, if only we could teleport them here.

 After spending a few hours at our awesome new neighbors house drinking prosecco, we went to dinner at a great restaurant in the 'hood called Slopik & Lohn. Check out the ceiling. When we buy a house I'm totally doing this.

And that was the day! We have since been trying to unpack and get organized, which is way more fun than packing. In fact, I went on my first bike ride in Vienna today, and will go on another tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. So, you can imagine what the next post will be about. xo-j.

Cairo, the happiest saddest place.

Nils had a four day weekend for May Day, and we thought to ourselves, "Let's go somewhere!". Nils suggested Cairo and I jumped at the chance. Tickets were cheap, and due to the revolution induced fear of traveling in Egypt, we could easily book rooms and pop down to the pyramids to take a gander without much advance booking. I read a few articles (NY Times "What to do in Cairo" and Trip Advisor), and bought a travel wallet that hides under your belt, and we were off and running.  On the plane, we were fighting over the window seat, which I haven't done in about 25 years. Here is Cairo from the air.

Cairo is completely built in the desert. The whole city is brown, with a layer of dust settling over the plants, the buildings, the cars. Nothing looks new. In the taxi on the way to our hotel, it started to sink in. Cairo is a chaotic, destroyed city. It is the largest city in Africa (differing estimates 17-22 million), and it has no traffic lanes, no traffic lights, and no crosswalks. Large brick apartment buildings are half built all over the city. An earthquake in 1992 destroyed buildings that still lay in heaps. It is common to see men and women walking along side traffic moving at 60-80 mph because there are no sidewalks, or the sidewalks start and then just stop. This was one of the more peaceful encounters we had after a day out at the pyramids. Goats.

Drivers honk constantly to warn each other and pedestrians, which only makes up a small part of the constant noise emanating from the city. Our first night out we went to a strange and empty restaurant on a boat, and then walked over the bridge towards Tahrir Square to investigate the loud vibrational tones coming across the Nile. What we found were not demonstrators, we found people dancing on boats decorated with amazing flashing colorful lights. Women in head scarves were the most intriguing ones to watch, mostly because the modest dress did nothing to curb their ability to keep it movin' on the dance floor. Here are the party boats along the Nile.

Speaking of head scarves. Nils burst out laughing when I tried to cover my head with a black scarf walking around after dinner. They are used to seeing tourists, but we were getting a lot of attention. During our trip, we posed with several groups of young people who wanted to take a picture with us. Most of them spoke no English, so we have no idea what they plan to do with with pictures, but it was funny so I started to take pictures of them taking pictures of us.

Many women are covered entirely from head to toe in black. And it is damn hot in Cairo. I have no idea what it feels like to be this devout, but women are known to sacrifice comfort for all types of worship, Allah being one, Valentino being another, and the list goes on. This particular woman was walking as fast as we were with her daily purchase atop her head. I know that people are capable of this, but seeing it in real life is really impressive.

The most incredible thing to me about Cairo, was no matter how many of the problems you can point to, the people appear so happy. The Egyptians were very quick with a smile, and to welcome us. You can hear young people on the streets laughing and talking for hours and hours every night. Men and women sit by the Nile aside loud honking traffic and pollution on little plastic chairs talking...and talking...and talking. Men walk arm in arm with each other, playfully as if they are all siblings. Women seem so close, often you can't tell who is the mother of which children because they all seem to be taking care of all the children.

This optimism comes across when they talked to us about their upcoming election. The pride in our pyramid guides voice when he talked about the chance to vote brought me to tears, thank god I had my sunglasses on or he would have thought I was nuts. One man sitting at the entrance to the alabaster mosque asked if I had a "comment" on the revolution. I replied, "I'm so proud of you, I'm so proud of Egypt, everyone is". He smiled and said, "Obama" and made a thumbs up sign. I replied in kind, and made a little prayer of my own that the future leadership of Egypt is worthy of it's people.

Here are a few more pictures I liked. The pyramids of Giza, a door and some flowers at the Cairo Opera house, some women fishing in the Nile, and some of the local fare. That's it for now!

We have lived in Vienna for 7 weeks already! Amazing how time flies when you are feeling your way in the dark with a new city, new language, new culture. We arrived in Austria in early March and were greeted by gloriously sunny days, and had a long list of neighborhoods and apartments to explore. Each day we were exploring subway maps, figuring out how to interpret an Austrian address (i.e. Roterngasse 26/21 means building number 26 and apartment number 21 - which in no way infers it is on the 2nd floor!). After weeks and weeks of searching, the rain and clouds came back, and our moods shifted from optimistic to downright desperate. We were living in temporary housing, which was fine, but we didn't feel like we could relax until we had our own place.

I should now mention an Austrian complication. TWO Austrian complications. Here they have this thing, where they advertise apartments through agents, (and those Gucci wearing, Armani suit, jerk rods) take 2-3 MONTHS RENT to just show you the apartment. So, for example, if we were renting a place that costs 1k euro, we would pay the deposit (3 months rent-which you get back), the first month rent, and an extra 2-3 months rent to the agent, so they can presumably, buy more Hermes scarves. So, if you do the maths, that means, seven thousand euro to get into an apartment that costs one thousand per month. Ahem. Maybe it is because we are fresh out of graduate school, but that be hella coin yo! The second Austrian complication is wir sprechen kein Deutsch. Which means, we speak no German. MISTAKE. In retrospect, we should have taken three years of German, whilst squirreling away many greenbacks to prepare ourselves for this move. WHOOPS.

However, like most fairy tales, it all worked out in the end. Literally, our last appointment was in the 2nd district, and the place had no pictures posted on the add, so I was not optimistic. It was however, advertised privately, meaning no insane agents fee, so we were motivated. We met Barbara, the loveliest woman ever, at the front door. She dresses in a style I will attempt to now mimic, ballet flats, chic dresses (red pleather !), loud scarf, and great jackets. She is who I want to be in 35 years. She opened the door to a 2-story, sixth floor apartment with a  terrace, a massive bathtub, open kitchen, and gorgeous windows and wood floors. I almost kissed her. Right then and there we said we would take it and we moved in 5 days later. Here are some pictures of our  apartment which we love and love and love.

Once our shipment arrives in a few weeks, we will have our stuff, and it will look a little more like us (bikes stashed everywhere), but for now here it is and we are very happy. I will blog more about our neighborhood later but for now, I will only add a few pictures of the Prater, which is a very large park few blocks from here. It is where I do my morning jogs now, and I am so grateful to be near green space I could smile while I run for an entire hour on dirt! In a major city! How about that for luck? The trick Nils says, to getting what you want, is hard work and patience. As he would say, "It is like relationships, you just have to keep looking...sometimes for a very long time". I'm beginning to see the light.