2 (not so) White Nights in St Petersburg

While in Russia for work for two weeks, Jenn and I spent a weekend in St Petersburg with my co-worker, Sarah, and her husband, David. They are both American, but are based in London for their jobs. Our plan was to take the high speed train from Moscow to St Petersburg, but because of several complications, we ended up taking a flight. I was adamant that there was no way I was going to fly domestic within Russia because of the loose safety regulations and the shockingly bad crash records, but when it came down to the fact that it was literally the only way we could get to St Petersburg, I had no choice. We flew Aeroflot and besides an extremely shaky landing, it was fine. Sarah, Jenn, and I all made it in one piece, which was obviously the most important thing.

St Petersburg has a completely different feel than Moscow. Where Moscow looks like, feels like, and is a big cosmopolitan city, St Pete looks and feels like many other familiar European cities. Amsterdam and Venice come to mind first because there are canals running throughout the city. Peter the Great was going for Venice when the city was built. It’s a pretty city and seemed like it would be very walkable if it wasn’t so cold. The temperature wasn’t too horrible (in the high 20’s), but the wind chill was a son of a bitch.

WIA: Besides a small lunch at the Hermitage, our first real meal was dinner at Gogol, named after the early 19th century Russian writer. We had a difficult time choosing a location for dinner because we knew we only had one night, so there was no opportunity to make up for a bad meal. The hotel concierge recommended a few different places, but I find it so hard to trust concierges because they always cater to the lowest common denominator and try to push people to “safe” restaurants that are designed to please everyone. Occasionally, a concierge hits a home run, like when the concierge at the Esplanade in Zagreb sent us to Trilogija. We had already asked the concierge to change our reservation from her first recommendation. It wasn't the only reason we switched places, but we were taken aback when our tour guide from the morning told David and me to avoid raping any Russian women at the Russian Vodka Room. I did some reading online and made an executive decision to instead go to Gogol. The layout was 3 or 4 separate rooms as it was designed to look like Gogol’s apartment. The menu was expansive. We had scallops, pasta, and beef stroganoff. I ate beef stroganoff several times on this trip and each time it was different. It’s kind of like goulash in Slovakia and Austria or gumbo in New Orleans in that everyone has their own take on it. The food was good enough and the environment and service were perfect for what we were looking for in a night out. We (besides Jenn) all tried some vodka, since it’s the thing to do in Russia. I had the Russian Standard Platinum and David talked me into the house made spicy horseradish vodka, which was disgusting. This is the second time I've been with David where he's convinced me to drink something I didn't want to drink. I think I've learned my lesson now.

Coincidentally, we ran into a group of Americans at the restaurant who were staying at the same hotel as us in Moscow. We tried to pretend we were cool for an evening and made our way after dinner to meet them at a bar. We got there, saw the line to get in, looked at our watches, and immediately turned around and headed back to the hotel. That was fun.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at Stolle, which specializes in Russian pies. They are kind of like knishes, in that they are small bread rolls filled with a variety of things. I had a meat pie and also a sweet one with apples. Both were tasty. 

We finished off the day with hot chocolate at Dom Knigi, the giant, famous book store.

WID: Sasha, our tour guide took us through the city by car for the first half of the day. It’s dark there until around 10:30, so it felt like a night tour. We started off by the Neva river where the gave us a brief history of the city. I'm glad we started off in the dark, because the view of the city along the river at that time was beautiful.

 

We got out and walked through Peter and Paul’s Fortress. It was freezing. That’s all I remember and all I could think about at the time. We got out and walked around at St Isaac’s Cathedral, St Michael's Castle, and the Church on Spilled Blood, but didn’t go inside. It was cold and rainy, so I was more than happy to stay in the car as much as possible during the tour. In the early afternoon, we spent a few hours being guided through the Hermitage, the absolutely enormous winter palace. It requires a guide to go through or at least a good amount of preliminary research. Otherwise, it is way too overwhelming. Everything about the Hermitage was impressive. You will read (or hear from your tour guide as we did) that it could take days to get through the Hermitage, but trust me, three hours is more than enough time to spend there. 

We walked through the inside St Isaac’s. The inside is enormous and elaborately decorated. I've seen a lot of cathedrals in my time, so it's difficult for me to get too excited about one, but this one was pretty good. We walked the steps up to the top before going back to the hotel for a few hours to relax. 

Sunday was relatively low key. We finally made it inside the Church on Spilled Blood, which was constructed on the site where Alexander II was assassinated (hence the name). Almost the whole inside is made from mosaics, which is incredible to see up close. 

We didn’t really get what was interesting or exciting about Nievsky Prospect, the large shopping street, or Dom Knigi, the big book store, but we checked them both out because it's what you're supposed to do.

WIS: The W St Petersburg is fairly new and more than fairly awesome. We were upgraded and our room was like a small apartment. We had a walk-in closet, two toilets, and three televisions. I was most excited that for toiletries, they gave us full size bottles of the Bliss products, which we of course stuck in our bag at the end of the stay and took with us. I could have stayed there for much longer than two nights. Besides being an extremely nice hotel, the location was also perfect in that it’s close to everything. The front desk staff needs a little bit of training. It took an hour for Sarah and David to check out because of various difficulties. Besides that, I highly recommend staying there if you’re in St Petersburg. I tried Baltika Beer at the bar one night and thought it was okay. I understand now though that they have several different types coming out of that brewery, but I didn’t think the #7 was anything special.

WAM: I drank a lot of vodka during my time in Russia and I didn’t really get the novelty. Everyone, who I spoke to, told me how the vodka is so much better in Russia and smoother so it can be drunk like water. To me, the vodka tasted like vodka. I guess it was a little smoother, but I certainly couldn't drink it like water. The Russians do seem to drink it like water, as they do almost all alcohol. I tried Russian Standard Original, the Standard Platinum, the aforementioned horseradish concoction, and Beluga.

WTF: At the end of walking through the church inside Peter and Paul’s Fortress, we were guided into a small room where every half an hour or so, these 5 men who are members of a choir sing a few Russian songs. It’s kind of a like at Chucky Cheese where they have Animatronics, but they are real people. I didn’t want to go in because I knew it was going to be creepy, but Sarah, David, and Jenn insisted. The singing was very nice, but all I could think about is what is life like for these 5 individuals? Is this their job? Do they sing to tourists every 30 minutes every single day? My guess is they all just love to sing and so, while it seems quite miserable to me (as I’m sure my job would seem to them), they are thrilled to do this. The exception would be the two younger members of the group on the bookends who both looked incredibly disinterested in what they were doing. One guy appeared to be yawning through all the songs, so apparently I wasn't the only one in the room that didn't want to be there.

For more pictures, click here.

Airplane Reviews - Vienna to Koh Samui on Finnair

It's really amazing that without fail, every single airline that is part of the One World alliance is nicer than American Airlines. The planes are nicer, the service is better, and the meals are slightly more edible. Finnair was great. Even though we didn't get upgraded, the seats were perfectly comfortable in coach. I don't remember the meals, which I always take to mean that they weren't that good. Let's just assume going forward that unless I mention the airline food, it wasn't anything spectacular. I expected the lounge in Helsinki to be really nice. It was nice enough, but nothing amazing. 

On the way to Thailand, we watched The Help, which was good enough, but I don’t get all the hype for it and why it’s nominated for every award. I think what bothered me about it is that I thought the tone was very light for the material it was covering. I get that no one is going to come and see the movie if it shows a realistic view of how bad the situation was for black people in the South, but I think it’s also irresponsible and disrespectful to depict it the way they did. It all seemed too easy to me. At times, I thought the movie almost played like a comedy. I also don’t buy that one woman was the source of all the racism in the town. That was ridiculous to play her out like the villain when all the other women in the movie also had black maids that they treated very poorly. I also left the movie wondering where were all the men at the time. Were they all working? Maybe they didn't have the budget to cast the male roles.

On the return trip, we watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which I found extremely entertaining. I thought the special effects were good. The monkeys were certainly fun to watch. I thought it was weird that they made it out that James Franco was the good guy in the movie, given that he (spoiler alert) caused the end of the human race. And as much as I like Freida Pinto and could probably watch her read from the back of a cereal box for 2 hours, I didn’t understand why she was in the movie. Her character had nothing about her that remotely tied her to the plot of the movie. I thought maybe the reason of casting her was to get men to come to the movie, but there are giant apes jumping around the screen for 2 hours wreaking havoc. That’s more than enough to keep a man entertained.

Thai-nks Giving

Months ago, Jenn we ended up stuck with two airline tickets on Finnair. Unfortunately, Finnair isn't overly flexible and doesn't fly that many places. We looked around and one place we found that they did fly is to Koh Samui, an island off the east coast of Thailand. We didn't know too much about it except that it had a brand new W resort. So, without thinking too much about it (which is unusual for us), we re-booked the flights and made a reservation at the resort.

The routing with Finnair wasn't the most direct, as we had to transfer in Helskinki, but it wasn't that bad either. After one last transfer in Bangkok, we arrived on Samui around 6pm on Sunday evening. It was dark, cloudy, and raining. We knew we were taking a risk in that this was supposedly the end of monsoon season. We came into it expecting the worst (rain all day everyday), but hoped for the best. After a short shuttle ride, where the airport driver made one stop to make what appeared to be a food delivery to a hotel, we arrived at the W Retreat Koh Samui. It was secluded, tucked away from the main road. As we walked into the open air lobby, we were chaperoned to the comfortable lounge area and given a refreshing watermelon drink as they gave us the room information and welcomed us to the island. The first impression of how nice everyone was and how excellent the service was didn't change for the entire week we were there.

We were driven by golf cart (because the resort is built along a hillside) to our room and we made ourselves comfortable. The room was huge. It included a sitting area, an indoor and outdoor shower, an over-sized tub, and an outdoor deck which included our own swimming pool. It was the nicest room in which we've stayed. Any concerns we had about coming to Samui immediately were eased as we recognized that we'd have no problem staying in this room for a week, even if it did rain the whole time.

As you'll see below, there aren't a lot of details to tell about the week because we didn't do much. This was a vacation for resting and relaxing. We have both been working a lot and we needed a break.It was actually the first vacation the two of us have every taken together that really didn't include any sight-seeing. The focus was taking it easy and that is what we did.

WIA: One of the few things we did do was eat. The interesting thing about Samui is that it has completely been overrun by resorts, many of which are very high end. Because of this, you really have to make an effort if you want to eat local. Many of the "local" restaurants there have catered their menus toward tourists anyway. Additionally, the resorts have been developed each in their own secluded area in a prime beach spot, so to venture out at night and go to dinner is kind of an ordeal that involves a taxi ride that is not inexpensive and takes at least 20 minutes. This is by design as the resorts want to keep you there onsite for as much time as they can. We ate at The Kitchen Table at the W the first night and enjoyed it. It was more of an international menu, but it included some Thai dishes. I had the sea bass which came with the head on (which was fun) and Jenn had pad Thai, which kind of looked an enchilada. For dessert, we had the profiteroles with mint ice cream, which we liked a lot. We ate at Namu, the W's Japanese restaurant. It's located right on the beach and only has a few tables, which are not far from the open kitchen. We enjoyed everything that night, but we particularly liked the soft shell crab roll and the Wagyu beef. The molten chocolate cake was more molten chocolate (what Jenn prefers) than it was cake (what I prefer), but it was still pretty good. At the end of the meal, the General Manager of the hotel walked over, introduced himself, and talked to us for a few minutes. We thought it was really nice. We ended up seeing Nick around the resort a lot during the trip.

We got away from the the resort the next day for lunch at Jun Hom, a seafood restaurant literally on the beach. We didn't intend to go there, but the restaurant we were trying to go to was closed. My shrimp in tamarind sauce was fine and we liked the banana fritters for dessert a lot.

Dinner that evening was an unique and memorable experience at Dining on the Rocks at the Six Senses Resort. The dramatic setting of the restaurant is on an open air deck overlooking the coast where the waves splash against the rocks. It was very windy (as it was every day due to monsoon season), but we put up with it. The food itself was relatively straight forward and international, but the presentation of the dishes was extremely creative. Everything we ate was terrific from my "canned" tuna sandwich served in a tuna jar to my deconstructed chicken burrito to the assorted chocolate dessert and deconstructed s'more.   

We made our way to Chaweng beach, the most developed and also most touristy part of the island. We walked along the beach for a while, carrying our shoes as the approaching waves brought water up to our ankles and splashing up to our thighs. We arrived at Eat Senses and had a perfectly located table overlooking the beach. Again, it was very windy, and even started to rain at the end of the meal, but we didn't mind. The food was okay. I would have preferred more spice. We stopped for dessert on the way back to meet our hotel shuttle at The Library, a modern hotel not far away. On Friday night, we walked through the Fisherman's village and had dinner at H Bistro at the Hansar Samui hotel. It was very dark, so dark in fact that the menu had a flashlight attached. I got my spice at this meal, as the chicken dish I had was very well seasoned.

Our final meal for the trip was for dinner at the Banyan Tree Resort, which was on Lamai Beach, built along the hillside surrounding a small cove. The resort was enormous and though it was dark, looked to be very nice. Every resort we were exposed to during the trip was incredible. Our dinner at Saffron was excellent. The setting was romantic with superb service. The food was good, but I particularly remember having an outstanding mojito. It was a great way to close out our culinary tour of Koh Samui.

WID: As I've said, we didn't do much. Jenn worked the first few days of the week until Thanksgiving day, so I was on my own, hanging out at the beach and the pool. I read the Keith Richards autobiography, which was peculiar in so many ways, but also consistently interesting and entertaining.

The beach itself was small, but quiet since at this time of the year, the resort was less than half full. We had no problem getting beach chairs in the perfect spot any time of day. It was windy, so we could only spend so much time down there. The beach itself was a mix of sand and rocks, so it was uncomfortable to walk on without shoes. The water wasn't too cold, but it was rough and pretty cloudy, again because of the wind. Neither of us spend much time much time in the gulf during the trip. We had our own pool, but we also spend a lot of time at the resort's infinity pool. There are other things that one can do in Samui when the weather is better like snorkeling, hiking, etc., but we weren't able to do those things. We were perfectly fine doing nothing as the W offered such a nice environment for a relaxing vacation.
I did get my first massage ever, a full body Thai massage in the hotel spa. I won't go into as much detail as I did for the Turkish bath experience, but I will admit it actually was pretty nice. It's nothing I need to do on a regular basis, but I enjoyed it much more than I expected.

We took advantage of the classes offered in the gym and participated in a stretching class, pilates, and yoga. All were hard, but the teacher was really good and helped us through them.

WIS: I've already made plenty mention of it, but the W, only a year old, was fantastic. We were fortunate that there were so few people there because we really had our run of the place. The rooms and all the facilities were top notch and the service was excellent. There were people always working around the resort and they always stopped, smiled, and said hello when we walked by.
WAM: Around the resort, there were little concession areas called "Sweet Spots" where guests could grab a variety of drinks or several types of frozen treats, including haagen dazs. We didn't really take advantage of this, but we thought it was a nice touch. Also, worth mentioning is one day we toured one of their residences, which start at $2.5 million for a two bedroom. We toured the 4 bedroom. It was awesome.

WTF: As I said above, the W Retreat is built on an expansive piece of property along a hillside. The resort has golf carts that escort the guests to and from the hotel rooms and carrying them to anywhere at the resort. Jenn and I love to walk so during the week, we always declined the offer for a ride in the cart and walked everywhere even though in many areas, it is extremely steep. It seemed to us like we were the first guests at the retreat to ever pass on rides in the cart to walk around the resort. There are plenty of Europeans that visit, so it was surprising, but the staff members seemed genuinely shocked every time they offered us a ride and we said "no thank you."

For more pictures, click here.

A Return to Florence

We took the high speed train after work on a Friday from Milan to Florence. After trying five different ticket machines at the station, we finally were able to procure out tickets. I can't imagine how difficult some situations are for less experienced travelers when they are difficult for us. That is not meant to sound snobby. It's just that we travel a heck of a lot and are pretty savvy. When things are not intuitive for people who are very seasoned travelers, I just don't know how others handle it who are less accustomed to traveling to new place. It was a brisk hour and forty-five minute journey. We'd both been working a ton and instead of going somewhere new, we thought it would be nice and relaxing to go to a city to which we'd been before so that we could just take it easy and not be stressed with doing tourist things.

WIA:
We relied on a recommendation from the New York Times for dinner on Friday night. It was a mistake. The place had been closed for 8 months. It was late though and we needed to eat, so we ended up eating at Obika Mozzarella Bar, which we also ate at in Milan. It was as mediocre as before, but the mozzarella was good.

I know it seems ridiculous to come to Florence and eat a hamburger, but that is what we did for lunch on Saturday at Lungarno 23. We didn't regret it. Italy is known for the Chianina breed of cattle and for the beef that they are bred for. These were the most expensive burgers we've ever had, mine being 25 EUR and Jenn's 18 EUR I think, but they were worth it. Mine had a fried egg and truffles on top. Jenn's had mozzarella cheese. It is hard to say if we liked them so much because we hadn't had a good burger in a while or if they were really that good. We didn't analyze it much (a change for me) and just enjoyed the moment.

Dinner was with Jenn's friend from law school, Angelica, and her husband Justin. They live in Florence for her job as an internal attorney for one of GE's subsidiaries. We ate at a wine bar, Coquinarius, conveniently located in the city center, not far from the Duomo. We know nothing about wine, but the Angelica and Justin do and what we had was pretty good. It was a really fun evening.

On Sunday, we met them again for lunch at a place in Fie Sole, where they live. I have no idea what the place was called, but it had a very comfortable home cooking feel to it. Jenn and I picked up sandwiches in the center from Ino to take with us on the train to eat later for dinner. They were fine, but I personally think the place is a little overrated. Maybe we had to eat there. Our last stop before getting on the train was at Grom for gelato. We needed to see what all the fuss was about. We almost missed our train due to the long line to get in, but we didn't and we got our gelato, so everything worked out just fine.

WID:
We really didn't do much. We'd been to all the major sights, so we just walked around the city, did a little shopping, and that's about it. It was actually really nice. We always say it's nice to go back to a city we've already visited because then we can just walk around and enjoy the city for what it is. I will say, we forget when we're Bratislava how many American tourists there are in Europe. Florence reminded us. We couldn't walk 10 feet without seeing or hearing Americans. 

WIS:
We stayed at a little hotel near the Academia called Il Guelfo Bianco. It was pretty simple, but it was clean and comfortable. The location was perfect, about a 5 minute walk to the Duomo.

WAM:
On the train ride from Milan, we watched "Crazy, Stupid, Love" on my laptop. The first hour or so of the movie was really good. We both laughed and found it overall very entertaining. All the actors are good in it and the writing (again, for the first hour) is sharp and clever. Then the wheels came off. The second half of the movie spiraled way out of control into absurdity, exaggeration, and outright stupidity. It was disappointing since all had been going so well up to that point. I understand why they included the whole storyline with Steve Carrell's and Julianne Moore's son in the movie, but I really think they could have taken it (and him) out or made it a much smaller part of the movie, and everything would have worked a lot better.

WTF:
We walked through the city on Saturday and browsed through a lot of shops. We walked through the Prada store (just to check it out) and why Jenn was looking at shoes, I wondered through the store and ended up in the men's section, where I saw a winter jacket I liked. I tried it on (knowing no good could come of it). It was a perfect fit. It felt great. It was warm, comfortable, and I'll admit, it just felt good wearing it. I didn't want to (I really didn't), but I loved it. Jenn walked over and saw me in it and loved it also. The saleswoman liked it on me, and even though I know she has to say that, it at least seemed genuine (or maybe I just wanted it to be). I hadn't looked at the price tag up to this point and when I did, it was even worse than what I thought it would be. It was way too much to spend for an article of clothing. Or was it? Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), I'm not a quick decision maker. I am analytical and need time to weigh the pros and cons and assess the entire situation before deciding on something. This works out for me sometimes for big decisions, but at other times, like choosing a movie to watch or what to order from a menu, it can be annoying. If I were more impulsive (like my brother), I would have bought the jacket right there and called it a day. In thinking about it now, is there a price one can put on warmth, especially when one lives in Slovakia and will be traveling to Russia for work possibly more than once? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure the price of the jacket would even cross my mind once I was walking through Red Square in Moscow with the wind chill of no concern. Being cold sucks. In the end, I just don't think I could walk around in a Prada jacket. I'm just not that guy (I don't think). I do have warm jackets, but since I experienced my first winter last year and am about to start my second, I realize I need something warmer than what I have. I may or may not find something, but the problem now is that I compare everything to the benchmark in my mind, the Prada jacket, and nothing else is good enough. I knew nothing good was going to come of trying on that jacket.

Domo Arigato, Milano Gelato

I was assigned to do some work in Milan for two and a half weeks (not too bad, I know), so Jenn came along for part of the time. We had been to Milan previously, but only for one night on our way to meet the Harts in Cinque Terre. My work schedule was demanding during the week, but we were able to get out some at night for dinners and then for the weekend, we explored quite a bit, though the weather was miserable. It was cold and very rainy. We had umbrellas, but that didn't keep us from getting soaked throughout the day. We managed our way through it though and still saw a good portion of the city.

Milan, itself, doesn't get a lot of attention from a tourist perspective because Rome, Florence, Venice, and others are much more popular (and charming), but don't sleep on Milan. Yes, it has more of a "city" feel than the others, but the food is excellent and there are plenty of things to do and see. It's also very easy to get around by metro and tram.

WIA:
I had dinner with my team the first night at Antica Cucina Delle Langhe, a traditional trattoria on Corso Como, a popular pedestrian only area. My cotoletta alla milanese (breaded veal) was very good. Jenn arrived on Thursday night and we headed downtown to eat at Obika, a mozzarella bar right next to the Duomo, the huge church in the middle of the city. It's really impressive during the day or at night. The food was not at Obika. We should have stuck with mozzarella, but we both were hungry so ordered entrees that just weren't very good. We topped off the meal with gelato from Cioccolati Italiani, which was outstanding. You know it's a good ice cream place when they have six different types of chocolate. We ate there a couple more times during our time in Milan.

Friday night, we had dinner with a co-worker and his fiance at Ristorante Zucca e Melone, which has a homey feeling (bordering on tacky, but not quite). The highlights were the thinly sliced mozzarella and the gnocco fritto, which is kind of like a beignet. We ate lunch in the restaurant at the Museo Novecento, which is a new modern looking museum, which houses 20th century art. The prime tables are in a room filled with windows overlooking the Duomo, but since we didn't have a reservation, we ate in back. It was pouring outside and we were hungry, so we couldn't have cared any less, though the waiter did not like it (and told me so) when I tried to take pictures. I had a plate of risotto and Jenn had a cheese plate with burrata cheese. It was overpriced, which was expected, but good. We didn't tour the museum. I'm including a picture of the building at night because it looks cooler.

That evening, we had each had a panini at De Santis, which was a tiny place. I'm surprised more places don't grill their sandwiches on a panini press. It makes even mediocre sandwiches taste 10 times better. I think I had roast beef and Jenn had salami if I remember correctly. Dessert was gelato at Shockalat, which was really good. It's hard to distinguish one good gelato place from another. Good gelato is good gelato. We had a huge "American style" brunch on Sunday at Hangar Bicocca, which is a big warehouse that houses modern art installations. The food was hit and miss, but overall enjoyable. It was a fun experience seeing all the large Italian families come in and have brunch together. The Italians do long lunches. The same families that were there when we arrived were still at their tables after we'd finished eating and walked through the art exhibits.
We weren't as hungry at dinner time, so we just picked up a few things. We didn't get out as much the 2nd week there due to work requirements for both of us, but one other highlight was our meal at Trattoria Rondine, which was small, unassuming, and served very good traditional Milanese food. My boss (who is Italian) brought our team out one night to a place called Puro e Semplice, which I really liked. For a first course, I had veal with parmesan and truffle sauce and my main was tagliatelle with wild boar sauce. Dessert was what they call beignets, but, for all intents and purposes, were profiteroles. 

WID:
We began our Saturday early with a visit to see Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. I didn't realize this, but it is painted on the wall of a church, Santa Maria delle Grazie. Jenn was able to find someone at the hotel to call and arrange tickets for us, which was a surprise because we'd read and heard that you needed to book months in advance. Maybe we just got lucky. Visitors are allowed a 15 minute window in which to view the painting. It was originally painted at the end of the 15th century, but still is in decent shape due to ongoing maintenance and restoration, but it continues to detoriate. What they say is that what we saw is the painting in its most original form due to the most recent maintenance work which cleared away a lot of the previous "touch ups". It's always a little surreal to me to see things like this in person after you've heard about them your entire life. The painting is incredible to see in person, particularly when you put it in context of the time and place it was created.

The rain gradually was getting heavier. We took shelter in the Triennale Design Museum, which opened a few years ago in Sempione Park. The inside of the building is big, open, and white, much like many other modern art museums. This isn't just a modern art museum as I think the exhibits change pretty regularly. Again, I think this is the case. Right now, it has Italian design furniture, which was kind of interesting. The best part was a temporary exhibit called O'Clock, which showed different ways of keeping time. There were clocks, modern, traditional, and bizzare, but also hour glasses, digital creations, and lots of other things that are difficult to describe. It was extremely cool. My favorite piece was a clock that shows time using words. For example, if it was "5:45", it would show "quarter to six".
We walked past the Sforzesco Castle, but didn't go inside. We were getting very hungry, and very wet, and we needed to go somewhere and sit down for a while. After lunch, we walked through the Duomo, which is the fourth largest cathedral in the world. It feels like it. It's an incredible sight, both inside and out.
We then walked down the famous shopping streets, Montenapoleone and Via Della Spiga. It actually wasn't bad to this on a rainy day because it wasn't crowded. I could see it being quite miserable during high tourist season and when the weather is nice out. We took refuge from the rain in our hotel and napped for a while before heading back out later for dinner.

On Sunday, we slept in and then took the metro a little ways out to the Hangar Bicocca. There were only a few art installations to view, but they are very large scale, huge in fact, and really interesting. The most interesting to both of us was a room set up with electric guitars hooked up to amps and a whole bunch of birds. The guitars are set up in a way to entice the birds to perch on them. This then creates sound from the guitars. As you walk through it for a few minutes, I wouldn't say it makes beautiful music or anything, but the contrasts in sound between the footsteps of the visitors, the chirping of the birds, and the guitars is pretty cool.

WIS: 
We stayed at the Sheraton Four Points, which is located a few blocks from the central train station. It's not the most scenic location, but it's also not too far from anything by foot or metro. The hotel is interesting in that they have three styles of rooms, traditional, modern, and a hybrid between the two. We stayed in all three during our stay. The traditional style room was not only old, but pretty dated as well. The modern room was a little too modern. There was no space and they didn't have ethernet cables to plug in a computer for internet access. This is important due to the fact that the wireless internet in the hotel was abysmal. The last room, which was our preference was still a traditional style, but had been updated so was in good shape, had a nice bathroom, and also had a line for internet. The buffet breakfast was adequate, but nothing to write home about either.

WAM:
Why does the croissant have such a vast global presence while focaccia flies under the radar? I ate a healthy (or unhealthy, depends how you look at it) amount of focaccia on this trip, the majority of which was really tasty. It's hard to beat a good piece of focaccia. I love croissants, but I encourage everyone to give focaccia another look. You might be pleasantly surprised.

WTF:
I was in Italy for two and half weeks eating pasta, focaccia, pizza, and gelato and I can't for the life of me figure out how most of the Italians are still so thin. I think I'd weigh 300 pounds if I lived there permanently.

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The Wachau Valley

We took a day trip on Saturday to the Wachau Valley, Austria's wine region, visiting the cities of Melk, Spitz, Durnstein, and Krems. The day started very early, but not early enough. I hoped to catch the end of World Series game 7, but I was too late. It didn't last into the early morning US time like game 6. Unfortunately, I didn't have Micah to call me to wake me up to watch as he did for game 6. I did catch some of the celebration though on ESPN's coverage, which was cool.

We met Caitlin and Mackenzie (who also works for Dell and just moved to Bratislava) at the tram stop a little after 7 and headed to the train station, where we set off for Vienna. The Wachau is not so simple to get to without a car, so we had to switch train stations in Vienna, take a train to St Polten, and then switch again for the train to Melk. The whole journey took about 3 hours.


Caitlin had promised "mostly sunny" weather and though she tried to convince us all day that the sun was coming, it never really made it through the clouds. It wasn't bad at all though. It was a little chilly, in the low 50's probably, but overall, it was a perfect autumn day for a bike ride. We used this service that has bike racks throughout the region and all you have to do is call and they give you the lock combination. When we were finished at the end of the day, we dropped it off at a different bike rack (in a different city) and called to let them know. At 1 EUR per bike, I have no idea how they make money (or if they make money), but I love the idea.

We got a quick glimpse of the Melk Abbey before we got going on our bicycles for the 17km ride to Spitz. The ride along the Danube with the backdrop of hills and trees filled with leaves of all colors was beautiful. I say this every time we ride bikes, but I like the idea of riding bikes so much more than the reality of it. It turns out a kilometer on a bike takes much longer than I would have expected. We eventually made it to Durnstein where we did some wine tastings and walked through the small town. We bagged the bikes there, after roughly 30km and took the bus to Krems where we boarded the train to Vienna. We were exhausted by the time we got there, but thought a Mexican dinner at Los Mexikas sounded good. We hadn't eaten anything all day besides a few snacks. The Yeagers happened to be in Vienna also, so they met us there.


The food at Los Mexikas is good, but not great. It's enough to satisfy Mexican food cravings, but not to make one forget about the Tex-Mex food back in Austin.

We definitely want to try and go back to the Wachau. It was a great day trip for the Fall, but would probably be excellent in the Springtime.

Belated Airplane Reviews

During our travels in the past couple of months, we watched several movies on airplane trips, and I would be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts on them.

From Hong Kong back to the US, we took Cathay Pacific, which was a nice change from American Airlines, our usual carrier. I am loyal to American, frankly, because that's where all my frequent flyer miles are, and for no other reason. I'm happy when I get to fly British Airways, Cathay, or another One World Partner because when it comes to comfort, service, and all around experience, American is really lacking.

We began the trip with... The Trip, a British film starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. We had heard really good things about it and from the reviews, we anticipated something absolutely hilarious. In reality, it was pretty slow, but had its moments. There was a lot of humor in there that we didn't get that I'm sure others would appreciate more. Not knowing the background of the two actors worked against us as that seemed to play a lot into the story and the comedy. It was also a lot more serious and introspective at points, which we did not expect. If you like Michael Caine impressions, you will love this movie. The camera shots of the food were oustandting.

We followed it up with Super 8, which we had wanted to see in the theater, but never got around to it. This movie had so much potential, but it didn't quite do it for me. The train accident at the beginning was pretty awesome, but unless it was carrying a bomb, it made no sense why there were explosions and train cars going all over the place. The movie continued to not make sense for the next hour or so and after a while, I just got bored. It seemed like it was trying to appeal to viewers who were nostalgic for ET and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, but JJ Abrams seemed to concentrate all of his time on the visuals instead of putting together a decent script.
 
By the time we flew back to Europe, it was October, which meant the new slate of movies was out on the plane. We watched the Hangover 2, which was a big mistake. One may ask, was it a mistake to have watched the movie or to have made the movie, and the answer to both questions, is yes. The stuff that monkey could do was amazing, but besides that, the movie was an absolute waste of time. They caught lighting in a bottle once. Why can't Hollywood just leave well enough alone?

As a bonus, we have also watched Horrible Bosses and Contagion since we've been back. We enjoyed Horrible Bosses. It was funny. Jenifer Aniston should take more roles like this where she isn't trying to be sweet and do cute Jennifer Aniston type things. It's much more enjoyable to watch her like this. It didn't hurt that she wore very little clothing. Contagion played like a documentary and was believable in that it's exactly what I think would happen if there was a deadly virus outbreak today and captured how people more than likely would react. In that respect, it scared the shit out of me. I already am overly aware of germs when I travel, so this didn't help. It was cool seeing Gwyneth Paltrow get de-scalped. The most horrifying parts of the movie though are the close-ups of Jude Law's teeth, which I had no idea were that bad.

Hong Kong

This was my third trip to Hong Kong. We purposely scheduled plenty of time there and scheduled it as our last stop because there aren’t a lot of touristy things to do and we could take it a slower, more relaxed pace. We were tired by this point in the trip. The city is best compared to New York. It’s a city with a lot of skyscrapers, people, shopping, and congestion.

WIA: The food in Hong Kong is outstanding. It’s kind of like Las Vegas in that they import all different types of foods and restaurants, so you can get the best in everything. We ate lunch at the food court in the mall next to our hotel at a Shanghainese place. It was quick, easy, and pretty good. Dinner was at Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese dumpling institution that has since opened locations in several international cities. There was a long line, but we got in pretty quickly. I’m not sure what all the hype is about, but the dumplings were tasty. I actually really liked my noodle dish in peanut sauce. It tasted like noodles with peanut butter. Lunch on day two was at Classified, a mozzarella bar, next to Stanley Market.  Jenn had a cheese plate and I had a salami and cheese sandwich that wasn’t nearly as good as I hoped it would be. We took the ferry to Macau in the evening. While walking, I had an egg tart, which was delicious. It’s apparently the thing to eat there.  We had a late dinner at Il Teatro, an Italian restaurant, at the Wynn Hotel. Our table was next to the window and overlooked the fountain, so we saw the fountain show about 6 times during dinner. I know it seems silly to travel across the world for fried mozzarella, spaghetti and meatballs, and pizza, but everything we ate was really good. It may not have been worth the premium price we paid for it being at the Wynn, but we knew that going into it. I had two Macau beers. It was light and not too bad.

 

 On our third day, we ate at afternoon tea at The Peninsula. The food wasn’t substantial, but the scones and finger sandwiches filled us up. We had higher expectations of the tea. It’s right in the lobby once you walk in the hotel and there are all levels of dress. I’m not a big tea guy, but I feel like there is something nice about getting dressed up (even though we weren’t) and going to a nice hotel for tea. I can appreciate that. There is something to be said for sticking with nostalgia and keeping things the same if it works the way it is. I’m sure it would be a pain for people to get dressed up to come to tea, but there are so few things left in life that we haven’t marginalized by trying to keep up with the times. It was also all very systematic. The waiters went through the motions and were efficient in getting people in and out so the next group in line could sit down for their tea. We’re glad we went to experience it. 

We ate dinner at Zuma, which is super trendy, and serves up a nice (and very expensive) Japanese menu. I had a couple sushi rolls that were fine, but not nearly worth the price I paid for them. Jenn’s salmon was really good. The people watching was excellent. We finally saw who all the people were who are buying all the clothing in the extremely high end stores that blanket the city. We had a non-traditional dim sum brunch on Saturday at Tim Ho Wan. This is a very small (6 or 7 tables), pretty dumpy looking place that serves up incredibly good dumplings. We were aware they didn’t take reservations, so we arrived at 10am, which was the time they opened. We were given a number and were told to come back in an hour. We did. We were then told to come back in another hour. We did. I get extremely frustrated when things don’t work the way they are supposed to. I had no issues with them giving me a number and telling me to come back in an hour. What I did have a problem with was traveling back across town to make it back at the time they told me and then be told to go away for another hour. I was pissed. Jenn had to talk me down. When we eventually did eat, the food was worth the wait. We had a few different dumplings, but the highlights were the deep fried shrimp and chives dumpling and the baked pork bun. We don’t actively eat pork, but the pork bun is the most famous dumpling, so we had to eat it. The barbecued pork was surrounded by a sweet tasting biscuit that was soft on the inside and flaky on the outside. It was out of this world good.
That evening, we met my cousin Allison and her husband Mario and first had a drink at the ICC, the bar at the top of the Ritz Carlton, which is the tallest building in the world. The drinks were obscenely expensive, but the views were worth it.

For dinner, we ate in the Temple Street Night Market. I don’t even know the name of the place, but it was one of the open air places right off the street. It was far from fancy and pretty far from sanitary, but the food was hot and good and the beer was ice cold. It was a lot of fun catching up with Ali and Mario. They have lived in Hong Kong for a few months. She works at a university and he is starting an art organization. We haven’t seen them in a while, so it was great to talk and get updated on their lives.

WID: We started off at the top of Hong Kong by taking the tram up to Victoria Peak. We went on a walk that got us away from the main commercial area and all the people, so that was nice. The views were incredible.
That night, we walked along Avenue of the Stars and took in the Hong Kong light show. The city is packed with skyscrapers, one after another, and from the Kowloon side, at 8pm every night, one can watch a synchronized laser and light show being projected from many of the buildings on the Hong Kong side. It’s cheesy, but still kind of cool. It’s something to see once. This was my second time to see it.

We took a 30 minute cab ride out to Stanley Market the next morning and realized quickly that it was a waste of our time. We’re not clear why this market is so popular and why any guide book would recommend making the trek out there. The area is nice along the water though and it’s nice to get outside of the city for a little while, but it ate up a whole lot of time. In the early evening, we took the ferry to Macau, the Las Vegas of China. It’s a former Portuguese colony which in the past 6 years has exploded with huge Vegas style casinos. There is an MGM, a Venetian, a Wynn, the Sands, and many others, with many more to come in the future. It’s of course packed with people. There is a lot of shopping and very nice casinos and shopping malls, but besides the gambling, it doesn’t quite pack the debauchery that makes Vegas Sin City. We walked through the Venetian, the extremely impressive Galaxy, the MGM, and ended up at the Wynn for dinner. We gambled a little and contributed to the future development of the city. They play blackjack differently there. The dealer takes one card, then deals out to the table and doesn’t take the second card until everyone at the table has played out their hand. I’m not sure if this changes the odds or the playing strategy, but I just played it the way I know how to play. We started out with a nice little run before losing everything.
On Friday, on the way to The Peninsula for tea, we walked through the Ladies Market (which sold the same crap as every other market) and the Jade Market. We bought (and most likely overpaid) for some “jade” bracelets for Jenn. We shopped at the Shanghai Tang flagship store and did some damage. We liked a lot of stuff we saw, but had to limit ourselves because it’s an expensive store and they don’t negotiate like the other markets in town. We’re trying to do better about buying things when we travel, not to accumulate junk, but to have some mementos from our travels that we can have for the future.

After dinner, we walked through Lan Kwai Fong, the expat bar area, and Soho. We didn’t go in anywhere for a drink, but just took a stroll through the streets to observe. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but it was supremely hot and humid the entire time we were in Hong Kong, so anytime we went anywhere, we would become drenched with sweat quickly and found our faces, hands, and feet to be very swollen. It wasn’t all that comfortable. After a dim sum lunch on our last day, we walked around some of the shopping areas. The shopping in Hong Kong is crazy. There are so many high end stores. It’s hard to comprehend where all the money is coming from, but there is obviously no shortage of it. You can’t walk a mile without passing a Louis Vuitton or Gucci store. It’s pretty incredible. There are stores from everywhere in the world. They have it all. After dinner, we walked through the Temple Street Night Market, which sold more of the same crap we’d seen everywhere else. We weren’t impressed.

WIS: The Langham Place in Mongkok was really great. We were very lucky with the location, next to a big shopping mall and a metro stop, and also walking distance from a lot of restaurants and markets. The room was nice and the staff was extremely helpful in so many different ways. The price wasn’t cheap, but it was less expensive than many other hotels in Hong Kong. I would stay there again and would also definitely recommend it to others. They have a great pool on the roof, which we unfortunately didn’t take advantage of during the trip.

WAM: Every time I go to Hong Kong, I think more and more that it's a place I wouldn't mind living in at some point. There are a lot of people, which would present a problem for me, but I really like it as a city. It has people from everywhere, the food is good, it's easy to get around, and you're in a good location to travel in and around Asia. 

WTF: You can't walk anywhere in Hong Kong without getting dripped on from the balconies above the street. It's impossible to avoid as you walk through the city. It's really disgusting. I don't know what it is and I don't really want to know, but I do know that I do not like it. I may need to start walking around with an umbrella when I visit again.

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