Sightseeing in Salzburg

 While Thanksgiving was still a week away (and not celebrated here), all of Slovakia was given the day off for Democracy Day on November 17th.  The odd thing about holidays here is they fall on the actual day, meaning if November 17 fell on a weekend, citizens would neither receive the prior Friday nor following Monday off.  Unfortunately, You would celebrate over the weekend and get no day off (not fun).  And if the holiday falls in the middle of the week on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, employees would not get an extra holiday for the prior Monday or following Friday, and you must use a vacation day.  However, laws here provide a minimum of 20 days of vacation, plus additional days for weekends and holidays worked, so it will not be a problem.

 As the long Holiday weekend quickly approached, I got a late start on my travel planning.  With winter weather and limited sunlight around the corner, exploring the Nordic countries of Finland, Norway, and Denmark had to wait until another time.  In addition, beautiful nearby places within Slovakia and cities like Prague (Praha), Vienna (Wien), and Budapest are better suited to be visited multiple times while I have family and friends in town.  With those facts in mind, I embarked on a couple different train transfers across Austria to the western part of the country near Germany, to the city of Salzburg.  The interesting thing about trains here is you buy a ticket valid for anytime over a five day period and finding seats can be challenging at times because you never know the demand for a particular departure time.  Arriving at the train ten minutes prior to departure, I was excited to find a forward facing window seat and quickly occupied the spot.  Then just before departure, I come to find out that a family somehow reserved the seat I was sitting in with their ticket.  While nothing is posted to identify reserved seats on trains, your comfort comes down to chance, and I was stuck riding backwards into town, but luckily I had a seat for the three hour trip.

Surrounded by two small mountains, Salzburg is on the banks of the Salzach River, at the northern boundary of the Alps and was the birthplace of Mozart.  The Christmas markets of the city were in full swing, with large crowds sampling traditional food, drinks, and crafts.  I sampled a variety of Bosnas and Bratwursts, as well as the local beers.  

  The next day I toured different parts of the city, including Hohensalzburg Castle and the Salzburg Cathedral.  The castle provided nice views of the city from above, however the weather did not always accommodate my photos.  And the cathedral was beautiful; especially interesting were the candle/shadow photos I took in the church crypt.  Overall, it was a nice short side trip that I am looking forward to taking advantage more while I am here in the middle of Europe.

Unchartered Territory – The Bratislava Grocery Store

  I feel as if I have been down this isle multiple times today, yet it has never felt more dark and unfamiliar.  If only I can find sign, something to point me down a more familiar path.  Then, suddenly, I spot two familiar faces on the shelf.  While not my best friends, Ben and Jerry (Ice Cream), Tom and Jerry from my cartoon days was definitely a welcoming site.  In a land where I speak three words of the local language (pivo – beer; vino – wine; ďakujem – thank you), pictures speak 1,000.  And while I never thought I would be one to be swayed by advertisements and celebrities, it did not matter if Tom and Jerry were trying to selling me cat food for a pet I did not own, I was buying a product endorsed by them.  Turns out they were selling me cereal, so all was fine. 

  My grocery store is located about a 5 minute walk from my apartment in a three story, two building complex, all part of Tesco.  In addition to food, they sell cooking utensils, bed and bath products, clothes, and electronics.  Most important is you must pay for each item on the floor which you found the product, even though everything is one company, or else you are thrown out of the store regardless if you unknowingly take escalator without paying first.  Thankfully, I was warned of this policy up-front by my UK co-worker who had the experience of being tossed out.

  

  Grocery stores in Europe are much smaller when compared to America.  It seems people prefer to shop more often (a couple times a week), buying the freshest produce, and use a basket vs. a cart (which still is small compared to American standards).  Majority of the time, my basket is over-flowing and pulling my arm out of its socket less than half way through the store.  Even the portion sizes are smaller, for example, the spaghetti sauce comes in a small jar which is probably used for one meal between two or three people.  I realize now that family size lasagna that I took down in one sitting back in the US was probably more suitable for European standards.  The one exception to the smaller size is vegetable oil, which oddly comes in a five liter drum for some reason.   Bread is baked fresh daily, however, this trip I decided to go with the less fresh,

Bread Slicer

pre-sliced option as I was intimidated by the large machine with multiple knives that I had to use to slice the fresh bread.  Next trip after I am able to stalk others using the machine, I will give it a try, but I am not up for visiting the hospital again which I will talk about in a future blog (no problems, it was standard procedure for my residence permit).  The deli section is just a tough, as there so many different varieties I think the store is inventing meat.  As I have never heard of combined ham/turkey cold cut, I resorted back to the pre-packaged meats with pictures.  Same with the cheeses since most of the products look similar; I only know that the Swiss variety has holes.  But I am keeping the packages which have the names in Slovak for both meats and cheese, so I can make second attempt at the deli another day.  Having to grade fresh cheese was easy, and honestly, it tasted ten times better than the graded packaged cheese I use to buy at home.

Random items from the Sea

Sea food is also readily available and good, which I was initially nervous because Slovakia is in the middle of Europe not by any sea.  As I thought about this more, Chicago, which is two times as far from the ocean (I do not eat the Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan), has good sea food, so there is really nothing to be worried about.  However, this first trip, I did pass on the one sea food platter pictured to the left as it appeared to be a collection of colorful crustaceans that were raked from the bottom of the sea.  Fruits and vegetables are all the same, but I have to get use to using a carrot peeler since they do not have the packaged baby carrots like home.  There is one vegetable which I had no idea what it might be used for.  As I approached the table, I could not tell if it was a tree root or an oversized potato.  With a camera in hand, I took a photo and jotted down the name to research the item.  Apparently it is known as zeler, which is the root of a celery stalk, and is used for soup in Slovakia.  Given that it was the size of a softball, I am curious how big the pot is for this soup.

Zeler

  Finally, the checkout line, where I am able to get past by nodding my head, and handling over my credit card.  After your goods are scanned, you have very little real estate for the items to collect at the end of the counter, meaning you must quickly bag your groceries or risk causing a back-up.  After all this, I was actually challenged on my physical signature vs the one on the back of the credit card for the first time ever, but managed to get everything straightened out.

Weekend in Paris

 After a short two hour flight, I had arrived back in Paris, ready to experience some of the sites and tastes (and smells) that I missed in my prior trip to the city.  With dinner reservations later in the evening, I thought I had plenty of time to take the Air France bus into the city, and check into the hotel.  While the bus arrives every 15 minutes, it was over an hour delayed, and my dinner plans were at risk (More on the reason for the delay later in the blog).  Once I arrived at the bus stop, I had to make my way over to the business district of Paris, known as La Defense.  After a couple taxi rejections, one informed me the La Defense area was just up the street, and I started to walk.  Paris, like all European cities, was built 100s of year ago, and unlike US grids, parallel and perpendicular streets are nonexistent, which make navigation extremely challenging.  To further complicate things, street names will change from one block to the next, and street signs are actually posted on the 2^nd floor of the corner buildings.  Even in La Defense, which was built recently, you will find multiple roundabouts, on different levels, with pedestrian walks 3 stories above street level.  Needless to say, I finally found a taxi to take me to my hotel, and I arrived at my hotel, 3 hours after the dinner reservation. 

 The next day began much better.  Using the metro, the morning started with tea and breakfast at a café while people watching in the city.  Across the street was the famous Denise Acabo Chocolat Confiserie, where I picked up some really great tasting chocolate and caramel delights, almost too sweet for my taste, however, as most who know me will say, that is highly impossible.  Then it was off to the Eiffel Tower for photos, and a nearby museum which had a photography exhibit that contained some very interesting and dramatic work by the photographers, as well as narrative about the artist and the reasons behind their work.  The afternoon ended with a tour of the sewers, which most would think sounds odd, but Paris was one of the first cities to develop a system for water filtration.  The system dates back to 1370 when the first underground system was constructed.  Unique compared to other tours in Paris, it was interesting to see but I did welcome the fresh air once the tour ended.  Later in the evening, rain dampened the plans for a river cruise, so it was off to dinner, which the menu consisted of seafood and I sampled different crustaceans.  Unlike American cuisine, all of these samples were still in the same form which they were caught in the sea, complete with head and legs.  But this is all about new experiences and living the European way, not trying to force my American way of living in a foreign land, and actually, the food was very tasty.   

Notre Dame de Paris

 The next morning, I got a late start, but headed to Sacre Coeur and found a great view of Paris from above.  As typical in Europe, there was a nice festival with local arts and crafts near the church.  The next stop was the Galeria Lafayette shopping center and a tour of the opera house.  The afternoon ended with a walk through the Louvre courtyard over to Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Louvre

 The trip definitely would not end without some drama.  My flight out of Charles De Gaulle was scheduled to leave at 8:40 PM.  Since I became very familiar with the subway, I thought departing hotel at 5:40 PM would be perfect.  I talked with the Metro sales agent and bought my ticket to the airport.  At the transfer station, I waited for my train to CDG.  After 30 minutes, and 5 trains passing, I wondered what the problem might be as I was starting to cut my flight close.   

Arc de Triomphe

La Defense Arch

Finally, I inquired and was informed that because of the Air France strikes, trains to CDG were not running, and I had to take the train to a different station, and then take a shuttle bus to the airport.  I found out the strike was the same reason why my shuttle bus took so long on Friday.  It might have been nice of the sales agent to inform me of this change, or maybe have the metro post a sign at the transfer station, but no time to complain, as I was starting to cut my flight close.  However, the other thing I did not realize was daylight savings in Europe began a week earlier than the US (Not that I had any clue US daylight savings was Nov 6), and while I made it to the airport at the time prior to departure I thought I would, it came with a little more excitement that I thought.  Labor strikes and maintaining flexible plans will be just another thing I will have to learn while residing here.

Opera House

Sacre Coeur

Inside the sewers (Fortunately, this is not a scratch and sniff)

Finally, from Notre Dame, there are numerous statues on the cathedral, and this one of St. Denis is only one holding holding his head.  He was Bishop of Paris and was martyred shortly after A.D. 250. After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles).