stories: Rick Steves’ Gathering
We were following Rick Steves’ Tapas crawl tour in Madrid and we go into the Casa Toni Bar to try their fried eggplant (bejerena) when we overheard the three American ladies at the table by the window trying to ask an Italian couple at the next table what they were eating (we recognized it as the eggplant we had on our table) and the Italian lady pulled out a Spanish-Italian dictionary, which wasn’t really helping the American ladies, so the Italian lady gave them a piece to try. Finally, Amy couldn’t stand not helping out so she said “It’s eggplant!” The ladies couldn’t hear her, so Brian tries to get their attention. We tell them that it’s eggplant and everybody’s happy, the American ladies thank us for telling and the Italian lady thanks us for helping. Then, another American couple comes in, holding a Rick Steves’ book! The three American ladies get all excited and point out that they also had a Rick Steves’ book. Of course, we had to jump in and flash our own Rick Steves’ book that was lying on our table. All of a sudden, Rick Steves’ book wielding American travelers took over the tapas bar, babbling about taking pictures and sending them to Rick Steves. Brian, a lady from the first American group, and the lady from the American couple stand together with their Rick Steves books and take pictures. Then, they commenced asking each other for recommendations on hotels and where they were staying (Brian was the one participating in the foray, not Amy. She just mostly watched). The three American ladies were from the Sacramento area and had come in from Bilbao, and the American couple had come to that same tapas bar for gezpacho the last time they came into Madrid. The ladies figured out we were “techies” almost immediately after we said that we lived in the Palo Alto area. Brian’s Stanford Swimming tshirt probably helped them deduce. We then all sat down at our respective tables and did our own thing. The couple left after their gezpacho and when the three ladies were about to leave, Brian, who had churros on his mind all night, got up to ask them if they knew where to get good churros. They didn’t know, but they talked about other tapas bars to try and said goodbyes while hoping that we’ll cross paths again. Afterwards, Brian noted to Amy that the ladies and the couple were on a different level of Rick Steves travel. They were all staying at 3 dollar sign hotels! We’re still at 1! We saw both the couple and the ladies together one last time in front of La Casa de Abuello, where we had shrimp in olive oil (gambas al ajillo) earlier. We didn’t say hi, though, and went on to our last tapas stop for the night.

Stories:
While on riding on the elephant there was a large crowd watching it from the ground. One little boy was looking at the waving trunk in particular interest, when all of the sudden the elephant began to bellow, making elephant sounds and raising its head. Then it sprayed water out of it’s trunk… directly hitting the kid. The kid jumped back but he was trapped between the wall and the elephant spray. He escaped into the building. Later his mom drug him out to dry him off. He was not happy, and glared at the elephant with the intensity that one acquires when they meet their arch-nemesis!

Note: Brian was very excited about today. He likes giant robotic elephants.

Day of Compliments!
1. On the bus back from the tulip place, there were some Malaysian tourists. Amy allows one of them to hop in front of her to the aisle as we were exiting the bus. The second Malaysian person let us go in front in return. As we exit the bus, the second Malaysian tourists asks Amy where she’s from “America! You?” “Malaysia. We’re visiting from Germany” “Ohh.” “Good looking.” “I’m sorry?” Malaysian tourists points at Amy and then at Brian and repeats: “Good looking.” Amy is a little flabbergasted, but says “Thanks!” We part ways and Amy wishes them good travels.

2. As we were sitting in the cafe waiting for dinner in the main square of Medieval Brugge, Amy, as her usual dorky self, starts reading out loud the history of Brugge from her book. She hears some chuckling from her right, but she thought the couple sitting at the table weren’t English speakers because she couldn’t understand what they were saying, so she carries on. Later, when the JUMBO Spaghetti Bolognaise comes to the table (we ordered large because we were hungry and we were going to share), Amy is dwarfed by the size of the dish and the couple on the right make their first verbal conversation “Ahahahaha, You need to finish all of that!” This was the first sign that they spoke English. It turns out that they had a northern UK accent! We learned to understand them as the night went on. Then, as we carried out our maneuver to switch plates after we had finished half, they commented on how good of an idea that was and we laughed. Then, we made small talk about the beauty of Brugge, how we’re doing this 2 month long travel, they gave us some tips on Paris (Don’t eat by the Eiffel tower, super expensive), and they told us that Flemish stew was very good. We carried on until they had to leave, and as they passed by us, the lady said “Enjoy your trip! You both are wonderful people!” WONDERFUL!

Story: Surreal Brugge Train
After entering Belgium we experience three strange surreal events.
Brian needed to go to the restroom on the train so he followed the directions until he came to a big metal door. It didn’t seem to be a toilet door but he decided to check inside anyways. Suddenly someone called out to him in Flemish (or Belch as we first thought there language was called) Brian turned around to find a large guy in the back of the car just repeating the same phrase over and over. Brian asked if he or anyone in the car knew English, but everyone just stared at him. The way they were all just looking at him with the same serious face was intimidating and creepy. He got scared and decided he could hold it.

Later when we entered Antwerp to transfer trains, the trainstation looked like a creepy stage set. The weather was getting rainy outside and it created this foggy like atmosphere inside the station. To add to the effect the train station was HUGE and EMPTY.

When we got to Brugge, The train station looked like a giant construction zone, it was as if we were plopped down onto an unfinished world…. @_@

Tips for best views:
Sit on the left from Bergen to Voss
Sit on the right on the bus from Voss to the boat

Stories:
Little girl on the Norway in a nutshell train to Oslo
When booking the trains for Norway in a Nutshell the day before our journey, the ticket agent informed us that the leg from Myrdal to Oslo was fully booked and we could not reserve a seat. He suggested we take it anyway and see if we can find a seat when we get there. So after seeing beautiful fjords on the train, bus, boat and then the Flam train we wait for the train to Oslo. We see a lot of hard core looking people in cross country ski gear and we wonder where everyone was going. The conductor from the Flam train was also on the platform as we waited and he explained to us that there was a big world famous cross country skiing meet happening somewhere along the train route. Sure enough, when we got on the train, there were cross country skiiers everywhere, sleeping on the floor of the train, filling up the seats, etc. So we walk through the cars, trying to find some place to put our bags and wait for a seat to open up, when we come across a little room with benches, soft stools, a table, and a tv playing a cartoon. Inside was a woman with her daughter. She looked at our confused faces as we wandered into the room and said “There’s no more that way,” pointing to the other side of the room, “This is the end.” “Oh… uh… can we sit here?” asks Amy. “Sure, if there are no children.” So imagine Brian and I wearing our giant backpacks wandering into a little kids room with two big windows on either side looking outside of train and plopping down on a soft stool next to a little girl who’s eyes are glued to the television screen. We sort of settle into our little purple stools and watch Norwegian cartoons with the girl, keeping an eye out for pretty scenery outside of the big windows. It was sort of a sanctuary away from the rowdy, excited cross country skiiers on the rest of the train. Suddenly, the cartoon froze on the screen. The little girl starts muttering something, we can’t tell if she’s speaking English or Norwegian, but we exchange hand signals that translated to “Ah! It’s not working!” “Gosh, I wonder what happened!” “I don’t know!” “Sorry ” The little girl sits there for a while, staring at the frozen tv, and when she leaves, it starts up again. As if by instinct, she turns around and looks at us and we’re frantically waving to her to come back. She comes back and it’s working for maybe another five minutes and then it freezes again. She still sits there, disappointed. Brian feels like we needed to entertain her, so he comes up with the idea of folding origami. He makes a square out of scrap from an unimportant brochure and hands it to Amy. Amy commences to fold a crane with moving wings. The little girl is interested and peeks over, but tries to avoid staring by looking at the TV. Eventually, the little girl’s mom comes back into the room and we strike up conversation with her. Both her son and husband were participating in the ski meet and they were going to meet them at the finish line. She said it takes about 6 hours for them to ski the distance the train could go in half an hour. It would probably take Brian and Amy a week. We tell her that we’re making the little girl a crane, and the mother is very knowledgeable and says “Oh, yes, Origami! That is Japanese!” Amy finishes and hands the crane to the little girl and shows her how to make the wings flap. The little girl is very happy and at her mom’s prompt, she says “Thank you” very clearly and constantly plays with the crane even though the cartoon had started working again. When they leave the room to get off the train, she turned around and said, again, very clearly, “Good bye” with the crane held tightly in her hand. Maybe we inspired her to become an origami master!

Then more luck was awaiting us in Bergen, Norway (where we are now!) First off all the tour guides warned you to be ready for rain and clouds as Bergen only gets 60 days of sun every year. I guess we are lucky because we’ve had two beautiful days of Norwegian sun! Also when checking in to our hotel they didn’t have our reservation (that is one unit of bad luck) but they had some open rooms for us if we were willing to change rooms for our second night. And since we had to go through the trouble of moving they gave us a 25% discount! ( two units of good luck! that means we ended up with one unit of good luck)

oh… and Amy wants me to add that she found ramen. I don’t think that is so lucky :/

I’m off to do some traveling now!
ciao!

Story:
Grandma on the Bergen funicular, Grandma pat
On the way down from the mountain after sunset in Bergen, we took the 9:00 funicular down. We start noticing that there is a stream of elderly people who are coming down from the restaurant into the funicular. At first, we comfortably fit into the funicular, but as we waited some more, there were so many elderly people that we gave up our seat and had to stand against the side of the car. Some couldn’t fit and had to wait for the next one in half an hour. While standing and waiting for the funicular to start, an elderly lady who was sitting close by starts talking to Amy in Norwegian and gestures towards the seats that used to be ours. Amy interprets it as “Thanks for giving up the seat, that was very nice of you.” and Amy nods and smiles and waves “No problem!” The lady then gives Amy a Grandma Pat. You know, the firm, yet commanding pat + squeeze of approval? When the funicular starts moving, Amy is facing away from the pole when the lady gets her attention and starts saying more and gesturing what Amy interpreted as “Turn around and hold on to the pole!” which Amy did, and the lady continued speaking and gesturing a swaying motion, which Amy interpreted as “Yeah, that’s right. You need to hold on! The car will sway back and forth and you could fall!” Again, Amy smiles and nods and tries to thank her for her advice. Finally, when we reached the bottom, there was such a rush of people that we didn’t get a chance to get one last look at her and thank her for her kind caring. Amy is pretty bummed about this. Fortunately, Amy had stolen a picture of her while waiting for the funicular to start

Story: Brian’s hunger hallucinations
We were both super duper hungry by dinner time in Copenhagen because we hadn’t eaten very much all day. While walking down a busy shopping street Brian excitedly exclaimed, “oooo! oh… I thought it was a bagel, but it was just a sock.” He was referring to shoe store that we had just passed.

We walk down, past the church, and we are very confused, doesn’t a train need train tracks? But no, not this one. This one is a Mercedes Benz Tractor pulled train. Oh yes. With Lusty Music.
We walk up to the front,
Amy: Hello? This is the train up to St. Goar’s castle?
Man: Maybe?
Amy: ????
Man: How did you get my number?
Brian (lifts up his Rick Steves’ Book): Rick Steves’
Man: That book is great, It’s like the bible. He has my number in there??
Brian: (flips through pages) Here!
Man: (takes the book) Yep, that’s my number. (admires the tabs (Brian added these and he is constantly saying how they’re awesome) Man gives it back to Brian)
We get on the Tschu Tschu Train and have the ride of our lives through the tiny streets of St. Goar, in full view of all the locals. If you think seeing people on a carriage ride is ridiculous, imagine seeing two people on a two car Tschu Tschu train going through a pedestrian zone. Yeah. That was us.

We realized after they left that it must have been really funny when Amy responded “Pinwagen” considering how they were asking us where we came from and neither of us spoke German.

It’s around 11:30PM on clear night in Munich. Brian and I are sitting in the lobby of Hotel Jedderman next to windows with a clear view from the street, using the free internet station. We received an email from Stanford saying that we could order our cap and gowns, but we needed to measure our head to get our cap size. Luckily, I had remembered to bring a tape measurer, exactly for this occasion. So Brian is helping me measure my head (an inch above the ears!) when two ladies walk into the lobby from the street. After Brian finished his measurement and I looked up, I saw the two ladies, standing over Brian’s shoulder, staring at us and the computer, looking confused and amused at the same time. I stared at them and they stared at me, Brian was somewhere in the middle. Then the ladies started laughing and I started laughing. I knew that they had thought what we were doing was the most bizarre thing they had seen all night, and I knew I had to explain it to them or I would never be able to live it down, so I said, “Sprechen sie Englisch?” (Do you speak English?) to which she nodded, and I explained “I’m trying to order a hat, so I have to measure my head!” and she said “Ohhhhh” and then babbled a lot about what she thought we might have been doing, which included, “Maybe you were measuring your brain?”