Tech & Travel, Then and Now

On the 2010 trip that started this blog, I did have an iPhone and a laptop with me, but so much has changed in fourteen years.

• Then: faxing hotels to make reservations, because it's not safe to send a credit-card number via email.
  Now: online reservation forms
• Then: limited data (I have an email receipt showing I paid for 20MB of global data for a month)
  Now: I'm pretty certain I use more than 20MB per hour, given my Pokémon Go addiction plus mapping & social media & whatever else I do during the day
  
• Then: Internet cafe (in Rome, at least) in order to blog
  Now: would never book a hotel without wifi!
• Then: navigating by paper map (and in Venice, by signs on the buildings)
  Now: Google Maps with turn-by-turn directions (although walking directions sometimes leave something to be desired: getting from the subway station to the train station in Prague involved finally deciding to ignore what Google was saying and just walking in the right direction until signs appeared)
• Then: mini paper dictionary/phrase book for each country, and if what I was looking at in a grocery store wasn't in the dictionary, making a best guess as to what kind of sausage I was buying
  Now: Google Translate using phone camera; not always perfect (the pastry on the right must have some sort of colloquial name), but such a big help!
  
  
  
  
  
• Then: laptop, in order to blog and post to social media when on wifi
  Now: phone with Bluetooth folding keyboard and cellular data
  
• Then: digital camera, with photos uploaded to the laptop every night
  Now: phone camera, directly uploaded to blog and social media every night
  
• Then: taxi, arranged by telephone
  Now: Uber app
• Then: paper train passes & tickets
  Now: RailEurope app (although I carried printed copies as a backup)
• Then: buying subway tickets & passes from machines
  Now: buying subway tickets & passes on apps (and sometimes still from machines)
  
• Then: paper guidebook
  Now: some paper guidebooks and some on Kindle app. Paper ones are easier to read in the sun, and also easier to flip back and forth between map pages and description pages, but boy they weigh a lot.
• Then: not knowing where your checked bag was (not that I checked any for the 2010 trip, but I certainly did for other trips in that era)
  Now: stick an AirTag in your luggage and watch it go
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Then: having no way to contact other members of your party if you were separated
  Now: everyone has a phone with data, so texting, WhatsApp, and location sharing
• Then: having to email in advance to meet up with friends while traveling
  Now: I didn't manage to see everyone I tried to, but was able to use my phone to coordinate with different people via texting, WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Discord.
• Then: walking into the nearest gelato place and hoping it was good
  Now: looking on Google Maps for the highest-rated gelato place nearby and hoping that the line isn't too long when you get there
   

 

 

Airports x 3

A long, long travel day. After my experience two years ago at the Munich airport, I made sure I arrived three hours ahead of time. Fortunately it went a lot more quickly this time, and I was at my gate within 45 minutes of arriving. (No Covid-document checks this year, and my overall route through the airport was much shorter, possibly because my itinerary went through London, rather than having a direct flight to the US.)

I had ample time to relax in what looked like some sort of popup lounge in Terminal H:

Water fountains are a bit harder to find here than at US airports. I checked near the restrooms I walked past on the way to my gate, but didn't see any. I decided to Google, and of course there's an entire website devoted to finding drinking fountains in airports! Turns out I only had to go one gate further to fill my bottle — thank you www.wateratairports.com !

About 45 minutes before our departure from gate 34, they announced yhat we all had to have our passports checked at gate 33. For those of us with mobile boarding passes, they put the sticker on the backs of our phones.

At Heathrow, we had to go through security again. I think this was the first airport of this trip where I had to go through the whole remove-your-laptop-and-liquids routine, but at least we get to keep our shoes on now.

Since I had three hours to get to my gate, I decided to have a sit-down lunch (I had a light breakfast at my hotel many hours earlier.) Google Maps said the best place near me was a Chinese restaurant, so I settled in for dim sum and a Diet Coke. The dim sum was very pretty.

It was a long hike to my gate (the very last B gate). Along the way there were murals, ample drinking fountains (near each restroom as expected), and Ben & Jerry's vending machines.

During my London layover, I took the time to look at my flight info in the United app, and I clicked on the "change your seat" button out of curiosity. It was a good move: I was able to change my seat to one in another row in which only the window seat was already occupied, and the middle seat remained empty.

The last leg of the trip was long but uneventful. Arrived safely at home, 22 hours after leaving my hotel.

Art, Boba, and More Dance

After a very late night last night (I left the graduation party around 12:30 am, and it was still in full swing), I still managed to wake up well before anyone else in the family was ready to meet, so I decided to go to a museum.

I ended up only having about a hour to spend at the Alte Pinakothek, but definitely could have spent more time. So many beautiful old paintings; here are a couple that caught my uneducated eye as I zipped through the museum.

Fra Filippo Lippi,Virgin and Child, ca. 1460/65

Raffael, The Canigiani Holy Family,ca. 1506/07

Sandro Botticelli,The Lamentation, ca. 1490/95

Today we met for boba, and unlike yesterday we remembered to take photos!

Emily, me, Jimmy, & Beth

Beth and her friend Anna

I had dinner with my college classmate Robert and his wife tonight:

Tonight's performance was the all-school show (three different levels in each of two tracks), and we were asked to not take photos or videos (there will be professional ones available later), so I'll end this post with a blurry photo of all the students on stage for bows.

Friends, Family, and a Graduation

I started off today by going to the mall. I met up with a Pokémon Go friend there for a lucky trade, then did a little shopping. When packing for this trip, I checked the weather forecast, and because Munich was going to be cool and rainy, I packed leggings that go with my ankle boots, and socks that also work with the boots. However, I did not try them on together, so when I put on my dress this morning I discovered that the tops of the socks and the bottoms of the leggings didn't meet. My ankles were cold! I also deliberately did not pack an umbrella, because my travel raincoat is enough for most days (that is, when I remember to put it in my bag). The rain was steady today, so in addition to a longer pair of socks, I also picked up a cheap umbrella.

I poked my head into a drugstore to buy some sunscreen and cough drops. At home, I like the sugar-free Ricola cough drops, but I've only been able to find two flavors, and I didn't like one of them. There were many more choices here, and they came in cute little boxes so that I don't have to deal with noisy wrappers during performances.

I had lunch with with Beth & Jimmy, and my sister Emily. We had tasty German food, but did not remember to take any photos of our schnitzels, potato salad, Kasespätzel, and pancake with apple sauce. Or of each other — I guess we were hungry!

Pedestrian underpass

For dinner, I met my high school classmate Kristy and her husband, and had more tasty German food. I opted for a salad with chicken (schnitzel-style), and a sour-cherry spritzer.

And now for the main event, the reason we're all in Munich. Today Beth graduated from Iwanson International, after three years of hard work.

Gazing Downward

Today was another train ride, this time from Prague to Munich. Instead of sharing random blurry scenery, I'm going to backtrack a little and share some sidewalk photos.

I look down at my feet a lot when I walk. Not just because I'm playing Pokémon Go on my phone — even before the development of mobile phones I had a knack for stepping off curbs or into holes and spraining my ankles. And many of the places I've visited on this trip have quaint cobblestones, which require an extra degree of caution. Sometimes this view of the world turns up (down?) interesting things.

Vienna has its own Hollywood Walk of Fame, feauturing composers, conductors, and other musicians. I didn't photograph every star I saw, so a few of these are photos I found online, but I did actually see each one in this collage in person. Maybe the next time I go to Vienna I'll look for the rest

The sidewalks in Prague are tiled in little square cobblestones in gray, white, and brown. Each building had its own pattern out front. Churches often had crosses, and Castle Square (third row on right) had this zigzag that kind of reminds me of crenellations.

Other things seen on the ground:

Verona: Original city plan

(Prague: Plaque by the Charles Bridge, marking the spot where Wenceslas Column used to stand)

Prague: Municipal House lobby

Cathedral floors

Tonight was the first of Beth's performances this weekend. Before the show, I grabbed a "döner kebab" at La Casa de Kebob, another Google Maps find. Talk about multicultural: Turkish food at a restaurant with a Spanish name in Germany. It was very tasty, and I would go back again.

Since Beth was only in the first piece tonight, she gave everyone permission to go home at intermission. Looking forward to seeing her dance again the next two nights — I haven't seen her perform in person since high school! And I'm excited to have my laptop back; will have to go back through my posts and do some editing :-)

Prague, Day 3

Today I slept in again, then enjoyed the croissant I bought yesterday for breakfast. The weather forecast had a chance of rain in the afternoon, so I packed my raincoat into my bag and headed out in my sun hat. I was only a few feet from the hotel when the rain started, and it lasted most of the day.

This morning I tried out taking the tram instead of walking over the Charles Bridge again. I took a little detour from the route Google Maps gave me when I saw what turned out to be the Czech Senate. There was a pond with koi, and several peacocks, some of them the usual color and some of them white.

My first intended stop of the day was the Basilica of St. James, which was closed when I stopped by yesterday. On the way there I stopped at an ATM in a mall (almost everything can be paid for with a credit card, but Prague collects a city tax for hotels that can only be paid in cash, just like the one in Venice).

The organist was playing when I got to St. James.

Next on my list of things to do today was to stop at a jewelry store (AleAle) recommended in the guidebook. I got myself a pair of nice earrings, then headed back across the river.

Here are today's random building photos (to be properly identified after I get back to my laptop this weekend):

One of the drawbacks to traveling alone is that I don't like eating alone in restaurants, so I tend to end up eating sandwiches in my hotel room. But thanks to Susan signing us up for a food tour in Venice, I've discovered it's a great way to get out and sample local food. I don't necessarily get my money's worth, as I don't drink alcohol and am a light eater (I find that eating about half of each dish on a tour like this is just right for me), but it's worth it to get the local experience.

Today I went on a tour with Eating Europe, and it was a lot of fun! There were eleven of us plus the guide: a family from San Diego, two childhood friends with their husbands (they now live in Wisconsin & Boston), and a professor and his wife from Ohio.

First stop was on a beer boat. They actually make the beer on this boat! We had a soft cheese, which was served as two slices with a sauce between the slices, with bread on the side. The non-drinkers in the group got a house-made blueberry soda:

(The restroom doors)

Next stop was at a gingerbread shop. Czech gingerbread doesn't actually contain ginger, so it has a different taste. We sampled three kinds of cookies there, but there wasn't a good way to photograph cookies in a brown bag, so this photo was taken later at my hotel of the remaining half-cookies:

Course #3 was open-faced sandwiches. The little skewers holding them together are bamboo.

The soup course was served at a restaurant with cool-looking steampunk decor. I had the chicken noodle soup, but I also took a photo of the other one (a sauerkraut soup with spicy sausage, although one of the other people on the tour assured me that "spicy" in Prague isn't really spicy at all).

Our final stop was at Cafe Louvre, where we had a choice of beef sirloin in a vegetable gravy with bread dumplings, paprika chicken with gnocchi that resemble spätzel, or vegetable pancakes. I went with the beef, which was delicious:

We also had our dessert at this restaurant: apple strudel with a cream sauce and whipped cream.

After the tour was over, I backtracked to the gingerbread store to buy some cookies, then went to Havelsky Market to get some fruit:

On the way back to the hotel, I went into a random church. I don't even know the name of it (will look it up later), but it was really nice. I couldn't get a good photo of the organ in this one because the lighting was terrible, so just one photo: