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Day 25 (Wed) - Back to reality...

Lovely Rotten Groton, home of the US Submarine Force, the "Submarine Capital of the World."

A black hole who's pull you can only escape for an excruciatingly short period of time, destined to return sooner rather than later. And with that return comes the dread and foreboding normally associated with smashing headlong into that unbelievable dark and densely massive center.

Ahh...back to work...back to reality...

Day 24 (Tue) - Ramstein and home

Once in Ramstein, I traveled on Patriot Air, a civilian airline that flies military members home. The plane was regular, if slightly old, 767 packed with over 240 soldiers, sailors, and airmen, most of the returning from Iraq or Afganistan; we had a civilian flight crew, and even watched Iron Man.

After landing and clearing customs, and on my way to the USO, I was shocked to hear cheers and clapping from around the corner. At least 200 hundred people, women, children, and old men, were gathered there, waving American flags and wearing bright smiles. They were welcoming the soldiers home and thanking them for their service. It was incredibly moving, and slightly awkward, since I didn't deserve their praise - at least not like these men and women returning from the war zone. It did give me a new appreciation for the citizens who volunteer to assist returning soldiers, like these people, and those at the USO. Unless you've been there, no one can truly appreciate how emotionally challenging it is to be away, and then return.

In stark contrast to the ease of travel on public transportation in Europe, I had a real problem getting from BWI to my car in New Jersey. I ended up renting a car from Hertz one-way, leaving it at a teeny tiny airport in Trenton, and then catching a $80 cab the rest of the way. In hindsight, I never once considered Amtrak.

When I finally got to my car, I was happy for the familiar comforts of a different pair of jeans than the same one you've been wearing for the last three weeks, flipflops that have been with you since hawai'i, and music you knew the words to.

Day 22 - 23 (Sun - Mon) Vienna & Heidelburg

Sunday was a relaxing day, my last day in Vienna. The end of my trip was in sight, and I had to start moving east towards Ramstein, and my flight home. I slept in late, bought my night train ticket for Heidelburg, a touristy town one stop away from the air force base, and killed the time before it left by wandering around Vienna one last time. I had originally hoped to buy something nice to remember the city by, but of course I had forgotten that everything was closed on Sundays, so I was forced to committ the city to memory the old fashioned way.

The night train was great. I couldn't get a bed, or cochette, but the six-person compartment I had only had me and a girl from the Netherlands, so we were able to lay down and sleep quite comfortably. The great part was that it took me almost all the way to Ramstein while I slept, and I got to a new place plenty early enough to explore.

Heidelburg is a very touristy town with a castle on a hill, and not a lot of character. English is heard as commonly on the streets as German, and whatever charm the place had, seems to have left a long time ago. Rick Steves actually hates this place, and I can see why.

The castle is pretty fun though. While it doesn't compare to the other castles I've been to or seen, its still fun to crawl around the ruins of an ancient fortress.

At one time the castle seems to have been pretty important, and I'm sure in a way related to the Electors at Trier, but I just didn't have the energy to pay for a guided tour or read wikipedia. The castle did have an enormous wine barrel (30'+ in diameter), that leaked, but they kept it anyway.

I hiked up the hill behind the castle for a great view of the fog, and decided it was time to get to Ramstein, and home.

Day 19 - 21 (Thu - Sat) - Vienna [Austria]

Vienna is truly an incredible city, a world class capital of a country I could definitely return to and spend a lot of time in. The last few days have been relaxing, and at the same time, full of activity. The public transportation system is simple and makes it so that you can access every sight in the city with ease.

I went to the opera two more times - once to see a ballet (Onegin) and the third time to see another opera (Faust). For the first two, it was quite simple to get tickets for the standing area.



Faust, however, as a premiere of a famous opera, was a totally different story. We had to wait in line for about an hour, just for the standing room. Once we got our tickets, and they led us inside the main theater, people starting pushing and shoving, literally, to get the best spots. The worst by far, were the old ladies. These harpies would knock you over if you didn't bodily prevent them from doing so. Inside, people scrambled to tie scarves to the banisters, thus marking your position. Shouting matches broke out as scarves overlapped, and security had to be called. All this in one of the most revired opera houses in Europe. Amazing.


Like I said earlier, Vienna is truly a grand city. I spent most of my time here wandering around the city on foot, tram, and bicycle. The old city used to be walled for protection, and crammed within these walls are innumberable churches, museums, shops, and other sites waiting to be explored. In this modern era, the walls have been replaced by a wide road that rings the city center. Along this ring-road are many of the huge and impressive buildings that Vienna is famous for.

I particularly enjoyed the Volksgarten, once the private grounds of the Hapsburg Palace, it is now a public garden. Mozart is memorialized here in a fancy marble statue with pink flowers planted in the shape of a musical note at his feet. The locals gather here to enjoy the off-leash dog park and sit on the benches or at the base of the statue of the Emperor to bask in the setting Autumn sun.


I also went to the Freud museum, a small house/office that Freud used to live and practice in. As a museum, it wasn't the greatest, but it was interesting to see his famous couch and to read about how he lived his life. To me he seemed more quack than genius, he relates every psychological issue to a deep-rooted sexual perversion. They had a small library where you could read his books. Of course I immediately gravitated to On Dreams, and On Sexuality, collections of essays.





In Dreams he explains the symbolic meaning of objects in our dreams, and most of them seem to be about genitals and their castration. In Sexuality I read about penis envy as the plight of all females, and about our sexual obsession with our poop as children, and how that shapes our adult personalities. Very interesting... The most telling was perhaps a sentence in Dreams where Freud lamented the publication of these essays, as they would reveal a great deal of his inner psychological workings.





My favorite of all was a letter from one of Freud's contemporaries discussing a hysterical woman (to them all women were perverts or hysterical). In it, the good doctor stated that he could not prescribe any medicine to help cure her hysterics. Instead he recommended the following, "normal penis. repeated application." Hah! I love it!

Some of the other things I did/saw - cruised around town on a rented bike...checked out the crypts where the Hapsburgs are buried...ate fancy chocolate Sachertorte cakes at fancy chocolate restaurants...finger sandwiches at the buffet (thats where the same of those little vanilla creme cookies comes from)...palled around with statues at the Belevedere Palace...examined Van Gogh at the Albertina...the list goes on

Day 17 - 18 (Tue - Wed) - Prague [Czech]

On Tuesday, we met up late in the day, I think all of us are slowing down a little. Being on the road for so long was catching up with us, and I was still dealing with my cold, so it was nice to relax and not be in a hurry.

We met up for tea in a little hippy tea-house and drank 6 or 7 different kinds of teas while eating couscous and enjoyed the ambiance for a little while. We had a few hours to kill before night fell and our ghost tour began, so we walked around the city.

At the Charles Bridge, there's a famous statue that people make pilgrimages to so they can rub the base of it and make a wish. Apparently, this preacher heard the King's wife's confession for a while. The King decided one day that he wanted to know what his wife's been up to, so he tried to force the preacher to spill the beans. Holding to his sacred vow of confidentiality in the confessional, the preacher refused to speak on it.

The King got pissed, and decided that torture would be the best way to get him to divulge her secrets. The preacher didn't say a word. Infuriated, the King tied the preacher up, weighted him down, and tossed him over the side of the bridge. When the preacher hit the water, 5 bright stars emerged from the water and ascended to heaven.

When we got to the statue, it was inaccessible, an entire section of the bridge fenced off for renovation work. Determined to complete my personal pilgrimage (that I just started a few minutes prior after reading about it in Rick Steves), I looked over my shoulder for Czech cops and mad monks, and made a dash through a gap in the construction fences and ran to the statue.

Underwhelmed by the statue, I still rubbed the left side while making my wish. I also rubbed the right side, which is supposed to help you get pregnant. I couldn't remember which side was what, so I figured why not knock out two birds with one stone.

After that spiritually exhausting exercise, we got some dinner, and hit up a bar for rounds of world-famous Czech absinthe. We ordered a round of the green liquor, and learned about the little ritual you must undertake before quaffing. You take a spoon full of sugar, soak it in a little of the liquor, light it aflame until it caramelizes, stir it in, and toss it down the hatch. The stuff is like 80% alcohol, so needless to say, it kinda burns going down. Some beers and another round of absinthe and we were ready for our ghost tour.

The ghost tour was pretty lame, to be blunt. The guide was Ty McGee from Florida, and he just simply wasn't interesting. Good thing we were still enjoying the effects of the absinthe, it made the tour bearable. We ended the night at a Mexican restaurant for late-night nachos, a staple in any country.

The next day, I did laundry, and hopped an afternoon train to Vienna. After finding all the hostels full, and scrambling to find a hotel room, I had about an hour of daylight left, so I took the train to see the city.

Vienna is very impressive. The Hofburgs made this city their home, so the old town is defined by their palaces and other enormous and ornate buildings and monuments built either by them or for them. I went to the Vienna Opera House and bought a standing room ticket for the show currently in progress, an opera called La Pique Dame. I can't adequately describe how incredible it was to be standing there, directly in front of the stage, watching these performers, and listening to the music of the Philharmonic from the pit below. I stayed for about an hour and a half, and growing tired of standing, I left.

I ended my night by touring St Stephan's cathedral. When I walked in, the organs were playing (the first time I've heard any of the amazing looking organs). I sat down in the pews and just listened for a while, then headed back to the hotel.

Day 16 (Mon) - Prague [Czech]

Hostel life can fun pretty fun - last night I spent alternately putting up with a dour, older grumpy, very unattractive German woman I nicknamed "The Frau," and flirting and telling ghost stories to 4 excitable Brazilian girls. The smaller co-ed dorm rooms can be pretty interesting. And no, nothing happened, unless it was between the girls and the Frau, after I left in the morning.

Later, I met up with my new friends from Salzburg for lunch. We bought tickets for one of Prague's famous Black Light Theaters later in the day and then went to tour the Jewish Ghetto.

Apparently, some time ago, one of the Popes (I think there were two or three at this time) decided that since the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, so they could no longer live in the same parts of the city as Christians. So all the Jews of Prague moved to a muddy, low-lying and frequently flooded section of town. The conditions were really quite terrible, plus they had to wear identification (like a bright yellow hat, or a star of david on their back), had to be back by a curfew time or they would be punished, and could not work, except for money lending.

Well, the Jews embraced their situation and built a fabulous little community that includes several of the oldest Jewish synagogues in Europe. One of which bears the handwritten names of the ~70,000 Czech Jews killed during WWII.

The most interesting part of the Ghetto is the cemetary. Here, bodies are buried one on top of the other, for up to 12 levels. Since there was limited space, and Jewish tradition holds that bodies should not be moved once buried, when the graveyard filled up, they just added about 6' of soil, and started over again. The gravestones were moved to the top level. Sometimes if an important person was buried, his or her body would not be covered with another.

The end result is a fantastic landscape of a multi-level graveyard with thousands of ancient tombstones lying helter-skelter, in varying degrees of wear and fading. Some think that ~100,000 people are buried in this little area, and from the craziness of the tombstones, its easy to believe.

We finished off the evening with a very confusing, and pretty much terrible show at the Black Light Theater. The show was some sort of combination of black light, theater, and film, but was dated horribly by the 70's style cinematography (thinik Kubric on acid) and made less interesting by the unenthusiastic acting of the participants; both real and celluloid versions.

We made up for it by gorging ourselves at dinner with some Bavarian Goulash, tasty pasta, and stroganoff (not your mother's stroganoff), eating it all family style.