ATM advantage

Money, money, money!

The general consensus for managing money abroad is that ATMs are the way to go. If you limit your withdrawals by taking out a large amount each time, you can keep your fees below the 3% transaction fee charged for using your card to buy stuff directly.

I went through the expenses for our trip, and sure enough, our fees came out to 1.1%.

Fortunately, I was able to mainly use ATMs in the Global ATM Alliance, avoiding the $5 transaction fee, so I didn't have to worry about taking out large amounts each time. And it doesn't look like I was charged any fees in France. Woot.

Copenhagen recap

St. Nicholas Church and Statue of Bishop Absalon

The last leg of our trip was also the most relaxed, thanks in large part to the fact that my brother and Danish sister-in-law guided us around. Doing the tourist thing took a back seat to spending time with my brother, whom I hadn't seen for years, and getting to know his wife, but we still got to check out some cool sites (when it wasn't raining).

I learned a little bit about the culture from my sister-in-law, and as far as I could tell, the two biggest departures from the culture here are that the people welcome a much bigger role for the government (more socialistic) and there is less of a rat race to get as much stuff as you can. It is considered more noble to be content with what you have. As a result, the average workweek is 36 hours, and like in France, you see a lot of people lounging around the city with friends. When I told her about my general desire to accomplish more, she found it strange to hear someone openly saying it.

Once again, our hotel was located right next to a major public transit station in the city. Copenhagen had the best system as far as I can tell. On top of the buses and trains, there was an automated underground rail system that runs 24/7, so you don't have to worry about being stranded late at night. It was a lot like the airport trains that you catch to get from terminal to terminal.

There were a lot of hotels in that part of the city, an area that also happens to be the city's red-light district. The walks back to our hotel at night were "interesting," but we always felt safe.

This was by far the most expensive city on our trip. I thought the hotel was relatively cheap until I saw how tiny the room was (this is normal from what I was told). The food was fantastic, but eating out isn't as common as in the US, so prices are higher. Even the food at 7-11s, which were everywhere, was pricey. At some point, I stopped converting prices from kroners to USD and just accepted that prices were going to be higher.

On the first day, we walked around downtown and did a river cruise, which took us by the city's most famous landmark: the Little Mermaid Statue.


Little Mermaid Statue

The next day we visited the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, which had a great iPad/iPhone art exhibit by David Hockney, and Kronborg Castle, which is where Hamlet takes place. The castle is grand on the outside but surprisingly simple in the inside. My favorite part of the castle was the Holger Danske statue in the crypt.


Kronborg Castle

On the 3rd day, we visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which ended up being my favorite museum of the entire trip. The museum is filled with statues, reliefs, and paintings from various periods and regions that were originally collected by the Carlsberg beer founder from what I understand. Like Louisiana, the museum had a beautiful design that made full use of natural lighting.

At night we watched a movie, The Tree of Life. It was wonderfully shot and edited, but I still have no idea what the movie was about. A couple of things that surprised me about movies over there are that you get assigned seats and ticket prices are based on the length of the movie. I wonder if any small theaters in the US will ever do the same.

We spent the last day with my sister-in-law's parents. We walked through Christiana, the "hippie" part of Copenhagen, got to know each other over drinks, and went to Tivoli to watch a concert with Savage Rose.

Overall, Copenhagen was a wonderful way to end the trip, and now that my brother is moving back at the end of the year, it is likely that I'll be back there sometime in the future.

Paris recap

View from atop the Arc de Triomphe

Although all of the cities that we visited on our trip were amazing, I'm glad that we spent the most time in Paris because of everything there was to see and do there. The city was vibrant, and yet, more relaxed than London. There were people walking around everywhere, but they didn't seem to have the same sense of urgency. The Seine river was always littered with folks walking, picnicking, and just paying attention to life. Beyond all of the major tourist attractions, I really enjoyed walking through the streets and watching everything that was going on around us.

The biggest surprise for us about the city was the daylight hours. The sun was out every day until around 11 PM, if not later. If you want to see the city at night, you have to stay up pretty late, but it is worth it, if anything, to see the Eiffel Tower's dazzling nighttime light show.

On top of the long daylight hours, there were a lot of restaurants open for dinner until at least 11 P, so we ended up eating a lot of very late meals. Ultimately, our internal clocks were all sorts of confused during our time in Paris.

Once again, we got really lucky that our hotel was conveniently located right next to a major public transit station (Châtelet - Les Halles, which is also a mall) in the heart of Paris. There were a lot of things to see within walking distance, such as the Louvre, Centre Pompidou, and Notre Dame, and the couple of times we couldn't walk somewhere, we hopped on the RER or Metro. The only time public transportation failed us was when we were leaving for Copenhagen early in the morning. The first RER trip to the airport was too late, so we had to take a cab instead.

The food did not disappoint. The standard fare from street vendors, which are plentiful, is crepes and sandwiches. The food quality was consistently average across the vendors (at least for the vegetarian options), but the vendors were the cheapest and fastest meal option when on the go.

The restaurants and boulangeries (bakeries) were much better (unless you are a vegetarian/vegan).


One of the boulangeries we stopped at

I'm a big bread fan, and the bread everywhere was amazing. Fortunately, all of our meals were served with baguettes. The vegetarian meal options weren't all that impressive, though I did run into one of the best margarita pizzas I've ever had (thanks to the crust). Everything that my GF got on the other hand looked and tasted amazing. My favorite meal ended up being at Aki, an authentic Japanese restaurant near the Louvre. I tried okonomiyaki (a pancake-type meal) for the first time, and it was absolutely delicious.

Our sightseeing was limited to the standard tourist attractions, and that was more than enough to fill up our 6 days. At most of the major sites you can climb to the top to see amazing panoramas of the city. We opted to do so whenever possible, and while breathtaking, it does get a bit stale after seeing it for the 3rd or 4th time. I think that the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe provided the best views.

The sites were all extremely crowded, but that rarely prevented us from seeing or doing whatever we wanted, except at Versailles, where we had to skip the palace because it would have been closing by the time we got through the lines. It was a blessing in disguise though, because we instead ended up taking a very relaxing stroll through the gardens behind the palace, where we came across some very cool fountains, like this one and this one, and the fountain show below.



More than anything, our time in Paris was marked by walking. We walked all over the place, occasionally spicing things up with a long climb up stairs. It was exhausting. I wish we had spent more time just lounging and taking it all in, but it is hard to not want to see as much of the city as possible because of how interesting it is.

Fortunately, we did spend a good portion of one night sitting on a pedestrian bridge in front of the Bibliothèque Mazarine watching the sun slowly set. All around us there were people talking, laughing, and enjoying the moment. We even had some live music from a few Chinese se performers to help set the mood. It was one of those moments in life that I won't soon forget.

London recap

Parliament Square

Of the 3 cities that we visited, I thought that London resembled a typical, large US city the most. The pace in the city was much faster than the others, with people hurriedly going to wherever their feet (and the Tube) would carry them. Furthermore, there seemed to be more chain stores, both US and local companies, all over the place. More importantly, the menu at McDonald's was almost identical.


Piccadilly Circus

Although we saw a lot of people that were in a rush, we also saw a lot of people that were just planted at various spots enjoying the nice weather and scenery. The most popular lounging spots that we came across were Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and in front of the Tate Modern. I'm not used to seeing this, particularly in Texas, where the summer heat makes it hard to do anything outside, so we joined in whenever possible.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the food, though I blame myself for not putting in any effort beforehand to try to identify good restaurants. We did eat at one very nice (and expensive) restaurant, Simpson's in the Strand. The food was good, but like other fancy restaurants I've been too, I didn't think it justified the price (guess I'm not a foodie). In the end, my favorite place was Pret A Manger, a chain that serves up homemade, natural stuff, like sandwiches and soups.

Getting around wasn't a problem at all thanks to the Tube and our hotel's convenient location right next to the King's Cross St. Pancras tube station. I can't say enough how much I love a good public transit system. It takes a little effort to figure out the lines and how to get to where you are going, but it is well worth it to avoid the hassle of driving and owning a car. I know Dallas has a small light rail system and buses, but it is years away from making it viable to forgo a car.


Doing my part to improve international relations at Buckingham Palace

We visited a pretty good set of tourist attractions without killing ourselves in the process. On most days, we didn't even get out of the hotel room until 11 AM or so (hooray for sleeping in). The We Will Rock You musical was a lot of fun, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting the city, even if they aren't Queen fans. I really enjoyed walking along the River Walk and attending a service at Westminster Abbey. I'm not even particularly religious, but the service and accompanying boys choir were nonetheless an experience.


B crossing Abbey Road

Abbey Road was pretty cool, but I don't think it warrants the trip out unless you are a big Beatles fan, which B is. The road was really busy, so I had to carefully time running out into the middle of the street to take pictures without getting hit by anything.

We missed out on a lot of good stuff, but I don't mind. It gives me an excuse to eventually make my way back.

I have a few more pics from London on Flickr.


This is completely unrelated, but I knew that our trip was off to a good start when Jason Mraz (one of my favorite musicians) and his band (Grooveline Horns, Toca, etc) sat across from us at the airport in Austin before our first flight. When I mentioned to B that I thought it was him, we looked over and got caught like deer in headlights.


Jason Mraz at the airport in Austin

Montmartre...and aggressive street vendors

Basilique Sacre due Coeur @ Montmartre

Today we visited the Basilique Sacre due Coeur at Montmartre.

The inside of the church was similar to the inside of Notre Dame, though scaled down. I've been disappointed to find in all of these beautiful churches tacky souvenir medallion vending machines. I'm sure they pull in some decent revenue for the churches, but they really take away from the sanctity/mood in my opinion.

We also paid to view the Crypt and Panorama (climbing to the top). The crypt was a bit underwhelming, and although the panorama provided some nice views of Paris and other landmarks, it was very similar to the view at the top of Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe. The path to the top was very narrow and short; it would not be a comfortable trip for someone that is big and/or tall.

The most memorable part of the day was our experience with the street vendors in front of the church. They were by far the most aggressive ones we've run into. The vendors at the foot of the stairs got our attention, grabbed our hands, and then tried to tie strings to them. I kept trying to pull my hand away, but the vendor would not let go. I was starting to get upset when they finally let us go.

I also watched some street gamblers during lunch for an hour and confirmed they had accomplices. Three people were dressed as tourists and "gambling" with them the entire time. The 3 would walk off and then come back and cheer on real tourists that got sucked into the scam.

Tomorrow morning we take off for the last leg of our trip in Copenhagen.

Gardens of Versailles

Our plan yesterday was to wake up early to head out to Versailles, but that didn't quite work out. Instead, we left the hotel around noon in search of lunch and found a pizza place nearby that was delicious.


Marinara pizza at Pizza Sant' Antonio

We got to Versailles around 3 pm, which according to the guy we spoke to at the tourism office was too late to visit the palace. He told us it would take 1 hour to buy tickets and 2 hours to get in. Judging from the lines at the palace, I think he was right.

So we visited the gardens behind the palace instead.


Latone Fountain and Parterre

The gardens are expansive and beautiful, with a lot of groves, fountains, and statues waiting to be seen. We spent 3 hours walking around, but we could have easily been there much longer.

I couldn't help but act the fool in one of the groves, speeding up my usual spinning video until I lost control (at normal speeds, it looks pretty good).



We made the mistake of leaving when the palace closed, so we wound up at the train station with a swarm of other tourists all trying to buy tickets and get out of there. We didn't make it back to the hotel until ~4 hours later.

In Paris

The Obelisk in the Place De La Concorde and the Eiffel Tower. 07.09.11

More than halfway through our trip in Europe. We have a few more days left in Paris before we take off for Copenhagen to see my brother and his Danish wife, whom I've yet to meet.

I am extremely grateful to be able to take a trip like this. It has been a fantastic, and at times exhausting, experience.

I'm already starting to think a little about the next one to China.