Berlin Is Beautiful!

Yesterday, Wednesday, was a travel day from Munich to Berlin. I bummed around the hotel until checkout time, 11 AM. Then I hopped on the light rail to the train station. While waiting around for my 16:54 train (that's 4:54 PM to you Yankees), I found this funny . . . pretzel sandwiches:

My four-and-a-half-hour train ride to Berlin rolled into the city with an erstwhile split personality around 9:30 PM. Berlin has a much cooler vibe than Munich. I dunno, Munich wasn't as soulless as Frankfurt, but it didn't seem to have much of a personality. Maybe I'm thinking that because my hotel was almost a half-hour outside of the city centre.

Today, Thursday, I got up at 8 AM. The hotel is two blocks away from the train station, which simplifies things. Here's the train station:

It's interesting. There are five floors, with the entrance/exit on the third floor and trains on the first floor and, I think, on the top floor. Shops are on the other floors. Lots of open space so you can see what's on the level above and below -- if the escalators and glassy elevators don't block you're view.

I took a train to Checkpoint Charlie, which was the gateway between East and West Berlin back in the day when the Berlin Wall was up.

As you can see, it's pretty touristy:

Here's the view from the other side:

And here's a view of the sign going from East to West:

I then went to check out the Fernsehturm (Television Tower):

It's on the East side of the city. It was built by the commies to show their technological might.

A couple blocks away was a street (or Straße) named after Karl Marx. This looked like an old building from the East Germany days:

Next, I headed back to the main train station, a.k.a. Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and bought a Hertha BSC jersey and scarf. I'm going to see them play this Saturday. I bought both items more because of my infatuation of Berlin than the actual football team, though the jersey was reasonable at €30 (with no sponsor littering the front), and I need a new scarf because my Manchester United one is reaching it's expiration date.

I also picked up a salad wrap at the train station and ate lunch back in my hotel room.

Around 1:30 PM I headed back to East Berlin to the DDR Museum:

It showed everyday life in East Germany.

Then it was back on the train to check out the Stasi Museum:

The museum is in the main headquarters of the old Stasi, but about 19 nearby buildings were under their control -- they're now doctor offices, flats, and the like.

I read really good book about the Stasi several years ago, but walking through the three floors of that museum really drove home how much they terrorized citizens.

Leaving the Stasi Museum, I glanced at my iPod and noticed is was 5:30 PM. For dinner I hopped on the train to a burger place that my travel guide highly recommended, Schiller Burger. Good call, Frommer's! They cooked it medium-rare. I got their bacon BBQ offering and Belgian fries, and washed it down with Afri cola.

I think Schiller Burger is in the Friedrichshain neighborhood. Interesting collection of city blocks. It was residential with almost every first floor a store front . . . some boutiques, mostly bistros/cafes/restaurants, and convenience stores. The 'hood has a nice vibe. Reminds me of South Street before all the corporate retail chains swarmed in.

Anyway, Wednesday night I didn't sleep too well. All day Thursday I felt really weird if I wasn't moving. I though it was because I didn't much of anything on Wednesday with the travelling -- had a lot of pent-up energy from just sitting around. But as Thursday afternoon progressed, hay fever hit me hard. When I got back to the hotel Thursday night I went to the train station and got some allergy medication. It was only €3, so they didn't take me for a ride like that pharmacy in Vienna (Wien). I took a tablet a little while ago. I'm feeling much better now. It's supposed to last 24 hours. We'll see. . . .

München

Got up around 8:30 AM today. For breakfast I did a croissant and OJ again from the cafe next store.

Around 10 AM I hopped on the light rail into the city centre. My first stop was the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism:

It looks at Germany's history of fascism and the Nazis. There are four floors, with the exhibits starting on the top floor. It begins with WWI and shows how the seeds of fascism were planted back then. I can't believe it was only €5.

Around 12:30 PM I walked to the München Hauptbahnhof (Munich's main train station) and picked up an Oriental vegan wrap and a Lipton lemon iced tea.

Then I hopped on a light rail for a bookstore, the Munich Readery. On my way there I saw this storefront (not sure what they're selling but it caught my eye):

Unfortunately, the Munich Readerly only sells English books. Doh!

After walking past there, I took this picture to illustrate how the bike lanes are set up in Germany (I babbled about it yesterday):

I walked to the Pinakothek der Moderne:

It's a modern art museum. Some interesting stuff in there, including this:

Those little things on the wall are smaller versions of the car, pointing in the 10 o'clock direction.

I then took a light rail to an Oxfam bookstore. They sell German books, but unfortunately it's all new. The book I'm looking for, Robert B. Parker's Hundert Dollar Baby came out years ago, so I'm probably better off finding it at a used bookstore. (I have the English version of it; I want the German edition to help my learn Deutsch. If I can't find it in Berlin, I'll buy it online.)

I took the train back to my hotel. Got in around 4:45 PM. I walked to that Greek restaurant, which is about a block away from the Italian restaurant. They didn't have an Englisch menu, so I got one of the three gyro offerings. The menu mentioned a pita, so I assumed it would wrapped up. Wrong. The pita was on the bottom, covered by tomatoes, onions, meat, and a scoop of white sauce; off to the side was some rice in red sauce -- tomato sauce? There was no way to wrap everything in the pita and eat it, so I cut everything, including the pita, with my fork and knife. It was a lot of food, but I ate it all. I finished it off with a cup of grün tea.

Afterwards I hung out the hotel. Around 7:40 PM I ran next door to the supermarket because they close at 20:00 for Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream. Ever have it? It is awesome!

Dortmund: fin. Munich: begin

All right, yesterday, Sunday, I got up in Dortmund and did the breakfast again in the hotel because there was no other option within walking distance. I got the same thing as Saturday: one slice of bacon, three sausages, a croissant, and OJ.

Later in the morning I hit the hotel's fitness center. I didn't push myself too hard 'cause I didn't want to be exhausted in the afternoon at the fußball match.

I checked out of the hotel at noon and hung out in the lobby, reading. At 1 PM I turned my luggage over to the hotel so they could put in the office while I was at the game. I was pretty impressed that they gave me a number.

The game didn't start until 3:30 PM, but I'm glad I left two-and-a-half hours early. Even though it's a short walk from the hotel to the stadium, Dortmund in their wisdom forces non-Germans to stand in one of three lines to pick up their tickets:

I stood in line for at least a half-hour, maybe as long as 45 minutes. My lower back was killing me! Not sure why they can't be like Berlin's fußball team and let you print the tix at home.

Around 2 PM I picked up a bratwurst and a Coke from two different outside vendors, since food and beverage carts are separate.

Getting into the stadium was a lot less of a hassle than picking up my ticket. It was close to 75 degrees. I was feeling a little dehydrated. Oddly, none of the inside vendors sell regular water or Lipton iced tea. It's all bubbly with seltzer water and the like. What's that noise all about?

The stadium's seats are separated into two tiers, with the upper one holding about a third of the fans. I was in row two of the upper level:

I was on the same side as the players benches and the camera crew:

And here's a pic of the Yellow Wall, Dortmund's supporters:

Another one of them from the beginning of the second half:

And one final pic of the action:

The match was cool 'cause they won 3-0. The first goal was struck in the first half by Pulisic and was simply amazing. And it was pretty funny with the 50-something guy sitting in front of me. A few times he gave the finger to the visiting team's supporting section to our right.

After picking up my luggage at the hotel I eventually hopped on a light rail to the train station. Three of 'em went by before there was room for me and my luggage . . . they were packed with Dortmund fans.

My train to Munich wasn't until 8:58 PM, so I had plenty of time to kill. For dinner I had some sort of breaded schnitzel sandwich and a Lipton iced tea.

As I expected, the nine-hour trip to Munich was torture. I tried to sleep, but it was tough because they didn't dim the lights, the seat only leaned back so far, and it was chillier than the Alps in winter. I did nod off, but didn't really get any REM sleep.

The train pulled into Munich at 6 AM. I grabbed a cab. The driver didn't know where the hotel was at first, which made me anxious, but after calling in dispatch, he found out it's a new hotel. It cost 20 euros and the hotel is way outside of inner Munich. It's in an odd spot. It's mostly a residential area around here, there's a light rail stop right out back of the hotel, and there's a supermarket next door.

I checked in, got a shower, and took a nap. My room is minimalist to the nth degree: no fridge and barely enough room to set luggage before bedroom area and the bathroom. I think I was spoiled in Dortmund and Vienna. The place here in Munich feels more like a dorm room and a hotel room.

Woke up around 10 AM. Went to the supermarket and bought a croissant and OJ.

I had some laundry to do. The kid at the reception desk, when I checked in, said there should be a laundromat one light-rail stop away at the Giesing stop. I lugged my luggage there but couldn't find anything buy a drop-off place, even after a few people. Maybe it's me, but the longer I'm here, the fewer people I find who speak English.

I hopped back on the light rail to the hotel. I got lunch at the supermarket (a turkey sandwich with cucumbers and other stuff on it, and a Dr. Pepper), then I did an Internet search for a laundromat. I had to go downtown by the main train station -- the same one I came in to last night. It's close to a 30-minute ride down there. Fortunately it's one trip, no transfers. When I got off I went out an obscure exit and walked around for about a half-hour until I found the laundromat.

The laundromat was weird. There's a central station that you put your money and press the number for whichever number your washer or dryer has. Fortunately the owner was nice and patient with my questions.

I got back to my hotel around six or so. There are two restaurants within walking distance, Greek and Italian. I went with the latter. Got lasagna. It was heavenly! It came in a dish with sauce and cheese. Followed it up with green tea.

Walking back to my hotel, it occurred to me that even though technically I'm in Munich, this area has the sleepy feel of a shore town before tourist season. Reminds me of Reykjavik, Iceland (not the downtown part) with how quiet it is and width of the streets and sidewalks.

Real quick: throughout Germany I've noticed bike lanes are between the pedestrian sidewalks and the street. I think I prefer how it's done in America 'cause you really have to watch where you're walking or you'll get that irritating ringing of the bell as the biker approaches.

Over Yonder in Dortmund

It's Saturday night. Time to catch up.

Yesterday, Friday, I checked out of my hotel in Frankfurt around 11:30 AM and headed across the street to the train station. For lunch I got a Frankfurter:

That's one weiner folded over. They put mustard on top. It was gut.

While waiting for my 1:22 train, I saw this on the platform. Mind the gap, bro!:

My train departed on time. It's final destination was Hamburg. I found it interesting that my reserved seat had my starting and end points:

Truth be told, I was kinda glad to leave Frankfurt. Wasn't too impressed. Maybe because it's a financial hot spot, that's why it felt like a city without a soul or even an authentic identity.

The train ride to Dortmund took about four-and-a-half hours. About the first half ran along the Rhine River. Beautiful! There were some castles. I probably should've taken some pictures, but I'm sure I'll come across other castles in the next week.

I took a cab to the hotel. Much nicer than the cozy one in Frankfurt. Lots of room here and I have two beds. It's gotta be a four-star joint.

For dinner I walked about a quarter mile away to a quasi-fancy place and ordered pasta, which came not in tomato sauce but with an oily sauce and parmesan cheese on top.

I spent the rest of the night just hanging out at the hotel.

Saturday I got up around 8 AM and went downstairs for the hotel's breakfast. Because it was €19 I ate three mini-sausages, a slice of bacon, and a croissant, and drank a glass of OJ . . . unfortunately they didn't have pancakes.

Around 9:30 AM I hopped on the nearest subway stop and headed downtown for a Germany national football team jersey. The store that the front desk recommended had the jerseys for about 10 euros off, so they were €70. I decided to wander around a little for a better sale.

I stumbled across the Germany Football Museum (das Deutsche Fußballmuseum), which is across the street from the train station I arrived in yesterday afternoon:

A ticket was under €20. Oddly, some Aryan asshole wouldn't let me in to the actual museum with my jacket on. Pissed me off a little 'cause I like putting my iPod, phone and passport in my jacket's two zipper pockets.

After throwing my jacket and hat in a locker downstairs for €1 (which I got back when I left), I checked out the museum. It was interesting. A lot of it I didn't get because I don't really follow national teams too much. But it was a few years ago, so it's pretty modern. It was cool seeing some old shots of Bastian Schweinsteiger, who used to play for Manchester United and is now with the Chicago Fire in the States.

Next, I walked around outside in the shopping area and saw an inside mall. In there I found an InterSport store. They had the German national football jersey for the same price as the other store, but I went with the version from a year or two ago for €40 -- I like how it's got the colours of the German flag on the collar.

By then it was a little before noon. I chilled out on a comfortable black leather seat next to an escalator.

For lunch I hit the food court and got a salad wrap. I think it had some goat cheese in there. If unsure, best not to ask. Ignorance and all that. . . .

I hopped on the train for Signal Iduna Park, where I'll see Dortmund play tomorrow. They only have two tours of the stadium in English, and I wanted to make the 1:40 PM one. When I got there and bought my ticket for €12, I told the cashier I tried buying it online Friday night and Saturday morning, but my credit card wouldn't go through. I think she said that's intentional with foreign credit cards. Whatever.

The tour lasted about 90 minutes and was pretty cool. (The only other stadium tour I've done was at Manchester United.) Signal Iduna Park holds over 80,000 and is the biggest Stadion in Germany. Pretty funny: the stairwell to the visiting team's locker room has 13 steps and Dortmund's stairwell has 12 steps; apparently players are superstitious, so visitors will skip the last step.

Part of the tour went through Dortmund's locker room, so I took a pic of Pennsylvania's own Christian Pulisic's locker:

In Dortmund's locker room there are two hair dryers. Apparently after an international match, UEFA sent them to be put in both locker rooms. As part of "psychological warfare", said the tour guide, a maintenance worker put both dryers in Dortmund's locker room. The only player to ever complain was Cristiano Ronaldo. Twice.

Next to the locker rooms were ice baths and pools, which were blocked off. The tour guide was pretty entertaining. He said the pools were, I think, 99 centimeters deep. "This being Germany and our love for regulations, if they were 100 centimeters, we'd have to have a life guard."

Another part of the tour took you by the teams' boxes. The seats in Dortmund's box are always heated, but the visiting team have to request their seats be heated -- more of that "psychological warfare". Here is the visitors box (most of the 40 people on the tour were lounging in Dortmund's box):

With the stadium tour concluded, I tried walking back to the hotel, since it's only about a half-mile away (one kilometric for you metric heads out there), but I got really lost. Not a big deal. It was a gorgeous sunny day; must've been around 66 degrees. I eventually had to take the subway into the city centre (about a 10-minute ride) and hop on another train to get back to the hotel.

For dinner I walked to a restaurant more than a half-mile away, past the place I had dinner on Friday night. I got grilled squid -- not sure if I ever have it before; I know I've eaten octopus -- skewered vegetables, and potato wedges. They also gave spinach in a bowl with melted cheese on top. I told both the waiter and server I didn't order it, but they wouldn't listen. When my check came, the server admitted his mistake, so I wound up paying for it. Not a big deal because it all came up to €27.50 for four courses and Earl Grey tea, though I only left a 15% tip because in addition to the spinach mixup, there was a black hair on the squid plate . . . it wasn't near the food so I didn't complain.

On my way back to the hotel, I found the path to the stadium for tomorrow's match. Also, I noticed that across the street from the hotel is the soccer team's headquarters:

Indigestion in Frankfurt

It's Thursday night, around 8:30 PM. Thought I would catch up with what I've been up to.

Wednesday morning I got up at 6 AM, had breakfast in Vienna at the hotel, and played it safe by getting down to the train station around 8 AM for my 9:15 train to Frankfurt.

On the train there was a lady across from me who pecked away, for the most part, on her Mac laptop. Eventually (I'm assuming) a grandmom and her 11-year-old grandson joined us.

I thought this was funny. In case of an emergency, you have to smash both panes of glass with that red contraption:

Around 10 AM I grabbed a double Snickers bar and a bottle of Coke from the dining car. Around 1:30 PM I bought from the dining car a chicken tandoori sandwich and apple juice. Turns out the latter was a seltzer. I don't know if it was the apple juice-seltzer, or a combination of my mid-morning snack, late lunch, lingering jet lag, and the moving train, but around 2 PM I felt really ill. It took a lot of effort to hold my lunch down -- I couldn't even nap.

With the six-and-a-half-hour train ride over, I walked across the street to my hotel. Not nearly as nice as the one in Vienna, as evidenced by my view:

Yes, that's a steel shutter you're seeing, along with barbed wire. According to my travel book, this neighbourhood is the worst one in the city. That would explain all the porn around here. My favourite name of one: The Sex Inn.

After checking in, I took a little nap, since I still wasn't feeling well. I got up around 5 PM and walked around the 'hood for something to eat -- didn't want to spend the night on an empty stomach. I got a avocado pita from a local fast food joint on a street corner. Most of it I didn't eat 'cause it didn't pass the eye test (shredded white lettuce, purple cabbage, and a slice of eggplant that looked like a tongue). I did eat the pita, though.

I spent the rest of the night either watching TV (flipping mainly between 1980s music videos and Al Jazeera . . . their Witness documentary series looked at a remorseful Bosnian war criminal) and wandering around the neighbourhood for Rolaids or Tums. Couldn't find either. I did buy an Oreo ice cream sandwich, which settled my stomach for a while.

I didn't sleep well. With my indigestion and the neighbourhood I was staying in, it was hard to catch any zzzzz's.

I got up around 7:30 AM today (Thursday). I didn't feel like paying $15 at the hotel just for toast, since my stomach still wasn't feeling too hot, so I went across the street to the train station and got a bagel -- couldn't find toast in there.

I hung out in my hotel room until 10 AM, waiting for someone to fix the safe; it was locked. They never showed, so I walked about a half-mile to the Städel Museum. Here's the bridge to get there:

They have an exhibit on Peter Paul Rubens. Good stuff.

I stayed at the museum a little longer than expected because it was raining. Once it cleared up I picked up an avocado sandwich and a lemonade at the train station. I ate in my hotel room and noticed they finally fixed the safe. I threw my laptop in there.

I took a cab to the European Central Bank:

I would've taken a tour, but you need to book it at least four weeks in advance. Funk that!

I then walked about a mile to the city centre, Altstadt. Frankfurt's streets are serpentine like Vienna, but it's harder to get lost here, probably because it's a fairly small city (only 775,000 residents). Anyway, Alstadt is a little touristy. It has a medieval area called Römer:

I then headed back to the hotel and hung out until 5 PM. I walked about to Römer and ate dinner at Haus Wertheym:

I ordered breaded pork schnitzel, which came with fries and salad. It was delicious! And the restaurant had a nice vibe. Tons of German beer mugs decorated the pillars.

The walk back to the hotel was shivering one. Temperature really dropped. Felt like it was 50 degrees. My Philly Union barely kept me warm. Maybe I should've brought my coat. Nah. Too much too lug around on those days when it's a high of 61 degrees.

I got a little lost, but the route was scenic. I was in some outdoor plaza that was pedestrian only.

Around 8 PM I hit the train station for a little ice cream sandwich and spent the rest of the nite writing this. Tomorrow it's off to Dortmund!

1 Full Day in Vienna

So, today, Tuesday, was my full day in Vienna.

I got up at 6 AM and had breakfast in the hotel. Not sure what I ate. It was a little on the sweet side, as well as yellow and chilled. I didn't want to ask in case it had eggs in it -- the mere thought of eggs would've made me nauseous. I chased it down with grapefruit juice.

Afterwards I hunted around for a pharmacy so I could buy toiletries (didn't bring them 'cause the TSA might trash 'em). Since I'm in a ritzy tourist area, they were 40 euros. Pricey.

Before I bought them, I took a picture of Saint Mary's Church, which is close to my hotel:

I showered at the hotel, then walked to Hofburg Palace:

I was going to take a tour, but they didn't start till the afternoon. Maybe I would come back.

I walked around some more, trying to find a store to buy a fußball jersey of Austria's national team. Couldn't fine one and by then it was lunchtime. There was a nearby outdoor food market. I got a falafel wrap and a can of Coke.

Next, I took a cab and asked him to drop me off at the nearest InterSport store. He deposited me in front of a store called Sports Direct, which used to be an InterSport. They didn't have any Austria football jerseys.

I found a taxi stand, but the cab driver never heard of InterSport, so I walked around and took another cab to my hotel. There, I wrote down the addresses of InterSport and the Sigmund Freud Museum.

I took a taxi to the latter:

And here's a close-up of the plaque with overhead flags:

The museum is where he practiced and I think lived at one time.

From there I took a cab to a Puma store because they Austria's football jerseys. They were a bit pricey, so I went to a different Sports Direct from earlier in the afternoon and bought the jersey I was looking for. It was on sale for 36 euros, I believe.

Taking all those taxies was cutting into my cash, so I tried walking back to the hotel. I got lost, which isn't that hard because Vienna streets are serpentine and maze-like. After about an hour, I gave up when I wound up at the main train station, which I'll go to tomorrow morning for my trip to Frankfurt.

Before I hopped in the cab, I took these two pictures. I thought this was cute at a small supermarket where I bought a clementine:

And here's St. Charles Church:

Back at the hotel I took a 20-minute nap. For dinner I went to an Italian restaurant around the corner and got spaghetti with meat sauce, and black Earl Grey tea. It was delicious!

After that, I saw this store front for a crystal joint. Pretty funny -- bedazzled household products:

At the hotel I counted my money. Out of the €1,000 I brought with me from the States, I'd spent €320 in Vienna. Yikes!!! Gonna have to take it easy in Frankfurt. Fortunately, the train station is short walk to the hotel.

Around 8 PM, I headed out to have my first Gelato. Make sense since Italy is south of here.

On my way back to the hotel, this made me smirk. No tobacco, just straight nicotine!

Vienna Calling

All right, it's Monday, 9:40 PM. Thought I would recap my trip so far.

Got up on Sunday at 5 AM. My sister drove me to the airport. I took a 10:35 AM to Toronto via air Canada. Below is a pic of the plane I was on.

I had about a five-and-a-half hour wait until my 5:55 PM flight to Vienna. The Toronto airport is pretty upscale -- reminds me of Paris' airport.

I ate lunch in a restaurant, LEE Kitchen. I got a bacon cheeseburger, which came with generous steak fries. Before I ordered, I double-checked with the waiter that I would pay in USD. He said yes (God bless Canada!) and when I requested the burger be cooked well-done, he said a government regulation has all meat cooked that way. Some Americans have stormed out of the restaurant when they can't get their meat pink or medium-rare. Fuckin rednecks.

I chased the burger and fries down with a large OJ. I was afraid indigestion was gonna set in, but my stomach was A-OK for the rest of the afternoon. That's how you can it's some good eats!

While waiting for my flight, I read a little and walked the terminal, which wasn't that big. I think it was only for international flights. I still can't believe on the plane from Philly to Toronto, the stewardesses had me fill out a Customs form -- nobody asked for it once I debarked.

I took Austrian Airlines to Vienna. Really nice airline. Not a lot of legroom, but they served pretzels and a beverage; a meal (I got pasta with a roll and chocolate dessert); and a muffin right before we landed.

I had an aisle seat. An Albanian, who lives outside of Toronto, had the window seat. He was a bit of chatty and had a serious case of halitosis. He watched the recent Star Wars movie with Luke Skywalker and kept asking me all these questions . . . he kept getting the Emperor from the old movies and the old guy from the new movies confused.

I took a cab to my hotel, Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth. Got there around 10:30 AM. I had finished on the plane, which touched down at 8:30 AM, the book I was reading, Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, so I walked to the Post Office to mail it to the coworker who lent it to me. I sent it economy for €10; it's supposed to take two weeks. If she gets it before I'm back in the States, I wonder if she'll notice the two Canadian coins I threw in there because she loves the hosers up north so much (the coins were left over from when I ate lunch in Toronto).

It's a national holiday here in Austria. Thankfully some places are open. I'm in the Innere Stadt of Vienna. It's very touristy. I ate lunch at NORDSEE, which is a little on the fast-food side. I bought a pre-made avocado wrap and washed it down with stilled bottled water.

Afterwards, my room was ready. Check-in time was 3 PM, but I was able to go in there around 12:30 PM. The hotel has an 18th-century composer vibe going on. I napped most of the afternoon, since I'd been up for about 24 hours and hadn't really slept on the plane.

I rolled out of bed at 4:44 PM. A little before 6 PM I went around the corner to Kartner Street, which has a lot of boutique shops.

I ate dinner at this place:

Here's my receipt:

I got a giant piece breaded veal, a huge bowl (for me, anyway) of mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower -- I didn't eat the cauliflower 'cause I was stuffed). I drank a bottle of stilled water with it.

Hung out in my hotel room for a litte bit. Around 8 PM I went back out. Since a lot of places are closed, I went to a McCafe and bought a McSloshi, I think it was called: vanilla yogurt with berries, and you mix in nuts. It was pretty good, I'm ashamed to say. Afterwards I came back here. It's 10:35 PM. I'm going to bed. Have my alarm set for 6 AM. Lots to cram in tomorrow because the following day, Wednesday, is a travel day to Frankfurt . . . train leaves around 8:30 AM.

Auf wiedersehen!

Shikoff's sneaker suggestions

Been meaning to post this a while, in case I ever misplace the slip of paper from my podiatrist with his suggestions for crosstrainers:

Nike Air Crosstrainer Monarch IV
Reebox DMX Crosstrainer
New Balance 623
Asics Gel Crosstrainer

(and Rockports for work)

Over the Union

I went to the Philadelphia Union match last night. It may be the last one I go to, at least for this season. For months I was looking forward to seeing Chicago's Schweinsteiger play, since I'm a ManU fan, and I knew he wasn't making the trip for an alleged calf injury, but I went anyway, though I shouldn't have 'cause I was in Marlton, NJ in the morning to help celebrate my mom's birthday, and I was in West Philly in the afternoon for a side job -- long day.

I was kinda pissed about the ticket the box office sold me. I asked for the North End, but the inexperienced Union employee put me in the nosebleeds and I had to peek around a VIP building to see a corner kick.

Something else that didn't sit well with me was their little marketing campaign for fans to re-up season tickets. The one poster has the executive Earnie Stewart under the word strength. I dunno, he hasn't impressed me with signing Jay "no goals" Simpson and Alejandro "overrated & overpaid" Bedoya, however, Haris Medunjanin and Jack Elliott have been awesome (the former has a great left foot and vision, while the latter rarely makes defensive mistakes). Plus, the front office boasts their academy is their future, but they only play the youngins in emergencies when older players are injured or sub them in super-late. Truth told, though, Stewart's just the messenger. The real problem is owner Jay Sugarman, who's tight with the purse strings. I think ESPN colour commenter is right: Bedoya is a TAM player and the Union need three real DPs.

Anyway, I left at the game at halftime. Part of the reason I split, besides my bad mood, was that I wanted to see if the shuttle left early so I could catch the 9 PM train. As I feared, the shuttle bus didn't go anywhere until the final whistle. Fortunately, a millennial who worked on VAR left early too because the MLS had called in too many VAR contractors last night. He let me hop in his Uber for the ride to the Chester train station.

Maybe next year I'll just watch matches that looking interesting instead of following one team for the entire season.

Karen Armstrong's A HISTORY OF GOD

Some sentences I liked:

Chapter 3, A Light to the Gentiles, p. 91, last graf: "...today: many of the people who attend religious service in our own society are not interested in theology, want nothing too exotic and dislike the idea of change. They find that the established rituals provide them with a link with tradition and give them a sense of security. The do not expect brillant ideas from the sermon and are disturbed by changes in the liturgy."

Chapter 3, A Light to the Gentiles, p. 101, last graf: "Human beings are aware that something is wrong with their condition; they feel at odds with themselves and others, out of touch with their inner nature and disoriented. Conflict and a lack of simplicity seem to characterize our existence. Yet we are constantly seeking to unite the multiplicity of phenomena and reduce them to some ordered whole."

Chapter 6, The God of the Philosophers, p. 194, 1st graf: "Most Western Christians had a very limited knowledge of Islamic culture and were ignorant of philosophical developments..."

Chapter 9, Enlightenment, p. 295, 2nd graph: "...under the old agrarianate dispensation, when law was regarded as immutable and divine. It was a sign of the new autonomy that technicalization was bringing to Western society: men and women felt that they were in charge of their own affairs as never before. We have seen the profound fear that innovation and change had unleashed in traditional societies, where civilization was felt to be a fragile achievement and any break in continuity with the past was resisted. The modern technical society introduced by the West, however was based upon the expectation of constant development and progress. Change was institutionalized and taken for granted. ... The old conservative spirt...had been replaced in the West by a desire for change and a belief that continual development was practicable. Instead of fearing that the younger generation was going to the dogs, as in former times, the older generation expected their children to live better than they. The study of history was dominated by a new myth: that of Progress. It achieved great things, but now that damage to the environment has made us realize that this way of life is a vulnerable as the old, we are, perhaps, beginning to grasp that it is as fictitious as most of the other mythologies that have inspired humanity over the centuries."

Chapter 9, p. 306, 1st graph: "Religion, however, like art often consist of a dialogue with the past in order to find a perspective from which to view the present. . . . Religion and art, therefore, do not work like science."

Chapter 9, p.322: 3rd graph: "Social historians have noted that Western Christianity is unique among world religions for its violent alternations of periods of repression and permissiveness. They have also noted that the repressive phases usually coincide with a religious revival. The more relaxed moral climate of the Enlightenment would be succeeded in many parts of the West by the repressions of the Victorian period, which was accompanied by an upsurge of a more fundamentalist religiosity. In our own day, we have witnessed the permissive society of the 1960s giving way to the more puritan ethic of the 1980s, which has also coincided with the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the West. This is a complex phenomenon, which doubtless has no single cause."

Chapter 9, p. 341, 2nd graph: "In 1729 Jean Meslier, a country priest who had led an exemplary life, died an atheist. He left behind a memoir. . . . This expressed his disgust with humanity and his inability to believe in God. . . . Religion was a device used by the rich to oppress the poor and render them powerless. Christianity was distinguished by its particularly ludicrous doctrines, such as the Trinity and Incarnation."

Chapter 10, The Death of God?, p. 361, 2nd graph: "A negative image of the Prophet Muhammad and his religion had developed in Christendom at the time of the Crusades and had persisted alongside the anti-Semitism of Europe. During the colonial period, Islam was viewed as a fatalistic religion that was chronically opposed to progress."

Chapter 10, p. 361, last graf: "Freud had wisely seen that any enforced repression of religion could only be destructive. Like sexuality, religion is a human need that affects life at every level. If suppressed, the results are likely to be a s explosive and destructive as any sever sexual repression. . . . Repression of religion can breed fundamentalism, just as inadequate forms of theism can result in a rejection of God."

Samuel Johnson

I finished W. Jackson Bate's biography on Johnson. Some selections that caught my eye:

The Seven Years' War had begun. In political articles, he strongly attacked the policy of imperial and commercial expansion. The quarrel of the British and the French in America, as he viewed it, was the quarrel of "two robbers" for the land stolen from the Indians. Of the two, the French had at least the credit of treating the victim -- the natives -- with more consideration.
(Chapter 19, section 4, 3rd graph)

The truth is that something very serious was beginning to happen to him, and he was quite aware of it. The general reconsideration of life so common in middle age and the problems inevitable to it were something he had foreseen long before this. He had taken them into account and half assimilated them in advance, in protective preparation . . . But now, as he was entering his fifties, he was more vulnerable . The larger part of middle age could seem already behind him, and instead of his life being half over . . .it could now, by any optimistic calculation, appear two-thirds over, and most of it could seem a waste -- a history of disappointments, frustrations, regrets, and mistaken choices, none of it to be blamed on the work but only on himself.
(Chapter 20, section 1, 4th graph)

"Work and love," said Freud near the end of his own life, in Civilization and Its Discontents, are the only ways in which human nature can come closet to happiness or at least avoid misery. Freud adds, of course, that far fewer people really "love " than think they do.
(Chapter 21, section 5, 1st graph)

[Baretti] was put in Newgate Prison, where a rival Italian teacher soon called on him saying he wanted to take over Baretti's pupils after his execution and asking Baretti to write him a letter of recommendation.
(Chapter 24, section 2, 3rd graph)

Morris Trump

I'm rereading Morris Berman's Dark Ages America, which was copyrighted in 2006. In Chapter 4, "Pax Americana", in the Hot versus Cold Wars section, there's this passage (page 130 in paperback edition):

[Voters in 1980] were drawn to Ronald Reagan, a man who saw the world in just such simplistic terms, and who pledged to make America great again.

Looks like Trump owes some royalties to Berman ;)

Juan Cole

I read this months ago, and it's been bee-bopping in my head recently. Just might be the best paragraph Cole' ever written:

It is downright weird that we haven’t been able to find any evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, given how old and big it is.  It occurs to me that carbon-based life may have a tendency to evolve toward an intelligent species that discovers how to manipulate fire.  But in each case, it isn’t quite intelligent enough to avoid burning so many hydrocarbons that it cooks its planet and causes its own extinction.  Hence, no radio waves from these serial hyper-tropical worlds. 

"LBJ: Architect of American Ambition" by Randall B. Woods

I recently read that bio. Two great passages in it:

Chapter 11, A Populist Gentlemen's Club, p. 246:
The North and Midwest viewed the Southeast as the most backward part of the nation, the most resistant to change, and the most out of step with postwar realities. Southerners viewed the Northeast as economic exploiters and racist hypocrites.

Chapter 39, Tet, p. 818:
Reform is rare and difficult in the United States, a deeply conservative country.