Right Brain Feed

I keep putting off a post on our trip to Vienna. Part of that is because I've been sick, and part of it is because we had so much fun in Vienna, I wanted to take some time to blog it. I'm feeling better now, so I wanted to get some memories down before they all seep out of my head. We were able to spend a full week in Vienna, and we timed our visit just right. We had beautiful brilliant early Spring sunny days. We snagged a nice Interhome appartment week long rental right in the heart of downtown. Vienna was the eastern most outpost of western European civilization, and the ruling seat of the Hapsburg Dynasty for a loooong time. Every Hapsburg king and queen seems to have built their own palace in Vienna, so the city is filled with interesting architecture, and nice gardens. Since we had a week there, we spent plenty of time hanging out in the gardens. We also got in the habit of going to coffeehouses in the afternoon, which is a popular thing to do. Suzy got in the habit of ha...

This weekend we made a day trip to Auvers Sur Oise. It's a small village outside Paris where Vincent Van Gogh spent his final few months. We enjoyed jambon et fromage crepes with a bit of Cidre for lunch. Yum, I will miss the crepes in France. Then we visited Vincent's room above a restaurant. He died in that room after a self inflicted gunshot. While it was slightly moving, I did find it overpriced. The town has set up plaques where van Gogh painted different scenes, so we toured some of those. We also visited his grave, and took a nice walk in the wheat fields. We also visited the Absinthe Museum. Bizarre. Absinthe was a drink in the late 1800's to early 1900's that had hallucinogenic properties. Artists and writers in Paris got hooked on it, and felt it helped their art (sure, buddy). It's nickname was the 'Green Faerie'. The museum was filled with lots of absinthe stuff.... posters, ads, art, glasses, bottles.... A common theme in the posters was a...

We just got back from a week in Vienna and a short nip over to Bratislava, Slovakia. Bratislava is a really bizarre place. It's a broad mixture of many different things. Elegance from the 1800 Hapsburg dynasty royalty, cute domed church towers, funky crumbling Art Nouveau, 40 years of Soviet rule (including lots of blocky concrete), sad little public transportation trolleys, and a gussied up downtown pedestrian area where there are trendy bars and restaurants. Throw in a _completely_ unrecognizable language (hello, 10 cents will buy you a vowel), fantastic cheap beer, nice hiking close by, and that's Bratislava. Of course, you are still wondering about the bizarre picture here. That was our hotel. I kid you not. We weren't to thrilled by it, it was run by supplement popping hippies pretending to be artists (mind the paint and brushes on the breakfast table). The inside of the room was..uhhh...somewhat lacking in cleanliness. We've stayed in plenty of dumps before, that ...