Traveling Europe, 2023

Forward

For many year I'd wanted to get some tattoos, but no real direction regarding it. About 2 years before this trip I finally started putting in legitimate effort to search for high quality artists and decided on what I'd get. I didn't put any weight into where it'd be, which led me to find someone whose style I liked in Poland. Not far from there was a work office, and within a week of the agreed appointment Oktoberfest was happening in Germany too. I started planning out a larger trip to Europe, and even found one of my friends living in the Netherlands could be free for a few days to hang out with as well. This is the story of that trip!

The Netherlands

I first landed in Amsterdam, Netherlands to visit my friend Ket who was enrolled in a Masters degree at the university of Utrecht. After landing and starting to leave the airport, I noticed that the train station and central airport were one in the same building. Just walking out of security and downstairs of the airport I reached the trains, where I found Ket waiting for me to help help navigate the public transit!

We headed back to Utrecht to get some dinner, I landed pretty late. One of the very first things I noticed about Utrecht was how walkable it was. Everything was tightly packed streets of nicely smoothed cobble and paved bike lanes. It seemed like the town was built elevated, because near the heart of town there was a river below us as if we were in on the second story; below us along the river were rows of restaurants.

As the night got later the bikes started piling up in massive packed rows along all the rows. Eventually there were just too many to fit in the designated spaces and you'd start seeing them haphazardly pile up anywhere there was space out of the main walking areas (changing brick color and grain did a good job subtly displaying this).

On the way back there was this cool lit up tunnel filled with graffiti

The next day we took a train back towards Amsterdam to check out the city for the day. It was a cloudy day with mild drizzle at times but it didn't matter too much since most of what we'd do would be indoors.

On our way walking to the Rijksmuseum we passed by many large flower stands all bursting with colorful and postcards of Van Gogh. I was impressed at how many seed packets were being sold in addition to the flowers themselves, you can see them on the right side of the next picture.

After the museum we decided to buy a beer and canal tour on one of the long boats you see going up and down the waterways. We walked to their small wooden dock on the side of a canal then piled in on the hour. They brought out a few cheese platters and gave everyone a Heineken then pushed off the dock to start the tour.

Most of what was told was about the history of the homes and why they are architecturally the way they are. They're so skinny and tall as a result of long-running tax rules; your property tax is calculated almost solely based on the size of it's footprint, so most people had elected to build tall rather than wide. Many houses also have a large metal I beam sticking out of the attic section of their homes towards the street. This is a leftover vestige of a time when basically everyone living in Amsterdam was a trader of some kind. They would use winches with these beams to haul supplies into and out of the second and third stories of their homes. Even to this day, they're frequently used to get furniture into and out of the upper floors of homes so they aren't purely decoration yet.

I looked up things to do outside of Amsterdam and I found a town called Zannse Schans. It's a town northwest of Amsterdam that used to contain hundreds of windmills and a large handful have survived to this day; some of the mills had even been restored and are in active use!

We did a tour inside one of them and saw they were actively using it to grind rocks into colored powder pigments for paints. There was a series of gears splitting power coming from the windmill blades to 3 different grindstones.

Windmills were basically the general use power tools back in the day, they'd use the mechanical energy to work pumps to drain their irrigated fields of water, power reciprocating saws to cut lumber, grind pigment to paint, and basically everything else that could be done with physical labor.

The last thing we did before the early flights to Germany in the morning was walk around the red light district.

I wanted to walk around and see it first hand because it's a notable thing and not long before this trip the city of Amsterdam declared want to shut down the whole district. All sex work instead will be consolidated to a single giant building on the edge of the city, which feels even weirder to me than how the red light district is currently. Currently, many of the brothels have been converted into museums (one of which we took a tour of) about 95% of people were CLEARLY tourists just looking and rubbernecking.

Germany

The next day we crammed into a cheap Ryanair flight filled with advertisements and flew out to Munich for Oktoberfest. After landing outside of Munich we took a train to town center, checked into our hotel room, bought lederhosen, then walked to the fairgrounds.

We walked into the grounds and the first thing I noticed was just the sheer volume of people here, how crowded it felt, and how massive the grounds were despite all that!

Something I found really common here was for people to snort menthol smelling salts, it's bought openly in small glass vials and snorted off the back of your hand while drinking. One of the other americans we hung out with had some and let me try it. There was very little taste/smell beyond the sensation of menthol.

On the second day we went to the "traditional" tents at the southern end of the grounds and got lunch in it. This tent had significantly more people dressed in tradition clothes (no surprise) and there was old folksy dancing on the stage. Some of the performers at the edge of the stage had long whips that they'd crack in rhythm to the music as well.

After that we wandered through a few more of the beer tents to get a feel for them. Each had a different vibe and were all pretty cool! We liked the Schutzen tent a lot and decided to hang out there for a while. We ended up getting a table right as some others were getting up to leave, and then some others from Liechtenstein came and sat with us too.

Something Ket and I both noticed was how often the song Sweet Caroline would play. Every single tent we went in would sing this song about every 40 minutes. At first two times it was nice, then it started to get old after about the fifth time, then after the sixth time, it got great and you just kept signing along with it each time!

While wandering through the tent after dinner service ended we made a local friend name Vincent who introduced us to the rest of his friends. We all basically chatted and drank together for about 2 hours or so before moving on but it was a great time and looking back we probably should have hung out with them longer. Thanks for the awesome times!

After 2 days we hadn't seen everything, but we'd seen and drank enough to get the idea. Ket headed back to Utrecht and I took a flight north to Berlin to do some work and check out the town a bit.

One of the first impressions I had about Berlin was how unfriendly people seem to be. NOBODY SMILES AT EACH OTHER! I'd heard this stereotype from others but was shocked at how true is it. I've asked this to so many Berliners over the years since this trip and the response I get usually is something like "I don't know you as a stranger on the street, why would I smile at you?" I really don't like this, it's just an unwelcoming and isolating attitude to take en masse considering we're objectively social creatures.

While in Berlin I was doing some work out of the Google office there, so it wasn't a pure vacation. I was fortunate to get 5 weeks of paid time off each year, but I still worked as a way to justify this 2 and a half week trip and yet take only about 1 week of PTO to stretch it more throughout the year.

One morning I did another free walking tour during before going into the office to see all the big historical sites, which is where many of the next photos came from. We started in Mitte district and then started walking eastward towards Museum Island (seen on the right of next picture).

Although the Berlin Wall went down many years ago, there's now a highlighted brick line tracing the original path of it through the city as well as a few sections still standing. This section is the most intact, and an info center was made here to talk further about it.

Further on the tour, we passed by the main Holocaust memorial in Berlin, a field of concrete slabs at varying heights. The heights of the slabs generally increased towards the center of the area, while the ground simultaneously descended. As you walk downward towards and into the field, the slabs quickly rise above head level and you are surrounded by a sea of these monoliths; the outside sound was heavily stifled by the concrete slabs and it was a somber experience.

And finally the tour ended at the Brandenburg Gate. If you haven't heard of it, its basically a really old monument at the entrance to a large and iconic plaza. It was made in the 1700's and as such has seen essentially all of Germany's modern history despite the shear volume of destruction and restored war-torn surroundings.

The tour was nice and it gave a little taste of a lot, as well as an idea of what I wanted to see in the daytimes the next few days.

While walking around a flee market I saw a hotdog stand with this condiment stand next to it, which had dispensers in the shape of... cow udders? Let's go with that.

On one of the last days in Berlin I decided to go to Potsdam on the recommendation of a coworker. It's a town about an hour to the west by train and is known for it's elaborate gardens and palaces scattered throughout them. I took the smaller light rail train in the morning and got to Potsdam before noon.

As mentioned before, the expansive grounds are covered in palaces, art museums, and various other points of interest. For example, this is a now-defunct bathhouse by the river.

Honestly the architecture really drew me in, I really liked how it was split between 2 different buildings and how those buildings were connected together by a catwalk that spanned above a gardened courtyard area.

This next building is an orangery greenhouse also on the grounds and just generally had a good form to it as well.

After finishing the workweek and seeing Berlin to a small degree, I needed to start taking making my way to Wroclaw Poland the upcoming tattoo appointment. I reserved a seat on a train at noon to Krakow and rode it out through rolling countryside for almost the entire day.

Poland

I had a 15 minute train layover in a town called Poznan, and that was a big mistake. Polish trains are way less timely than German ones are, and 15 minutes wasn't nearly enough time. We pulled into Poznan about 20 minutes late, and after rushing off the platform to look at the schedule board, I realized that the board stopped showing the info I needed because it's now after the scheduled departure time. Even if the train was still in the station I didn't know which of the 16 platform it was on and significantly less people around me spoke English than in Germany. Eventually someone told me to just get back on the original train I was on since it was on its way to Warsaw, and there'd be significantly better connections to Krakow from there than Poznan; only one train a day went from Poznan to Krakow directly.

One of my best friends told me a major highlight of Poland for him was to tour the Wieliczka Salt Mine, just outside of Krakow. It's an underground salt mine that closed a few decades ago but was in operation for nearly 1,000 years! The tour started on the surface by descending down what felt like 50 stories worth of spiral staircases.

Effectively all passageways the tour took were originally carved as part of the mining operation. In many tunnels you could see deep boring holes and tool marks in the walls.

The older passageways had a more 'organic' flow to them and would twist around natural structures more than the modern tunnels.

Further down the maze of stairways there was another cavernous section with steep stairs carved into the salt and rock. The staff had placed more dummies to show what working here would have been like for the workers, having to haul massive blocks of salt manually up the stairs to elevators and lifts.

Towards the end of the tour we entered what was by far the most done-up and elaborate section of all, the church. This large excavated room would historically be the church for working miners. The walls were carved with reliefs depicting various biblical scenes, the floor was titled, and the chandeliers were made of finely ground and polished clear salt crystals.

Later when I got back to the hostel drinking games were starting that led to a bar crawl with about a dozen of us. We went to a karaoke den, then a dance hall, then a second bar/dance hall/club place. I don't have many good pics of this, all are either blurry or have smudges across the lens.

The next day I decided to do walking tours of the city and castle at the top of the hill. I started at the castle and paid for access to about half of the wings.

In the armory there were multiple rooms showing a variety of different type of armor made and used over the centuries. Just across the wing was a large collection of firearms, some as long as I am tall. Here's one of the more ornamental stocks of a long gun with impressive inlays.

Walking back from the castle I saw a horse drawn carriage with what looked like traditional colors and designs inlaid to the bridles and reins.

Later in the day I did one of the 'free' walking tours of Krakow where you pay in the form of a tip at the end.

The group assembled at the meeting point in a food market then we walked towards the south and saw a handful of interesting things, mostly buildings with historical significance to WW2. There were lots of stories regarding the sequestering of jews during WW2 and the brave decisions to do so by the other locals. A few scenes of Schindler's List were filmed in Krakow in the old jewish ghettos, here's one of them from a more famous scene:

I made a friend on the tour and afterwards we walked back to the market we started at for some food

Waking up in the hostel I got a quick breakfast REALLY early morning, then took the 3 hour train from Krakow to Wroclaw. I got to Wroclaw probably around 9am and was thinking about the tattoo the whole morning.

Having never got a tattoo before this was I was pretty nervous; I remember turning onto the final street, getting the first glimpse of the building, and how my heart immediately started racing. I guess it was just the nature of how I was voluntarily going to get this non-essential thing to me which will permanently be a part of my body, forever. I'd gone 29 years of life without a tattoo, and it had a strange feeling of some mark in the time of my life; none of my memories or experiences in life before this had the tattoo, and everything after it going forward will.

It was a 5 story building with a small central courtyard which seemed mostly full of rented small business space. After knocking on the studio door and being let in, I think the artist realized I was a bit nervous because she fairly quickly put on some really nice and calming music while doing final prep for the session. The studio was a 2 room layout, with the first room you enter acting as a waiting room with a couch and coffee table on one half, and an large art station on the other end for digital painting, printing, etc.. I took a seat on the couch in the waiting area until it was time to start.

'Intimacy' isn't the word I'm looking for but maybe 'familiarity' is, to describe what I'm about to talk about in regards to getting a tattoo. One of the most surprising parts of getting tattooed to me was how long you're with the artist and how much more 'familiar' the experience is than other client/commissioner style work.

Levels of Familiarity

1. Impersonal

   Buying something from a convenience store you've never been to is one of the least personal experiences; many times you won't even make eye contact with the clerk as you both are just focused on scanning items and fumbling with your credit card for the 60 seconds of interaction.

2. Moderate

   Getting a haircut; you have more opportunity to chat during a haircut and they're definitely starting to be in your personal space. You have about 30 minutes to a full hour to chat, so probably just superficial conversations like what your weekend plans are. If they're good you probably will go back to the same place, and might start remembering each other after a few times but that takes a while to get going.

3. Highly Personal

   Getting a large tattoo; depending on the size of it, you'll be working with the artist for anywhere from an hour to several days, possibly months in the extreme. In those longer cases you're actively seeking out someone whose art you hold in high regard already, and there's a massive chance that you have at least some other similar interests. You're basically at their mercy while they work on you and are WAAAY more in your personal space than the hairdresser is.

After a while of sharing music I remember we were listening to this polish punk rock song when I looked out the window to the late afternoon sky. Unlike the next photo that I took on the second day, the view during the first session was pretty sunny with only a few clouds. The sun was getting lower and more golden, with a few rays of light being cast from the clouds onto the patinaed copper-clad roof in the distance. There were several birds flying out and I just remember looking out over all the buildings at the beautiful landscape, happy with the choice to be getting the tattoo and listening to great music. A profound feeling washed over me, like everything for a moment was right in the world.

And just like that, about 2 sessions had passed and the tattoo was done. I'm very happy with the outcome!

After the second session was finished there was time in the afternoon to go check out something local. I found there was this massive 360° painting and diorama in town, so I went to check it out.

It depicted the Battle of Raclawice, a major turning point for the Poles in a war against Russia. You walked on a circular platform and looked out at the painting around you. While walking slowly in a circle you listen to a narrator through an earpiece given by staff that describes the scene unfolding in front of you. The bottom of the painting blended in with the life sized diorama so it appeared as if the scene stretched from your feet all the way to a distant countryside.

The next day after the tattoo was done, I bought an early morning bus ticket from Wroclaw to Prague.

Prague

The bus rode through Polish countrysides, then up and over a mountain border, then down into the valleys of Czech Republic to Prague. it took the better part of the day and I got into town in the afternoon. I dropped off my backpack at the hostel I reserved the night before then walked around a bit.

In the crowded Old Town square was a famous astronomical clock over 610 years old. Beyond telling the standard time of day, it also tracked various other things such as a seasonal dial to let the farmers know when to harvest or plant their crops as well as a dial telling Bohemian Time. Bohemian time is an antiquated system where there were still 24 hours in a day, but the time was only tracked when the sun was up; the start of hour one was sunrise, and the end of hour 24 was sunset. This meant that the length of an hour varied seasonally.

The main thing I wanted to do on the last day in Prague was see St. Vitus Cathedral up on the hill above the main river. The shear scale of it was incredible!

The last thing I did before leaving was climb all the stairs of the bell tower to the top and got really good views of the city:

Although most of the main tourist attractions were cool, I didn't particularly like Prague and glad it was a bonus spot for my trip at the end. Some are shocked when I tell them this but all the best stories about it I hear usually come from the early 2000's and before when it was much less of a tourist trap. There's always been tons of tourists but not to the extent I saw. Every single positive story somehow involved mentioning how insanely cheap the beers were, but I didn't see that. The beer I had was cheaper than were I live for sure, but it was still about the cost per pint as buying it from the grocery store back home which really isn't noteworthy cheap.

Overall it was an awesome trip that went really well. 10/10 looking forward to whenever I get back to Europe to see more.