Oh deer!

08112016

Woke up relatively early to pack our bags and Leave the AirBnB, and hop the train for Nara. It was about an hour ride, on a commuter train, very much like the Metra.

Nara is a quaint little town, very much like the Wisconsin Dells, or the cape, or pokonos, or whatever inexpensive vacation spot 1 hr away you have.

But Nara has one significant difference: friendly deer.

As in, you walk to Nara Park, and the temples on the hill, and there are deer every where, these deer, (I don't say this often) were mega chill. You could pet them, take selfies with them, and of course feed them. They sell these deer crackers in the park, that I'm sure some Zaibatsu monopolized, that the deer love.

Also the deer bow. You bow to them, they bow to you, and then you give them a cracker. Pavlovian conditioning at its finest.

Some years ago (like a millennia) the local people began bowing to the deer, believing turn to be messengers from the gods. The deer then realized they get food when they bow, and here we are today.

We wandered around Nara more, finding Naramachihouse quite by accident. This is a house that has been renovated to its original early Edo period state. The houses were very deep, with a small street frontage, because they were taxed based on the linear footage of street they took. These houses were not only where the family lived but also where the Artisan worked producing the stoneware/calligraphy/whatever they earned their living with.

We settled into our Ryokan after meandering around, found a good okonomiyaky place, ate dinner, and headed home for an early night.

I apologize for the degradation in blog posts in the past. Not having s full blown computer and keyboard and travel guide makes it difficult. I will probably go back and update these posts with more pics and links later, so check back in like 6 months.

be aware of your surroundings

19712

another boring entry, morning language class, and then nothing, the tour of the theater was moved so we would "have time to work on our projects." the language classes dont lend themselves to discussion here, so i really have very little to say, we spoke some spanish, watched some of the motorcycle diaries, and thats it. we were cut loose at 1, i scarfed down some choripan, and met with a handful of other kids at a bar (actually yet another Irish Pub) and hung out for a little while. i did not have any beer, as they were too expensive, and not very good. i headed home around 630, the commuter rail was packed, but i managed to find a seat. got home, ate alone, and went to sleep early, building my strength for the weekend/next week, as i plan to have all kinds of fun in El Calafate.

i woke up this morning to facebook posts about two of our number being robbed, in fact, twice. at the bar their backpacks were stolen without their knowledge, probably by the little gypsy children who cased us earlier in the afternoon. and later in the night one of them had their phone out, chillin, in the grass? bad call on his part, and someone yanked it. basically it wasnt violent, or scary, just shitty, they admitted that it was mostly stupidity that led to their misfortune.

so yeah, midweek lame blog posts, deal with it, read my weekend posts, they are better with pictures n stuff.

Hapsburgs in all their glory, also topiary

20512 full day in Vienna (read: half day), they got us all checked out of the hostel, and we were quickly carted over to the museum quarter. this area was part of the Hapsburg's plans to beautify the city for generations. cause you know, when you have a huge empire, your capital better be pretty bad ass to match. anyways there are tons of museusm around there, the group of girls and i, though i dont think that title works anymore, as there are some other dudes in the crew now. so the group (myself included) went to the Hofburg palace, which is a huge complex of, you guessed it, museums.

we wandered through the actual palace bit, which included a wander through the kitchen/tableware/silverware purchased by the Hapsburgs to throw their fancy gatherings, pictured below >5% of the stuff.

after which there was a section about Sisi, the Empress of Austria, married to THE Franz Josef, (whose sarcophagus can be seen in a previous post). she was married to Franz when she was relatively young, though he loved her completely, and based on the audio tour she was never too keen on him, or the whole "being a member of the richest families in history" thing. when her son Rudolf killed himself, she became even more reclusive and depressed and whatnot, ultimately she was killed by an Italian anarchist while she was on vacation (those anarchists really had it in for the Hapsburgs).

Above: a crappy picture of a replica of the kinda jewelry she wasnt happy with wearing. after that section we wandered through the palace proper, it reminded my much of Versailles, or the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, i suppose thats cause they were (as mentioned earlier) constantly in pissing matches, hiring the same architects, and goldsmiths and topiary artists to make them something bigger and better than the last emperor, or king or whoever. this is the austere bed on which Franz Josef slept most nights (cause his wife was depressed and no longer could stand to sleep near him).

after that the girls and everyone wanted to go into the butterfly house. i woulda gone had it been a butterfly house installed by the Hapsburgs, the Austrian government made it, cause you know museums and kids and stuff. so i went to the Ephesus museum. first off, i thought it was awesome, it had old arms and armor and stuff. the tradition of the joust or tournament long outlasted the military relevance of knights, but there was still cool exhibits like this:

that last thing, is a big pillow that would lay across the horse's chest, to protect it, cause jousting horses are expensive, apparently its the only one in existence dating back to the 15th century or some such. there was also a section for old instruments which i zipped through as it didnt really interest me, but the end of the museum had the Ephesus stuff, which is really cool, cause i have been there, like to the real Ephesus in Turkey.

also, the building all this stuff was housed in was big and marble and imposing and cool. after this all of us met up again to wander through the Schönbrunn Palace, it was again, much like the Hofburg palace and all the other ones ive been through so ill spare you the rehash, however it did have a HUGE awesome garden in back. the word garden doesnt do it justice, this was a park, a large park off the back of a palace.

also pictured: some of the girls clearly disobeying the rules. after this we piled in the bus for the hours of ride back to Prague, on the "oldest road in the czech lands".

Saturday 16711

another rather lazy day, went to visit Tito's museum, to use a highschool english teacher term, it was underwhelming. the first portion of the museum was designated to his and his wife's fashion... and then there was his tomb? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Flowers_%28mausoleum%29) it was a big (impressive) slab or marble with his name on it, in a "flower garden" which he had built in the 70s and then demanded he be interred there.

we also tried to see the Tesla museum, but its closed because its a weekend? i guess?

anyways a few of us then wandered around some tourist trap places. more to come, liked Belgrade, but im looking forward to a change of scenery