David’s Travel bLog.

St. Petersburg

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:42:07 -0800

Well it has been quite a while since my trip to St. Petersburg and I am just getting around to writing about the trip. Excuses are a dime a dozen, but since returning the the first week of Nov. we have had Thanksgiving, Matthew’s Birthday, Cookies with the Cousins, Christmas Tree cutting, Christmas, and of course NEW YEAR’S, oh and of course WORK! So the Walddon household has been a bit busy.

Helsinki was great. The food was just as good as the first time I was there. The weather was cold and the day was short, but the Innovative Teachers from around the world had a great time and the event was a huge success.

The company in St. Petersburg was great. We had a nice tour group. Only 5 of us plus the driver and the tour guide. It was certainly an experience. I think the stress of the event and being away from home so much didn’t mix well with St. Petersburg or perhaps my expectations of ST. PETERSBURG! were too much and could never be fulfilled? But the bottom line is that I didn’t have a very good time in St. Petersburg. It may have been the cold. Who knows. Looking back on the photos there are some memories that I am glad that I have. The Hermitage was absolutely amazing. The Catherine Palace was very beautiful. The history of the city was interesting. The food not so good.

If you want to see more pictures from my trip click HERE.

David

The Rest of Germany

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:19:24 -0700

German Tapas? Plums wrapped in bacon.

Monday in Berlin was taken up with e-mail catch up along with meetings at the German office, which happens to be attached to the hotel. I had lunch in the hotel cafe. It was a delicious pasta dish (very fresh homemade noodles) in a cream sauce with shrimp and asparagus. Of course I ordered of the “spargle” menu. The evening meal was with the partner organization that localized the curriculum I was in Germany to support. Believe it or not we went to a place that served German Tapas. Before arriving I had my doubts about this culinary and cultural combination, but believe it or not it actually worked. It was an excellent way to taste a whole bunch of German specialties without gorging yourself or spending a month eating. I took a picture of the menu because I had to have evidence.

I think we tried every tapas on the menu. My favorite was the “Liver Cheese”, which has neither liver or cheese in it! I was told it was because it was like liver sausage in look and cheese in texture. Anyone know what this is really all about? And where I can find fried liver cheese in the states?

For a main course I had pork snitzel with real German potato salad. The salad varies by region but if you ask most of the German’s that we were with (except one who will not be named!) they believed that “real German potato salad” (referred to here after as RGPS) consists of warm potatoes, perhaps a bit of mayo, oil and vinegar, bacon and some green onions for color. RGPS is always served warm. This RGPS was excellent. It was not overly dressed and the soft, slightly creamy texture went perfectly with the crisp texture of the snitzel. The presentation was good as well. Nice balance of pork and RGPS. The tomatoe cup for the sauce set the whole thing off.

For dessert I had something called an Emperors Pancake with plums. The pancake is very eggy and cut, or more accurately torn, into small pieces. It is served with stewed plumbs on the side and is dusted with powdered sugar. It was very delicious and the perfect end to a great meal.

Tuesday I was up early and on my way to Zurich for the day! I had several meetings in the Zurich office and would only be staying for less than 8 hours. The flight was short, but the view was AMAZING. At least from the air (because I saw very little in the cab from the airport to the office) Switzerland is very beautiful. The land was a quilt of beautiful green. Each patch seemed to be growing something different because the texture and colors were different. The way they were mowed and clipped was immaculate. Sheep gambled (do they gamble?) through some of them and the alps surged upward in the background. Jagged and black with tips of white still on them. It was like a painting. Perhaps the most beautiful farmland I have ever seen. The day was filled with partnership meetings and internal meetings with lunch at a very nice restaurant. My colleague and I had the same thing roasted lamb loin on mushroom risotto, EXCELLENT! No photos of this lunch. Just the memories of the juicy, perfectly seasoned meat and the image of the lambs in the field!

Early that evening I was back in Berlin and the team was eating at a “Real German” place. It was very beer garden-like and the food was solid and good. I can’t even remember what I ate because I got a terrific cold from all the traveling and my head and brain were all clogged up. All I remember is the HUGE beer and the great company.

Wed. we were off to Frankfurt for training and a tour of the city by our wonderful hosts from the ministry. We ended the evening at a place that had been owned by the same family for five generations. We started with the local specialty which was a slightly sour apple wine that you mix with sparkling water. It is served with this odd cheese that is topped with onions and oil. You dip rye bread in the oil and scoop up some cheese and onions. The apple wine and the cheese go very well together. Most at the table did not like the wine. I thought it was very refreshing and although not at all sweet it reminded me of Canadian cider. My evening meal was asparagus with something? I can’t remember! I think it was probably snitzel. The next day the training went really well and before we left for the train station and Hannover we had dinner at the hotel. I had a delicious risotto with scallops and black truffles.

The train ride to Hannover was uneventful and the next morning I was on a plane to Atlanta for NECC (The National Education and Computing Conference). The flight was very LONG! Hannover to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Chicago, Chicago to Atlanta. I got into the hotel room around midnight. Atlanta went very well from a work perspective and it was nice to see all my friends from SETDA (State Education Technology Directors Association) as well as some from NCCE (Northwest Council for Computer Educators). Other than the Coke Museum (don’t go unless you can get free tickets!) and the CNN gift shop (where Melinda took this snapshot on her phone of me and my new boyfriend) the rest was mostly work and waiting to get back to Seattle and away from the Atlanta HEAT!

If you want to see more pictures from my trip click HERE.

David

Berlin 2

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:22:04 -0700

The Brandenburg Gate

Sunday in Berlin was GLORIOUS. The sun was out and it was hot. My luggage had still not arrived so the shirt from KaDeWe came in handy! One of my German co-workers, Stephanie, was kind enough to give us a tour of the city. She started off with a late breakfast. Always a good idea after a long flight, a long walk and a dinner of pigs knuckle. She picked the perfect spot at a cafe on top of the Reichstag (the German Parliament building). The views of the city were spectacular. Lori had always wanted to go to breakfast at the cafe, but had not gotten around to it. The food was quite nice and the company was excellent. The building is very interesting. It is such an interesting mix of old and new. The photos on the wikipedia page (click the Reichstag link above) really show how it was in ruins after the war. From the top you can see all around Berlin. It really is someplace you must go when you are in Berlin.

After breakfast we headed out into the city. We saw the Brandenburg gate again and walked past the Opera. The wall, although completely removed from where it originally stood, seemed to be there all the time. You could tell where it had separated the two pieces of the city either by the markings in the concrete or by the buildings, which in the east are still much more run down than in the west. The story we heard was that the reconstruction money just ran out and the construction and renovations came to a halt. On our walk through Berlin we saw the site of the new American Embassy. It is going to be a huge new structure right near the Brandenburg Gate. It is going to be beautiful. Apparently the city tried to buy the land back since it is such a great location, but the Americans refused.

After a short walk (especially when compared to the previous night) we arrived at the Holocaust Memorial. This memorial is very strange. You feel something is not quite right. You can always see a way out of the memorial, but the passage way seems small and somehow scary, even in the bright of day. No angle seem to be square. No block is set parallel to another. The shadows and light cut across each other in an un-natural way. It is, to me, the perfect memorial to this unthinkable period of history. It is confusing and disconcerting and stranger than anything you have ever seen. It takes up an entire city block. At one corner are the remains of Hitler’s bunker. It is un-marked at the site, but is indicated on all the maps. Some how this memorial imposing itself, standing granite like, over top of where Hitler killed himself, is appropriate.

More pictures of the memorial and of my trip to Berlin can be found HERE.

We walked a little more in the heat of the day and then stopped for some water and some planning on where we were to head next. Beer! Unfortunately the special kind of beer that Stephanie wanted us to try could not be found anywhere so instead we headed to Check Point Charlie. I know very little about WW II history but I do know that I had to see Check Point Charlie. The border crossing (if you were able to cross) between the US and Russian parts of Berlin. It doesn’t seem very imposing now that the wall is no longer there. Now that the barbed wire is gone. And the guns are no longer trained on the no man’s land between the east and the west. Now it is just a little shack, not even the original little shack but a reproduction. The original being moved to a museum somewhere. Les and I went to the museum housed in a building next to the crossing where people used to watch through small slit like windows waiting for the right signs and clues to help people escape. Lori and Stephanie, being from Berlin, sat and had a coffee. The displays at the museum are fairly old and need to be be refurbished, but they are a tribute to the ingenuity of people that want to escape persecution. Hiding inside surf boards, luggage, secret compartments in cars and many other things. Sewing costumes that looked like soldiers outfits and basically being extremely creative in the ways they tried to leave the GDR. Remember to obey those traffic rules while trying to escape!

After check point Charlie Lori left us. She was feeling a bit over sunned. I don’t blame her since I had a nasty sunburn on my forehead by the end of the day! We wandered through the city a bit more and of course had a beer. It seems like beer is the cola of Germany. No one goes for an iced tea or a refreshing iced latte. BEER is the beverage of choice. After a beer at the top of one of the only high buildings in Berlin (it really is a very flat city) we headed out to a street party. This celebration was in honor of one of Stephanie’s favorite restaurants. They were celebrating their 10th anniversary and were hosting the entire neighborhood with free food, free wine, free grapa (Italian restaurant) and free music. The street was hopping and it was a fabulous time. We met Stephanie’s boyfriend, affectionately dubbed “Bubble Boy” because he was late because he was in the bath tub as well as many of her friends. How nice to go to a foreign city and be hosted in such a wonderful way. Meeting the people and being a part of Stephanie’s life was so wonderful. I truly work with some amazing people. There are some fun photos in my photo album of this event.

Dinner that night was at an Austrian Restaurant. It was very good. I had Roasted Pork with a wonderful sauce and asparagus. Asparagus is EVERYWHERE in Germany right now and there is always a special menu that feature asparagus in EVERY restaurant. I truly mean every restaurant. Now I didn’t check out McDonald’s or KFC but I am positive they would be serving Big Macs with asparagus salad and deep fried asparagus spears. It is everywhere. Oh and by the way when they say asparagus they mean white asparagus. Green asparagus is called out as green asparagus or garden asparagus. It was all delicious and I returned back to the hotel completely satisfied, from good friends and good food. I was blessed on entering my room to find my suitcase! No need to buy more clothes in the morning, just some new black shoes to go with my suit. I forgot to pack black shoes and there is no way I am going to Switzerland with a black suit and brown shoes!

Enjoy some photos by clicking HERE.

Don’t forget to leave me your comments!

David

Berlin

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:39:27 -0700

A remaining piece of the Berlin wall

I arrived in Berlin on Sat. afternoon. My good friend Lori Cook was meeting me for the afternoon and evening, but when I arrived at the hotel no Lori. No message. After setting up my computer there wasn’t even an e-mail. Nothing! I was disappointed, but figured that something must have come up. I sent an e-mail letting her know that I had arrived. I sent one to Jeff as well. Since my luggage was still in Copenhagen and I was slightly (although not too badly) jet lagged I decided I would lounge on the very comfortable bed and watch the ubiquitous English language television station CNN Headline News. I flipped between BBC (which isn’t quite as ubiquitous as CNN but nice to have the choice of TWO English stations) and CNN for about an hour, lounging and napping, napping and lounging listening to the world news and wondering where Lori was and if my luggage would make it before I had to leave for Frankfurt. After lounging for awhile I decided to get back on line and see if either of them had replied to my e-mail. Neither had, boo hoo. Later I realized that neither Lori or Jeff actually check their e-mail on any sort of regular basis. My colleague Kristen was on line and a quick IM to her was in order. She immediately asked where I was. In Berlin of course. She said not to worry, but Jeff just called because Lori couldn’t find me! I immediately got on the phone with Jeff since I didn’t have a phone number for Lori. Luckily while I was on the phone with him she called the house in Bothell! We finally connected and it turned out she was asking for me under my old name! Oh well. We met in the lobby at 7pm and out for some site seeing and dinner.

Berlin is a beautiful city. And Lori loves to walk so we did. First we went and bought me a new shirt in case my luggage didn’t show up. KaDeWe department store is AMAZING! I found something on sale and we took it back to the hotel. Our walk was very long, from the Intercontinental Hotel down by the Ku’Dam all the way to the Brandenburg Gate and beyond into East Berlin and a wonderful dinner. The park space in Berlin is glorious. Clean and green, and apparently very safe. We did not walk into the park, but along side of it. This was unfortunate because a colleague who arrived later was out for a walk in the park and happened on a whole field of male nude sunbathers! DRAT! Next time we take the walk in the park.

We walked and walked and walked and walked.
We passed this statue that apparently was moved by Hitler to the current spot. The view from the other side against the setting sun and the clouds is very beautiful. But this was just one of our stops on a very long evening of walking and site seeing.

From this monument we walked down a very long strasse towards the Brandenburg gate. We passed many other monuments. If I took a picture they can be found in the photo gallery. There is a link at the end of this entry. The smell of the Linden trees was overwhelming. It is a unique smell. Very sweet, almost like honey, with a mixture of rose and orange blossom. I later found a soup that was scented with Linden, not from Germany, but from France! The trees have an interesting shape and odd looking blossoms. Apparently after the bloom time and the wonderful smell they get very sticky and annoying if you park your car under them!

It was a beautiful evening. The thunder storms that had ripped through the area the night before, flooding the streets and causing havoc, had cleared into a hot day and a warm evening. So much for weather reports that predicted weather in the 60’s. My sweater would not be used! I could have had more room in my bag. After about an hour and a half of walking we arrived at the Gate. The two things I told Lori I had to see were the Brandenburg Gate and the spot where the wall was. Little did I know that you could get a two for one. The Gate used to be on the east side of Berlin. Surrounded by a wall of concrete that literally jutted out in to the west like a big bite of an apple. The wall is marked throughout the city in different ways. In some places there is a brass line. Here at the gate there is a line of bricks That in places run right through were the street is now.

The gate is not as big as it seems in pictures. And somehow not as impressive until you think about it being surrounded by a wall. The statue on the top was blown up after the war. It is a reproduction now. There are several photos of it in the photo album.

We walked through the gate and into the eastern part of Berlin. It is very different from the Western part of Berlin. The buildings are older and much more run down than in the western parts. We walked by one of the three Berlin Opera Houses (THREE! Wow!) We then sauntered towards the square that contains the oldest church in Berlin and a statue of George and the Dragon. The pub that we ate at was named after St. George. Lori had a wonderful brat and I had a boiled pig’s knuckle. It was delicious. The meat was tender and slightly salty. The juicy, pink meat fell off the bone easily. I was in pig heaven!

After dinner we got a cab back to the metro for Lori and the hotel for me. It had been a long day and I was very tired.

If you want to check out the photos from this trip click HERE.

David

Helsinki

Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:20:45 -0700

This post on Helsinki is late (I changed the date to reflect the time I was there).
I went to Helsinki to explore the city for the upcoming World Wide Innovative Teachers Conference. This happens in Oct. 2007. It will be a great event.

Helsinki is a beautiful city. It was very cold at the beginning of April and I suspect it will be even colder at the end of Oct. (an very dark!). Helsinki is unique. It seems to be a strange mix of Scandinavia and Baltic. It is very modern in sensibility yet some how old world as well. It also reminded me of the Pacific Northwest.

The most interesting thing that I did while in Helsinki is eat in three different tourist restaurants. I was trying out local places to recommend to the teachers while they are there. I had reindeer each night. Each was very different.

The first night I ate at Savotta. This bills itself as “real” Finnish food. It is sort of a loggers paradise. The rooms are made up of timbers and the table settings are rustic. It is a very nice atmosphere. The staff was great (they are also dressed in back woods sort of outfits). I have to say that for a tourist attraction the food and service was excellent. The below picture is just one that can be found on their website.

For dinner that night I had the set menu for one. It included an appetizer selection of Finnish vendace pastry (more on this another time, lightly salted whitefish, smetana sour cream with vendace roe, chargrilled arctic char, smoked perch, marinated vegetables and wild mushroom salad. Just a small taste of each and it was very good. The smoked and grilled fish were excellent and of course the vendace roe (which I have had before in Sweden and else where) was fabulous. There were some other appetizer plates that sounded excellent (reindeer tongue anyone?) but they were for two or more people. The main course was called a Forest Foreman’s skewer. It consisted of reindeer fillet and elk sausages on a skewer with morel potatoes and a creamy sauce (I think it had mushrooms in it). This was the most tender, most delicious venison I have ever had (sorry Dad!). It melted in your mouth and was cooked to perfection. The elk sausage was pretty good as well. I was sure that I would not find any other reindeer that met the grade after having this dish at Savotta. The dessert served with the dinner was a wild berry frozen parfait and dark chocolate mouse. I also had a vodka or two with dinner (one with a crouton - not toasted - of rye bread in it) and a Finnish dessert wine called marjaviini viherviinimarjasta which is a sweet berry wine made from green currants.

I had a wonderful first meal in Finland and then I went back to my room, had a sauna, and sleep like a baby on a foam mattress that has convinced me this is the best bed in the world!

The second night I ate at Lappi. There are two Lappi restaurants one in downtown Helsinki and one in Lapland. It is consistently rated one of the best restaurants in Helsinki and in all of Finland.

The meal lived up to the reputation and recommendation of both the hotel and the websites. To start I had a really interesting cocktail. It was called Cloudpiroska the description on the menu says “a southerner’s drink in Lappish style. It has cloudberry liqueur in it (WHERE CAN I GET THAT!) with Koskenkorva schnapps and a slice of lime over ice. Delicious! Cold and refreshing. I could make this a common summertime martini (if I could find the liqueur). The appetizer tonight was a roe selection (I think) some whitefish and of course vendace. Then on to the main course reindeer Osso Buco. So it was not really osso buco it was more like Reindeer leg in slices braised in a wonderful sauce that had no similarities to Italian Osso Buco. BUT IT WAS GREAT! Far to much for me to eat so I had to give some to the German teacher who were sitting at the table next to me. They were very nice. They were in Helsinki for a conference and because of the Finnish PISA scores! No dessert tonight. The decor was similar to the first restaurant that I went to as can be seen in the below photo.

The third, and final night in Helsinki I ate at Saslik a Russian restaurant. This is owned by the same people that own Savotta. I am hoping that we can make a deal with the 5 or 6 different places that they own and set up an evening out for the teachers. This will be a wonderful experience. Many of the teachers have never been out of their home regions. And for some this is only the second time they have ever been out of their own country. The first time being when they went to the Regional Innovative Teachers Forum.

Dinner on this night consisted of Blini with three kinds of roe. The blinis were excellent! I would like to do these for new years some time! Then of course reindeer. This time it was done on a griddle “siberian” style with potato cakes and thyme sauce. Very good and quite different from the first two times I had it.

All of these wonderful restaurants are within walking distance of the main part of the city. As my friend Kati says “Helsinki is a pocket city.” It truly is a very walkable city. Much more so than Paris. It is more like Florence in how compact it is. While I was there I also had many meetings about the conference and spent some time looking at the sites that the teachers would explore. I saw the beautiful Russian Cathedral and the Finnish Church. I spent some time at the water front and went out to Suomenlinna, Viapori-Sveaborg. It is a world heritage site and is one of the biggest sea fortresses in the world. It was founded in 1748. There is a ferry from the inner harbor and the trip, especially when the sun was shining, was beautiful. I think we are going to have our Gala dinner there.

Pictures from my trip to Helsinki can be seen HERE.

David