Friday, September 25, 2009
Brno
Tressa and I made a quick day trip from Vienna up to Brno in the Czech Republic on August 17th to study Dolni Vestonice III and Kulna along with some other fossils and casts. For lunch, our host, Jana Klicova, took us out to a great restaurant located in the celler of a building built in the in middle ages. I knew the Czechs liked their beer, but this place took it to a new level. The tables actually had a tap for each person with a meter that recorded how much each person poured themselves. I had hoped to wander around after I finished work at the Moravske Zemske Museum and find Mendel's pea garden, but unfortunatley as soon as we left the museum a torrential downpour began. We rushed back to the train station to get the equipment out of the rain and decided just to cut our losses and catch an earlier train back to Vienna.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Vienna
Tressa and I arrived in Vienna from Berlin around Midnight on Monday, July 27th. As we prepared to get off the train Tressa thought it would be a good time to document how much junk we had to haul all over Europe for three months. I am much indebted to my wonderful wife for carrying various pieces of equipment across the continent, day after day, with nary a complaint...I don't know how I would have done it without her.
.
.
After spending the night in a hotel by the train station, Tressa helped me carry the equipment to the Natural History Museum. Having spent 5 weeks there in 2005, arriving at the museum felt almost like returning home, some where comfortable with people that you know. Another great benefit of arriving in Vienna was that my parents, my sister Caroline, and my aunt Sandy had arrived from Moscow to spend a week in Vienna. Getting to spend a week in Vienna with family was a lot of fun, and Tressa really appreciated the help hauling all our dirty laundry to the laundromat (by this point we were pretty tired of hand washing everything in hotel sinks). The museum staff had set Tressa and I up in the museum dormitories, which, in addition to being really inexpensive, was conveniently located just across the street from the museum. The dorm was really set up to be shared by two single people, a twin bed on each wall (think college dorms) but after we adjusted the furniture (and bought a fan) we had a pretty comfortable home for three weeks.
Since we were spending so little on housing (10 euros a night), Tressa and I were able to splurge a little on the some of Vienna's wide array of culinary delights. There was the classics, Sacher Torte and Melanges (Austrian version of a cappuccino), Lentils with bacon and bread dumplings, and there was the ethntic food; great Indian food (I can still smell the lamb korma) and then there was the sushi...
On our first Sunday we went to church and met up with Bob and Raija Lojek, who were friends of our Iowa City friends Sara and Jerry Steele when they all lived in the UK. They took us to lunch at a local Turkish restaurant and we began what would become a weekly ritual of spending the entire day together wandering around Vienna stopping here and there for something to drink or eat while enjoying some great conversation on virtually every topic under the sun.
The next Sunday Bob and Raija (who once lived in Japan) took us to a little Sushi restaurant. The sushi was great, but even better, the restaurant had a summer 1/2 off special on mixed sushi sets (10 pieces of nigiri and a maki roll for about $7). Thus, unbelievably, the cheapest food in Vienna was Sushi, and from that day on Tressa and I felt almost obligated to eat there...daily.
There is of course, no shortage of fun things to do in Vienna. In addition to being where I worked, the Natural History Museum in Vienna is one of our favorite museums. Opened in the late 1800's, the museum exhibits a huge collection of virtually everything found in nature.
.
.
We're also big fans of the two Habsburg palaces: Schoenbrunn (summer palace) and the Hofburg (Winter palace). One of my favorite things about the Hofburg is that they've excavated part of one of the nearby squares to show the 5th century roman ruins that most of Vienna is built right on top of.
.
.
After spending the night in a hotel by the train station, Tressa helped me carry the equipment to the Natural History Museum. Having spent 5 weeks there in 2005, arriving at the museum felt almost like returning home, some where comfortable with people that you know. Another great benefit of arriving in Vienna was that my parents, my sister Caroline, and my aunt Sandy had arrived from Moscow to spend a week in Vienna. Getting to spend a week in Vienna with family was a lot of fun, and Tressa really appreciated the help hauling all our dirty laundry to the laundromat (by this point we were pretty tired of hand washing everything in hotel sinks). The museum staff had set Tressa and I up in the museum dormitories, which, in addition to being really inexpensive, was conveniently located just across the street from the museum. The dorm was really set up to be shared by two single people, a twin bed on each wall (think college dorms) but after we adjusted the furniture (and bought a fan) we had a pretty comfortable home for three weeks.
Since we were spending so little on housing (10 euros a night), Tressa and I were able to splurge a little on the some of Vienna's wide array of culinary delights. There was the classics, Sacher Torte and Melanges (Austrian version of a cappuccino), Lentils with bacon and bread dumplings, and there was the ethntic food; great Indian food (I can still smell the lamb korma) and then there was the sushi...
On our first Sunday we went to church and met up with Bob and Raija Lojek, who were friends of our Iowa City friends Sara and Jerry Steele when they all lived in the UK. They took us to lunch at a local Turkish restaurant and we began what would become a weekly ritual of spending the entire day together wandering around Vienna stopping here and there for something to drink or eat while enjoying some great conversation on virtually every topic under the sun.
The next Sunday Bob and Raija (who once lived in Japan) took us to a little Sushi restaurant. The sushi was great, but even better, the restaurant had a summer 1/2 off special on mixed sushi sets (10 pieces of nigiri and a maki roll for about $7). Thus, unbelievably, the cheapest food in Vienna was Sushi, and from that day on Tressa and I felt almost obligated to eat there...daily.
There is of course, no shortage of fun things to do in Vienna. In addition to being where I worked, the Natural History Museum in Vienna is one of our favorite museums. Opened in the late 1800's, the museum exhibits a huge collection of virtually everything found in nature.
.
.
We're also big fans of the two Habsburg palaces: Schoenbrunn (summer palace) and the Hofburg (Winter palace). One of my favorite things about the Hofburg is that they've excavated part of one of the nearby squares to show the 5th century roman ruins that most of Vienna is built right on top of.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Berlin
On the night of Thursday, July 23rd, we took a night train from Florence to Berlin where I was scheduled to study the Combe Capelle specimen on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, in typical Italian style, the train ended up breaking down in the middle of the Austrian Alps for about 3 hours. Consequently, we didn't arrive in Berlin until around 6 pm, so I had to call the Museum and reschedule my visit for Monday morning. This "forced" us to spend the whole weekend in Berlin. We spent Saturday at the Schloss Charlottenburg complex, the huge palace complex that houses the the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Museum for Pre- and Early History) where the Combe Capelle cranium is curated. Most of the palace complex has had to be completely reconstucted after being severely damaged by WWII bombings. Interestingly, they have restored different rooms to reflect different time periods, so some rooms are styled in their original 1600's style, while other rooms are restored to their early 1900's appearance.
On Sunday, we walked around some of Berlin's most famous attractions such as the The Reichstag (German Parliament), the Brandenburger Tor, and Potzdamer Platz (where some of the original Berlin Wall still stands). We also visited the Gemaldegalerie, one of Europe's best Art museums, which houses Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnia, one of Tressa's favorite peices. 
Personally, I prefered the museum's extensive collection of Dutch paintings by artists such as Rembrandt, Steen and Van Dyke.
Finally, on Monday, we went back to Charlottenburg and the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte to study the Combe Capelle cranium. This cranium was lost after WWII and only recently rediscovered, so not a lot of current researchers have had the opportunity to work with the original specimen. Unfortunately, since Tressa and I had to catch a noon train to Vienna, I only got to spend a couple of hours with the specimen before having to leave for the train station.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)