road trip – GO HERE. DO THIS. EAT THAT.

A Journey To The 6th Smallest Country In The World

April 15, 2014April 15, 2014 gisela3 Comments

Today I want to talk about Liechtenstein.

No, not the artist Lichtenstein…er..or Heisenberg (it’s always going to be about Breaking Bad)…

But Liechtenstein, the country.

Liechtenstein is the 6^th smallest country in the world, and yet it is somehow the RICHEST of the German speaking countries. Richer than Switzerland! And a whole heck of a lot richer than you and me.

My road trip buddies and I (see Swiss post for more details) took a little side trip over to Liechtenstein because it was so close, and it seemed all the rage as far as the other tourists were concerned. And by “other tourists” I mean the two people that went there in the summer that one time in order to write an entry for Lonely Planet as opposed to our ill-timed February trip to a place located entirely in the Alps, with scarcely a skier among us.

Well, we went anyway. For the adventure! The intrigue! The bragging rights!

Now, the guidebooks will give you at least twenty two reasons to visit Liechtenstein but here the top three.

1. Go Hiking on the Planet Trail!

“On the Planet Trail the distances in our solar system are mapped on a scale of 1:1 billion, with all of the planets re-created as scale models.”

Uhhh, looks super exciting, but no thanks. It’s February and we’re in the Alps.

2. Check out the Castle!

Except the royal family lives there and you’re not allowed inside. Ever. Because if they let you in, then they’re going to have to let everyone in, and who has time to accommodate 11 people.

3. Head over to the Liechtenstein Center/Tourist Center to get your passport stamped!

Finally, something that sounded fun! So we headed to the ~~local public library~~ tourist center and talked to a very very nice woman who seemed very happy to be talking to the only people she’s seen in days. She was so grateful we dropped by that she only charged us for three stamps and not five. Then again, neither her or her country need our silly America dollars.

After our stamps were stamped we asked her advice on where we could grab a nice dinner as it was headed toward 7pm. She sighed…thought for a moment…and then said, “Zurich.”

The Franc-en-shaft was back in full-effect.

So, unless you’re really into collecting stamps in your passport you can go right ahead and skip this one.

The Time I Had The Best Beef Jerky Of My Life. In Cleveland.

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 giselaLeave a comment

Guys, I know what you’re thinking. Who goes to Cleveland…on purpose?

Well, no one really. Despite their really awesome marketing campaign here:

And here:

So you might have some preconceived notions of what Cleveland is like…I mean, yes, both times I went it was rainy and gloomy and miserable…and cold. Very very cold. BUT! But I believe misery breeds creativity. And cold miserable weather breeds the desire to eat. So creativity + food = some seriously fine food.

And we all know how serious I am about food.

So you can credit Cleveland’s surprisingly thriving food scene to crappy weather, the desire to eat, and of course Iron Chef Michael Symon.

I mean, have you BEEN TO LOLA or LOLITA or THE B SPOT?? I have, I have been to all three and this is what I have to say about that.

Michael Symon revolutionized the food scene in Downtown Cleveland, and now between the hours of 6:00 and 9:30 on any night, you had better have a reservation somewhere or you’re not eating. Because people are serious about their eating there. And they don’t have time for your out-of-town notions of just walking in somewhere and getting seated because, “seriously, this is Cleveland, how busy can it be?” Well, it’s busy. Real busy. So plan ahead or you’ll be driving around really strange places outside that few mile radius that feels charming wondering if you should maybe drive through that red light to avoid, I don’t know, perhaps being car-jacked. (Just kidding, Cleveland! Sort of.)

So now that you have your dinner reservations for every night you’re in town, you probably want to start planning your days. There is a lot to do in Cleveland and you want to be sure to fit it all in.

But you do want to make time to go to The West Side Market. Because it is glorious. And you must go directly to J and J Meats and immediately order the beef jerky. Because its not really beef jerky, it’s more like a juicy steak that you can carry around with you and bite into anytime you feel like it.

Now, if you aren’t going to drop your vacation plans in the Bahamas to fly immediately over to Cleveland, you can actually order this beef jerky ONLINE!!.

I know, I know.

The Time I Became a Graffiti Artist in Berlin

March 11, 2014March 11, 2014 giselaLeave a comment

I’m a big fan of street art, and I always wished I had one single artistic bone in my body, but sadly, this is pretty much the extent of my art skills. Seriously, I like, just drew that. And I was TRYING.

Probably better to leave the whole art thing to the experts, but if those said experts ever want to employ me to help them spread their art, I’m all about it. And this is how I became a graffiti artist for almost two whole minutes.

My friend Alexis Ames is one of those super talented arty people…obviously, I mean look how adorably arty she is!

Before I headed out to Berlin, Lex told me about this really cool place called Kunsthaus Tacheles (Art House Tacheles), originally called: Friedrichsstadtpassagen.

No really: Friedrichsstadtpassagen

It was originally a department store in the Jewish quarter in Berlin, and then sadly it served as a Nazi prison. After World War II it was partially demolished and then after the Berlin Wall came down it was taken over by artists who called it Tacheles, which is Yiddish for “straight talking”. And Germans are nothing, if not straight talkers.

For instance, when we were driving around aimlessly looking for the Berlin Wall, we pulled up to this guy at a stop light and asked for directions to The Wall.

His response: “well, ya, you just have to go straight…back in time about 30 years.”

But I digress. Tacheles was at the top of our list of things to do in Berlin, and Lex gave me a FLYING BUNNY sticker to bring with me and put in as many places as I could. The Flying Bunny is part of Lex’s logo design (see right over there on the right).

The FLYING BUNNY was inspired by her beloved pet, the late Mr. Bun Buns:

So I took The Flying Bunny with me to Tacheles and I totally TAGGED a wall.

All for you Mr. Bun Buns…all for you.

Unfortunately, Tacheles was closed down on September 4, 2012 after fighting the good fight for alternative art for 22 years.

I feel pretty lucky to have seen it before it was gone, and of course I took about a million photos. Here is a little tour through the building…

Me with a gorilla outside in the courtyard:

Enter if you dare:

Jewelry for sale:

This painting both frightens and confuses me:

People posting photos of themselves in support of Tacheles:

My awesome nephew, Greg:

I was a little afraid to touch it.

And of course a super creepy hallway.

So, I would totally say GO HERE, except that there is no longer a HERE to GO…

The Time We Coined The Term “Franc-en-shafted”

March 8, 2014March 8, 2014 giselaLeave a comment

Last month, I decided to go on a European road trip with my brother, two of my nephews and my cousin. We like to think of ourselves as “the dream team”…but probably resemble something more along the lines of this.

We landed in the Milano airport and immediately got busy.

Coffee? Check.

Patron XO Cafe? At 8:30am? After an overnight sleepless flight? Sure why not.

Our very loose plan was to land in Milan, drive up to Zurich, then over to Liechtenstein (more on that in another post), then onto to Venice, Florence, Bologna, Rome and then up to Parma through the Tuscan countryside, ending our trip back in Milan.

IN 5 DAYS.

I do not normally like to travel like this—I prefer a nice leisurely pace with time to really absorb my surroundings (preferably a nice lukewarm Caribbean ocean with a fancy drink in hand). But sometimes you have just have to go for it. You have to be the America cliché because you are, for the most part, American.

So we landed in Milan, had some coffee and were on our way. One small glitch: our GPS was set in Russian.

Russian. An alphabet that is, like, totally impossible to work with when you’re desperately trying to search “how do I change the damn language on the GPS when it’s set to Russian” with my limited data roaming plan. (Verizon, you’re the worse.)

GPS OUT, iPhone IN. Our first mission was to leave Milan and head to Zurich. Something I absolutely DID NOT want to do. Why why why would we leave beautiful, wonderful, WARM Italy for the mountains, and cold, and dark, and dreary? WHY WOULD WE DO THAT? I tried my best to convince the dream team to skip the Alps, but I was outnumbered. So I gave in and focused on the photo ops instead.

At the border of Italy and Switzerland you are charged 35 Euros to enter Switzerland. That’s a red flag if I ever did see one. But we resumed blissfully unaware that the Franc-en-shaft had begun.

Around noonish we arrived in Zurich and started looking for places to eat lunch. I looked up some places on yelp and picked the highest rated/cheapest option. Except in Zurich “cheap” means something completely different than what it means for the rest of the entire world.

We find a pub and it’s tiny and cute and the owner seemed like a pretty authentic, rough around the edges kind of guy. Thankfully, my brother speaks German which earned us just a touch more respect than perhaps other American tourists would have. He plopped down menus in front of us, and gave us all of 3 seconds to look it over and figure it out. All the while standing impatiently over us waiting for our order.

When we told him we weren’t ready he gruffly took our drink order. My order went something like this:

“Can I have a glass of the house red wine?”

“WINE. WHITE. OKAY.”

“Ohhh, no…red. Red wine.”

“OKAY. WHITE.”

My brother, laughing, ordered my red wine in German. The owner was not pleased. Did they have an abundance of white wine that he was trying to get rid of?

He came back two minutes later and pulled the menus out of our hands and waited for our orders. Let me repeat that, HE TOOK MY MENU AWAY BEFORE I COULD POINT TO WHAT I WANTED. Which of course left me to place my order in my ridiculous version of German.

“Geschnetzeltes, please.” Yeah. Exactly.

I ordered what is supposed to be the specialty in Zurich, and it looks like this.

It’s chicken (or pork or veal) smothered in a creamy mushroom sauce with what looks/tastes like a hash-brown on the side. And despite myself, and my growing dislike of this pub owner, it was pretty tasty. One side creamy, one side fried—win-win, right?

Our check came out, and was placed gently on the table. Ha, I’m kidding, gentle is not in the German/Swiss vocabulary.

You may or may not know this, but Switzerland is so rich that it never converted to the Euro. They’re all about the Swiss Franc. And because the country is so small, everyone is obviously a millionaire. Because our bill for the cheapest/highest rated pub in Zurich induced this reaction.

So we paid. Yet, still, we shrugged it off because we were ON VACATION! YEAH!

But then we went to get coffee at the Starbucks (Zurich is basically an outdoor mall full of American chain stores set in picturesque surroundings).

And we paid 8 Francs, or $9.20, for a coffee. This, this was the moment we coined the term: FRANC-EN-SHAFTED.

The entirety of our Swiss adventure felt like one big Franc-en-shaft after another.

Our most expensive, most delicious meal at a very expensive restaurant in Rome cost HALF of what a crappy “cheap” pub with terrible service costs in Zurich.

So do GO to Zurich for the photo ops:

But DO NOT eat/stay/drink there. Just turn yourself around and get yourself to Italy stat.

However, if you do decide that you must see the Swiss Alps, because they really are beautiful, you should perhaps brush up on your German:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_xUIDRxdmc

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